Once in a lifetime opportunity

My experience at the First International Kung Fu and TaiJi Quan Festival

By Nelly Rovira, Taichitoday

USAWKF National Team Member

I recently enjoyed an outstanding opportunity to receive instruction under the great masters in ancient Chinese martial arts during the First International Kung Fu and TaiJi Quan Festival in Houston Texas in August 2025. It was an unprecedented opportunity to have so many world-renowned teachers together in the same event, imparting detailed instruction and corrections to participants. During those four days, participants signed up for different sessions in which the teachers dissected in detail the principles and foundations of various forms, as well as the martial applications, health benefits and social and mental impact that continuous practice provides to the practitioner.

It was an honor to be able to receive instruction from Master Chen Zhenglei from China World Intangible Heritage and inheritor of Chen Style TaiJi Quan, and from World TaiJi Champions Master Chen Sitan, Master Gao Jiamin and Master Jiawang Gao. I’m truly honored to have shared space and time with each of them. Their vast richness in knowledge and experience meant so much to me; but most of all I appreciated their desire to share this with all of us.

I witnessed the gathering of people of different countries, languages, socio-economic backgrounds, ages and physical abilities. But one thing was certain: all of us had the same common goal, the same common love of Chinese martial arts like Kung Fu and TaiJi Quan.

We gathered each day at 6:30 in the morning to work together as a group. The happiness and joy of seeing new faces and known faces – friends, competitors, volunteers and family members – was wonderful. We were all waiting and anxious to be in the presence of the great masters – the ones we see daily as our goal, our objective, an ideal to achieve. We ran get in the front row, to see with our own eyes, to listen, to meditate on their words, to perceive what can’t be spoken or seen via digital media, to follow and model their movements, to memorize with mind, eyes, body and spirit each word, each correction, each instance, each moment and to capture the essence of the instruction that was being imparted that day. The experience gave us a chance to reflect on their “why,” to acquire the intangible, the subtle, the meaning of it all.

During the instruction time we each became again a student for life, feeling each correction, capturing in our minds how it made us feel, taking to our hearts the jokes, the comments and impressions, even if for a moment we felt we did or didn’t understood it due to language barriers. Joy is universal, smiles are universal, studying is universal, human energy is universal, admiration is universal. We worked with humility, sharing all that we know, leaving competitiveness aside, and embracing collaboration, respect and the great responsibility of representing with honor and fidelity those that have imparted instruction to us previously. We strove to leave a positive memory with every human we came across during those days.

The feeling of renewed energy, the pause of the regular busy mundane days, and the appreciation of what had occurred, are still with me. Our desire to get better, to practice more, to continue with the same joy and love in the arts was fundamental, and the event did accomplish all of those.

With a renewed mind, I came back home after the event, with more clarity, more understanding and more details, to re-discover or discover for the first time things I hadn’t known before about myself, about my practice, about my love of TaiJi. I find myself wanting more, wanting to travel to the home of Chen TaiJiQuan, wanting to become a disciple and to acquire the most possible knowledge, not as a collector, but rather as a servant, a giver, someone who would prefer to give it forward, to help others discover themselves, to help humanity in this way.

I’m thankful to have found masters and teachers who have helped me for the past 40 years, the ones who are still helping me be a better person, like both my TaiJi teachers from Taichitoday Shifu Ming Xie and Shifu Weixue Su, the ones who challenge me to do better, to practice more, to find balance in life.

My gratitude goes out to Anthony Goh, founder and president of the United States of America Wushu-Kungfu Federation (USAWKF), Vice President of the 160 member-nation International Wushu Kungfu Federation (IWUF), and President of the 23 member-nation Pan-American Wushu Federation, for his relentless support and commitment to disseminate all Chinese martial arts to the world, specially here in the United States, and to all volunteers, judges, teachers and participants who made this event an outstanding one for all.

Until the next one… with gratitude and commitment,

Nelly Rovira