About Us

The core of the Association is the Taijiquan School founded informally by Georgi Denichin in February 1984. Before taking up taijiquan Georgi Denichin has trained competitive judo and Te Kyon (a Korean traditional martial art) since 1964 till 1979.

He has begun his taijiquan training in October 1979. His first taijiquan teacher for a period of about one year was professor Franklyn Kwong (Kwong Yung-cheng), now deceased. Professor Kwong is mentioned in the book "Fundamentals of Tai Chi Ch'uan" by Professor Huang Wen-Shan. The book cites the results of medical tests performed on Professor Kwong when he was 48 years of age. At that age his biological functions corresponded to those of a 20-year old. The test of his lung capacity proved his capability of holding his breath for 5 minutes, which at the time of the test (1964) according to the book exceeded the official world record.

From the autumn of 1980 till December 1983 Georgi Denichin became a student of Grandmaster William Chen (Chen Chi-cheng), considered to be the second ranking disciple (after Huang Shen-shiang of Malaysia) of the late Grandmaster Cheng Man-ching. Mater Chen is mentioned in the book “Chinese Boxing – Masters and Methods” by Robert Smith.

At the end of 1983 Georgi Denichin had to leave New York and his study with Master William Chen could not be continued. However he has kept the memory of his great teacher whose teaching has helped him to continue his personal exploration in the art of taijiquan. For more on Master Chen look at www.williamccchen.com.

From July 1991 till August 1992 Georgi Denichin lived in Beijing, China, where he studied with Master Li Bingci and Grandmaster Shi Ming (deceased in July 2000). Grandmaster Shi Ming is the author (together with his disciple Xiao Wei-jia) of the book “Mind over Matter: Higher Martial Arts”.

In July 1997 Georgi Denichin has met in Hungary Grandmaster Teng Shi-Hai, who gave him the first lessons of Yang Old Style taijiquan, invited him to Taiwan to study taijiquan and appointed Master Herman Yang (Yang Ting-Wei) from Taitung as his personal teacher.

Grandmaster Teng Shi-Hai is the senior disciple of the late Grandmaster Wang Ze He, who passed away on 7 August 2003 at the age of 92. After the demise of Grandmaster Wang Master Teng Shi-Hai became the Grandmaster of the Yang Old Style school. Grandmaster Wang and Grandmaster Teng have been honored with a Government award for their activity for the popularization of taijiquan. Master Herman Yang is one of the foremost disciples of Grandmaster Teng Shi-Hai.

Georgi Denichin is a member of Master Herman Yang’s school in Taitung and has been accepted by the Master as his disciple (“internal student”). Since 1997 he has visited Taiwan twice and has spent altogether 5 months in Taitung, studying taijiquan intensively for 8 – 10 hours a day. During these periods he has learned the bare-hand form of 108 movements, the saber (“Dao”) form and the sword (“Jian”) form, as well as the Old Yang Style pushing hands.

In December 1999 he has taken part in the traditional biannual Yang Old Style competition in Taipei, winning the second place in Dao (Saber) form.

In November 2005 Georgi Denichin led a team of 9 of his students to Taiwan for the sixteenth edition of the traditional biannual Yang Old Style competition, which was held in Taitung, the city, in which he had studied the style. All members of the team passed a degree test, 8 of them receiving the white and Irina Ilieva, who was already a holder of the white degree, successfully passed the test and was awarded with the yellow certificate. Georgi Denichin was awarded with the red master’s degree.

The competition was only for forms. Each team competed in a group according to the degree held by its members. Our team won the third place in its group, the first and the second place being taken by two teams from the school of Master Yang. Since the Bulgarian school considers itself to be a daughter school of Master Yang’s school, this would mean that the top three prizes went to teams of the same school. Seventeen teams were listed and competed in this group. The next competition will be in November 2007 and our school will certainly be there.