About

Sifu Andy Masterson:

My name is Andy and I have been fascinated by martial arts for as long as I can remember. Growing up back when there were only six channels on television, no VCRs , no DVD players, and very few people had cable yet, if you were going to see a movie, then your only option was actually going to see a movie. In 1981, one of my brothers took me to a Bruce Lee triple feature and I was hooked. Back then, martial arts schools weren’t nearly as common as they are now and so it simmered inside me until I was driving and could afford to start taking lessons. I had a friend that was training in Tae Kwon Do, another taking lessons at the 4H club and one of my brothers was doing Tang Soo Do, but I saw a Kung Fu school and wanted to see it. In 1985 I started training with Ron Wilson and I was having a great time learning but more importantly, it gave me an escape from some of the things that weren’t going so well in my life.

At first, the idea of slow moving Tai Chi held no appeal for me as I thoroughly enjoyed all the action involved in what seemed to be more combat themed arts, until 1988 when I found myself having a hard time dealing with stress. Both of my parents were being treated for cancer, I was working full time, going to college part time and living with my 83 year old grandmother, I found myself with frequent stomach pain and had a hard time sleeping. Despite having done a Yoga class in college and my psychology professor teaching us meditative techniques I was till having a hard time. So I started Tai Chi, along with my other practice and haven’t had another problem with stress since, even when both of my parents died seven months apart when I was only 23. I don’t know how I would have fared if I didn’t have my martial arts practice through it all.

I started teaching Tai Chi on a small scale at the gym I attended in 2000, and around that time Sifu Wilson decided to go back into Christian Ministry and asked me if I would be interested in taking over for him, so over the next five years, we trained and reviewed with that in mind. This school meant a lot to me, and it gave me an anchor when I needed it as well as a place to train martial arts and I really wanted that to be available for others. In 2005, he left for Arkansas and I started teaching full time. Ron had been studying Wu Ji Jing Gong Tai Chi from Master William Ting, and he urged me to continue training under him, which I have been doing ever since.