Beyond the Ordinary Journey
Shane Kachur
I started my Chinese martial arts journey in 1986 in Winnipeg, Manitoba. From there my martial arts journey has taken me to China, USA and Canada.
In Canada I studied with Masters Fu Shen Long, Tang Yu Lan, Carl Wei, Qu Gong Wei, Paule Bertrand, Andrea Falk, Joseph Chen, Ronnie Yee, David Cliffe and Patrick Kelly, just to name a few. My focus at this time was largely external Chinese Gong-Fu, in particular sport Wushu. In 1995, I won the bronze in Toronto for Nanquan (southern boxing) at the national team trials. The highlight of my time in Canada was competing with the Canadian contingent in 1988--my first wushu tournament. This is where I met my teacher, mentor and I knew that I needed to train more with Master Nick Gracenin.
This led me to the USA to live and work as a physical therapist in Pennsylvania with Master Gracenin. Here my eyes were opened to internal martial arts--Fu Style Wudangquan. I lived there for 5 years, winning numerous medals throughout the USA, but more importantly for me was that I became the 5th formal student of Master Gracenin.
The Journey Continues
On returning home to Canada in 2001, I coached the Manitoba Wushu team and eventually ended up in Regina in 2002 to complete a Masters in Pain Science and later a Master of Business Administration from the University of Liverpool. I opened the Progressive Wushu Centre in Regina, Saskatchewan teaching sport and traditional Chinese martial arts for 10 years. In that time we had numerous seminars with famous teachers, traveled to China and collected many medals in Las Vegas. I was also able to work with the MS and Parkinson's Disease Societies developing balance programs using Taiji. This developed into a course that I used to teach other physiotherapists. Upon completion of my degree it was time to move on. The school still runs as the Regina Tai Chi Centre under one of my students.
I finally arrived in Ontario in 2015 and was only able to teach for about 2 years in Burlington for Master Rick Su before I had to stop for health reasons. Thankfully, I am now able to return to my passion of Taiji.
