Kinthissa

Kinthissa was born in Rangoon in 1952. She studied Far Eastern art and philosophy at Vassar College, New York, and the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. In London she encountered the TaijiQuan she had glimpsed as a child on her way to school. She was apprenticed for 10 years to Gerda Geddes who, inspired in Shanghai in 1949 by the sight of an old man playing TaijiQuan along the Yangtze estuary, later studied with Master Choy HakPang and pioneered the teaching of TaijiQuan in England after her return in 1958.

From 1977 to 1995, Kinthissa taught Yang style 108 Form, mainly in London and Basel. Between 1982 and 1989 she worked with students at the London Contemporary Dance School to find ways for them to regenerate energy and maintain awareness during strenuous training. In China she studied Flying Crane Qigong, Sword Form, and the state-sponsored 48 Form.

In 1995, she met Chen XiaoWang, the leading exponent of Chen Style TaijiQuan. The years of study with him have given her a lifetime's practice to deepen the meaning of TaijiQuan.

Since her move to Tuscany in 1989, intrepid students have come for intensive training to her home in the valleys of Lunigiana. She continues to teach in London and Oxford, Reykjavik, Tarragona and Corfu.