My Daoist Journey: Santa Fe
This is part 7 of a multipart series.
When I moved from Boston to Santa Fe, New Mexico, in 2000, I left a lot of things behind, including Brookline Tai Chi. I wasn’t making any progress on my PhD, and I wasn’t ready to take out another Stafford Loan in order to be able to be a student for one more year. So I needed a job. I was living with my Dad and my Grandma at the time, and I didn’t want to stay there any more. Grandma was getting old, and needed more assistance than Dad and I could provide for her. But Dad didn’t want to put her in a home. I think he understood that it had to happen, yet it felt like my being around was somehow enabling him to put it off.
My main criterion for where to go was low population density. The least densely populated state in the union was (and is) Alaska, but I didn’t think I would handle the cold very well. The second was New Mexico, so I was searching for a job around there. I found one that I liked and I thought it was a good fit, so I reached out to the recruiter who had posted it. Her response was something like, “I’m having trouble understanding your work experience,” and asking me to clarify. This was perfectly understandable, since I had been doing graduate studies in Computer Science at the University for seven years, and everything on my resume was about coursework, teaching assistantships, and research assistantships there. I tried to explain the situation to her, but she never got back to me. So I snooped around, and tracked down the company that was actually hiring. I applied and got the job, easily.
As I was preparing to leave Boston for Santa Fe, Bill Ryan recommended I check out Robert Tangora when I got there. Some time after settling in a bit, I called him up and arranged to come to a taiji class one Saturday morning. He had a beautiful outdoor studio in his backyard, about twenty students, and an assistant teacher. He was teaching Bruce’s Wu Style Short Form, which I knew very well. I enjoyed the class, but unfortunately, I never came back. I was young and arrogant at the time, and I felt like my short form was really good. I viewed his short form very critically, and thought that mine was better than his. This was embarrassingly wrong in so many ways: To think that I could judge his skills based on a one-hour class; To think that I could judge his form based on outward appearances; Most importantly, to think that based on this one criterion, I had nothing to learn, and nothing to gain, from being there. Teachers come in all shapes and sizes, and sometimes in unexpected places. Sometimes they are simply guides, gently nudging you along a path you already know you are supposed to be on. And sometimes, just having a class to come to every week, familiar faces and communal energy, is just what you need. But instead of humbling myself just a little bit, I chose to go without taiji in my life for another couple of years. My loss. Robert was a super nice guy, and I regret throwing out the opportunity to get to know him. Sadly, he passed on in 2019, and I won’t get another chance this lifetime.
Some time later, I decided to look up Brian Lee, another taiji instructor in the area. I called him up and asked about classes. He asked me about my background, and as soon as I mentioned Brookline Tai Chi, he launched in to a long diatribe about Bruce. He had me on the phone for over a half hour talking about it. Apparently the two of them had a falling out at some point, and Brian was still pretty upset about it. I had to work to turn the conversation back to enrolling in class.
Luckily enough for me, he was starting up with a new taiji class in the near future, so I got to join in from the beginning. He is a really amazing teacher. He had a tremendous amount of qi, and was extremely well-grounded. At the time, I thought I had a pretty decent connection to the Earth. Until one class when Brian was coming around, student by student, checking how well-grounded they were. With barely a nudge, he easily lifted me off my feet.
In the six months or so I studied with Brian, I learned so much, and grew so much energetically. It was under his tutelage that I was first able to extend my standing meditation sessions beyond the fifteen or twenty minutes that I was previously capable of.
For a long ways into the course, I was wondering just which style of taiji he was teaching us. Eventually, I figured out he was teaching the Wu style that Bruce brought back to the U.S. If I knew then what I knew now, I probably would have figured that out in the first class, because you can tell most styles of taiji apart from the very first movement. He had had a number of teachers in the martial arts by that time, and I’m sure he knew taiji forms from other styles. I think he taught the Wu style because he found it the most beneficial to teach his students.
During the time I spent with Brian, he talked to me about Bruce a couple more times. Apparently, they had been sparring, and Bruce had stepped on Brian’s foot, giving him a serious injury that wouldn’t go away. Brian told me of his travels around the world looking for a healer. He finally found a shaman in Brazil that was able to help him recover.
Brian mentioned that despite the rift between the two of them, Bruce still included him in the acknowledgements section of his book, Opening the Energy Gates of Your Body. Bruce says: “Special thanks go to … Brian Lee of Santa Fe, without whose sincere interest and prodding this volume would never have been started.” I find this acknowledgement in both the original 1993 edition, and the second edition from 2006. Brian was mistrustful of Bruce acknowledging him in this way. I felt like it was pretty sincere, and perhaps there was even in it a touch of remorse, or a gesture of peace, in his words. Or maybe it was just a regular old acknowledgement. Whatever the case, I could tell Brian was hurt, and I want to honor that.
Even the greatest masters of taiji, qigong, meditation, or any martial art, are still human beings. They have their foibles and faults right alongside their deep esoteric knowledge, their mastery of self, and their inner peace. And sometimes, personalities just clash. I don’t know if Bruce and Brian have ever had a chance to reconnect since I knew Brian in 2003. If not, I wish there was something I could do to get them to talk. But the fact is, I don’t know either of them well enough to do anything about it. Life is short, and it’s always better to make a peace than to leave behind a gap or a grudge.
It was beautiful in Santa Fe, bright and sunny all year round. It’s a special, magical place there. The air is very dry, which irritated my sinuses. But it is truly electric. I remember so vividly one day being out in the desert with my wife on one of our favorite trails. It just started to rain after a dry spell, these big fat drops. And that burning smell of petrichor from the sand and the sage was so strong and pungent.
We headed back to Boston in 2003, that same year that I studied with Brian. I went back to Brookline Tai Chi for a while; just about until the time that Bill left. I went on to study with a few other teachers in Boston who were not Bruce’s students. I want to tell you about that as well, but I better take a break and write about some Daoist books I’ve read first, since you all seem to enjoy those posts a lot more than me talking about my taiji and qigong experiences.
Postscript: I spent a lot of energy worrying over this post because I don’t want to offend anyone or piss anyone off, whether it be the three teachers I mentioned here, or any of their students. If I did, I’m so sorry! I have the deepest respect for Robert, Brian, and Bruce, and I mean no ill will. I considered not telling this story to avoid any bad feelings, but in the end, this is my story as well as theirs, and I feel compelled to tell my story. God knows, too many of us have held ourselves back from speaking our truth.
Many thanks for sharing the journey