Miss Rose Shao-Chiang Li (1914 – 2001)

She gave instruction in the internal Chinese martial-art system, offering guidance in Tai-chi, Ba-Kua, Hysin-Yi, Calligraphy and Chinese language. She commenced her Nei-Chia Chu’an training in Bejing (Peking) at age eight, when she was taken to her teacher, Teng Yun-feng (1873–1941) by her father, a high-ranking civil servant under the late Qing Empire. Although Teng Yun-feng was Miss Li’s main teacher, her lineage teacher was Liu Feng Shan (1852 –1937), who was also known as Liu Chia-Chen, Dean of the Beijing Athletic Institute.

When I first met her, she had been unimpressed by those who had come to practice with her who had undertaken training in various courses in the Alexander Technique. She indicated that such training had internally weakened them. She did not know for sometime that I was studying the Technique. I said nothing of the subject to her until an appropriate moment presented itself.  When The Alexander Technique As I See It was published, I gave her a copy. Six months passed; then one evening, while gathered with a few of her more senior pupils, she brought out the book and said of it, “This is the work.”

One night sitting in her home, Wu-Ling-Yuan Place, Miss Li said to me, “By the time the pupil is ready, the teacher has gone.”