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 Scott M. Rodell executing Snake Creeps Down Scott M. Rodell has studied martial arts since the age of nine. He has dedicated the last three and a half decades exclusively to study of Yang Family Taijiquan (T’ai Chi Ch’uan). Rodell spent many years traveling to find and study with the best teachers in this lineage to fulfill a person goal – renovating Yang Family Taijiquan. He sought out teachers known for certain specialties, pulling together elements of the system that have become separated and fragmented. Rodell has been privileged to receive instruction in Push Hands and Free Fighting from William C. C. Chen, Sword and Push Hands from T.T. Liang and the Yang Family Michuan Taijiquan, form, applications, push hands, fan, sword and spear, from Wang Yen-nien.
Rodell is the Director of the Great River Taoist Center. The Center was founded in 1984 and now is headquatered in Washington, DC and has branch and affiliated school across America, Northern and Eastern Europe and Australia.?He began teaching international in the Russia at the request of the Soviet Wushu Federation in 1991. In 1992, the Moscow branch officially opened as a branch of Great River. For fourteen years, Rodell taught across western Russia before turning over the Russian Branch of GRTC to his disciple student, Albert Efimov. While in Russia, Rodell has made TV programs about Taijiquan for Moscow’s learning channel and Sochi local Television and has been interviewed by various daily newspapers. Rodell is also the author of three books, “Chinese Swordsmanship – the Yang Family Taiji Jian Tradition,” “Taiji Notebook for Martial Artist” and “A Practical Guide to Test Cutting for Historical Swordsmanship.”
Rodell is best know internationally for his work reviving Chinese Historical Swordsmanship. Considered the leading authority on Chinese Swordsmanship, Rodell travels frequently to Europe, across the US and to Australia and Canada to lead seminars in this art. Currently, he teaches over 20 seminars a years. Over the years Rodell has taught a wide variety of classes to a diverse audience including Vietnamese refugee children, jail inmates, seniors at the Library of Congress, in addition to his regular weekly classes.
Rodell was one of the first ten Americans to enter the door of the Jin Shan Pai, a traditional school of Taoist Nei Gong. Rodell, initiated into the Jin Shan Pai by Wang Yen-nien, is a sixth generation teacher in this tradition.
Tournament Record – Partial List:
- USAWKF Northeast Regional Competition, June 24 & 25, 1995, NYC
- Men’s Advanced Light Weight Restricted Step Push Hands Champion
- Men’s Middle Weight Moving Step Push Hands, Third Place
- International Taiji Quan Championship, Republic of China, Second Place, Men’s featherweight Push Hands, 1990
Reprinted from “The Heart of the Mountain”
By Marc Andonian, Ph.D.
As a special birthday present to myself, I decided to enroll in a weekend taijiquan “intensive” led by Scott Rodell of the Great River Taoist Center in Washington D.C. Bede Bidlack, director of the Still Mountain T’ai Chi Center in Ardmore, PA and one of Rodell’s students, arranged the twelve-hour weekend workshop held at the Max Family Training Center in Ardmore, PA on March 1-3.
Continue reading “Learning Taijiquan at an Intensive Workshop: A Student’s Perspective” »
| Personal |
| Birth Date |
December 19, 1914 |
| Birth Place |
Taiyuan City, Shanxi Province, China |
| Styled |
Fushuo, Yungkang |
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| Education / Experience |
| 1932 – 1934 |
Shanxi Province Police Academy, First Graduating Class. |
| 1932 – 1937 |
Taijiquan, studied Yang style in Shanxi Province with Wang Xingwu, student of Yang Banhou. |
| 1938 – 1945 |
Sino-Japanese War, fought under Shanxi Province Warlord General Yen Xisan, rising in rank from Platoon Leader to Company Commander, to Battalion Commander, to Regimental Commander, to Assistant Division Commander. |
| 1945 – 1949 |
Taijiquan, received an apprenticeship with Zhang Qinling to study the Yang Family Hidden Tradition of Taijiquan. Zhang was a student of both Yang Jianho and Yang’s son, Yang Chenfu. |
| 1945 – 1949 |
Civial War between the Nationalist Party and the Communist Party of China, fought under Yen Xisan, and retreated (1949) with the Nationalist government and army to Formosa (now Taiwan, the Republic of China.) |
| 1949 – 1954 |
Ministry of National Defense, with a rank of Colonel, served under Yen Xisan, who was acting president of the ROX from 1949 – 1953; withdrewm from government service in 1954 after Yen Xisan stepped down. |
| 1954 |
Taijiquan, began teaching the Yang Family Hidden Tradition of Taijiquan in a small park, which was later designated a war memorial to a group of Shanxi Province Communist resisters who committed suicide rather than stay under Communist rule. |
| 1956 – 1986 |
Vice-Chairman and Founding Father of the National Tai Chi Chuan Associationg of the ROC. (Original name of the NTCCA is Zhong Mei Wenhua Taijiquan Xueshu Yenjiu Hui.) |
| 1986 1989 |
Charinman, National Tai Chi Chuan Association of the ROC and the International Tai Chi Chuan Federation. |
| 1989 |
Elected Honorary President for Life of the National Tai Chi Chuan Association of the ROC. |
 American Yangjia Michuan Taijiquan Association Vol. 14 # 2 The last three years have seen a tremendous growth in Chinese swordsmanship. In this short time, the art moved literally from the precipice of extinction to having a worldwide following. One spark for this expansion was a pivotal work, Chinese Swordsmanship – the Yang Family Taiji Jian Tradition by Scott M. Rodell. Rodell is a disciple student of Wang Yennien who also studied taiji jian with T.T. Liang (Zheng Manqing’s senior student). The wide popularity of Chinese Swordsmanship naturally led to the author receiving multiple invitations to present seminars at home and abroad. Teaching seminars on three different continents, Teacher Rodell’s efforts helped carry the art of Chinese Swordsmanship from obscurity and near extinction to wide recognition as a powerful and effective sword art. Most recently (July ’06), Rodell began a new phase in his teaching program, instructing children. Along with his 8 1/2 year old son, Feihong, he traveled Down Under to help create a children’s swordsmanship program in Australia.
Continue reading “Youth Chinese Swordsmanship Camp a Very Successful First” »
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