About Us 

The Hunyuan Martial Arts Academy of San Jose was founded and by Michael Dorgan, who began training in Asian martial arts as a teenager. He first studied Okinawan Karate and then Korean Taekwondo before moving on to Chinese styles in the late 1970s. He trained in Northern Shaolin, Xing-I and Yang Style Tai Chi with Master Wong Jack Man in San Francisco from 1978-1984, and studied Liu He Xinyi Quan with Master George Xu from 1984-1990. For nearly six years in the early 1990s, he trained in Hunyuan Tai Chi with Master Zhang Xue Xin, a disciple of Grandmaster Feng.

In 1999, Dorgan moved to China to become the Beijing bureau chief for Knight Ridder Newspapers. Shortly after settling in Beijing, he had the opportunity to begin studying privately with Grandmaster Feng, as well as with his daughter, Feng Xiuqian, and Master Chen Xiang, one of Grandmaster Feng’s most accomplished disciples.

Master Chen is widely recognized in China and beyond as a complete martial artist, one who embodies the power, speed, grace and tranquility that characterize the best of Chinese martial arts. Born in Beijing, he began training as a young boy. He studied several styles before becoming an accomplished master of Bajiquan, sometimes called the “bodyguard style” because the personal security guards of The Last Emperor, Mao Zedong and Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek were all trained in its explosive power and deadly efficiency.

Upon encountering Tai Chi Grandmaster Feng Zhiqiang, Master Chen’s martial arts journey turned inward. He became a formal disciple of Grandmaster Feng and trained intensively in developing the so-called internal power that results from unifying the mind, energy, body and technique.

In 2002, Dorgan became a formal disciple, or “indoor student,” of Grandmaster Feng, the relationship through which the essence of a system is passed from generation to generation. After completing his posting for Knight Ridder in China in 2003, he took a leave of absence and remained in Beijing for a year and a half to train intensively with Grandmaster Feng and Chen Xiang, who taught him the full Bajiquan system.

At the First International Hunyuan Taiji Conference in January, 2007, Dorgan was named an honorary instructor at the Feng Zhiqiang Martial Arts Academy in Beijing. He has visited Beijing often to train since returning to San Jose, where he teaches both Hunyuan Tai Chi and Bajiquan.