Mission – The North American Tang Shou Tao Association

For over 30 years, the North American Tang Shou Tao Association (NATSTA) has worked tirelessly to keep alive treasures of the past for practitioners of the future.

Our mission is the preservation, research and dissemination of traditional martial and medical arts with a focus on Chinese gongfu and Chinese medicine. We are dedicated to the purity of the methods, intent, expression and spirit inherent to each system and lineage that we represent, and to ensure the cultivation of the truths of these arts through future generations.

NATSTA strives to inspire its members to embody a lifelong practice and love of traditional physical culture.

We offer focused, rigorous, and developmental opportunities for our members to train, research and grow as individuals and as a cultural community through conferences, retreats, seminars and research trips.

We are a cohesive network of instructors, practitioners and students working to develop our skills of bagua zhang, xingyi quan, taiji quan, liuhebafa, kajukenbo, eskrima, qigong, Jin Shou Tuina^TM, acupuncture, herbal medicine, craniosacral therapy and Thai massage.

The North American Tang Shou Tao Association Cooperative, is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization.

Preservation

These arts, both the martial and the medical, are cultural treasures. Working to preserve them is a joy, an honor and a privilege.

Developing Practitioners and Instructors

The preservation of these arts can only be achieved through the medium of people practicing and sharing with each other. Much of the association’s energy is focused on providing the opportunity for members to develop into dedicated and accomplished practitioners and for those that have the skill and desire, to develop into competent instructors.

Research

Our teachers can only hand us the directions and the clues, it is for each generation to spend the time practicing and researching the arts to make them come alive.

Community

Cultural activity can only happen in a group of people. Boxing and medicine are both about relationships. Development and support of our ‘ohana, our family and our community has always been an important part of the association’s activities.

Dissemination

Teaching and introducing people to the treasures hidden in these practices and making them available to a wider community is an important part of our mandate. The essential physical practice of our arts is supported and enriched by written material and the association has a growing publishing department.

The North American Tang Shou Tao Association is a 501c3 organization dedicated to the research and cultivation of internal Chinese martial arts and medicine.