Paul Ramos is the founder and Chief Instructor of Wu Shen Tao Health & Martial Arts, with over 50 years of experience in martial arts and holistic health. A 19th generation Wudang Dragon Gate Master (disciple and master ), Master Ramos has dedicated his life to integrating traditional internal martial arts—such as Tai Chi, Bagua, and Xing Yi—with healing practices and personal development. Through decades of teaching in Maryland and abroad, he has guided thousands of students (five or six from beginners to national champions) with a focus on cultivating strength, awareness, and inner balance. MysticMag offers an exclusive interview.
Paul, can you explain how Tai Chi and other Chinese internal arts, such as Bagua Zhang and Xing-I Chuan, contribute to holistic health and well-being?
Bagua Zhang, Xing-Yi Chuan, and Tai Chi are traditionally known as the “three sister” internal martial arts. While all martial arts engage the body physically, these internal styles offer something deeper: they integrate movement with intention, breath control, and internal awareness. Each art has its own distinct philosophy, but they share a common goal—bringing the body into balance from the inside out.
In my experience, the movements of Tai Chi, Xing-Yi, and Bagua work by coiling and stretching the body in coordinated patterns while maintaining conscious breath and mental focus. This combination stimulates and massages the internal organs, enhancing circulation and promoting energetic flow throughout the body. As I visualize the martial applications while moving, the internal pressure created by the shifting postures—especially when synchronized with the breath—acts like a full-body tune-up, charging the system with life force or qi.
Tai Chi emphasizes softness on the outside with resilience on the inside, using gentle shifting to open the body gradually. Bagua incorporates continuous spiraling and twisting, creating a different kind of dynamic tension. Xing-Yi, though it appears harder, channels power through compact, explosive movements—like a coiled spring releasing energy. Each system uniquely stresses the body to break up blockages caused by environmental toxins, poor diet, or emotional stagnation. Despite their differences, they all lead to the same place: internal harmony, enhanced vitality, and deepened self-awareness.
What role does QiGong play in your training regimen, and how does it enhance both health and self-defense capabilities?
Qi Gong literally means “energy work” — Qi meaning energy, and Gong meaning effort or cultivation over time, much like the concept behind Kung Fu. At its core, Qi Gong is about correcting the body’s energy systems through visualisation, breath, movement, and stillness. Whether it’s moving meditation, standing meditation, yoga, or Tai Chi, these are all, in essence, forms of Qi Gong when practiced with intention and breath.
Qi Gong primarily engages the meridian system—the energetic pathways of the body—as well as the lymphatic and circulatory systems. In stationary Qi Gong especially, you apply constant internal pressure through sustained postures, and when this is combined with breath control, it energizes and harmonizes the body’s internal systems. Over time, this harmonization supports the balance of internal organs, much like the internal martial arts of Tai Chi, Bagua Zhang, and Xing-Yi Chuan.
Then there’s Nei Gong—which translates to “internal work”—a deeper, more intense practice. While Qi Gong tends to affect the peripheral systems and pathways, Nei Gong focuses directly on the five major internal organs. It often involves holding postures for extended periods—20 minutes, 30 minutes, even an hour—placing sustained pressure on the internal body, which is akin to resistance training for the organs. Just as muscles grow through stress and repair, the organs, when properly challenged through Nei Gong, begin to detoxify, strengthen, and harmonize.
This internal harmonization leads not only to greater physical health and vitality but also to heightened mental clarity and spiritual awareness. Everything is connected—when your organs function in unison, your whole system begins to operate on a higher level.
In your extensive teaching experience, how have you seen the practice of Tai Chi and internal martial arts impact students’ physical and mental health, particularly among diverse groups such as seniors and children?
Over the years, I’ve worked with countless individuals from all walks of life. I’ve had students with diabetes who attend my Tai Chi classes regularly. They check their blood sugar before class, and often discover that after just one hour of gentle Tai Chi, their glucose levels drop by as much as 40 points. That’s a significant shift, considering how minimal the physical effort seems—just slow, mindful movement.
In today’s world, stress is everywhere. These internal arts—Tai Chi, Qigong, Bagua—offer something rare and deeply valuable: they train the mind, body, and energy simultaneously. This combination helps shift one’s attention away from external chaos and toward internal awareness. Most of us spend too much time focused outward. These practices bring the gaze inward. And once that happens, we start noticing subtle cues within ourselves. For instance, someone might suddenly become aware that their heart is beating irregularly. In that moment, they can choose to sit, breathe, meditate—and sometimes, that alone helps regulate the rhythm.
Modern medicine often offers a pill as the first solution, but these traditional methods—these arts—were the primary tools for healing long before pharmaceuticals existed. People relied on herbs, movement, and breath to manage their health. In my experience, I’ve seen people with injuries rehabilitate themselves, diabetics manage their sugar levels, and individuals overwhelmed by stress find a sense of calm.
As we age, the body tends to stiffen. Movement becomes limited, and many are hesitant to try physical activity. When people see Tai Chi, they often think, “Oh, that looks gentle,” and they’re not intimidated. Even though it’s deceptively complex, its gentle appearance makes it inviting—especially for older adults.
The main challenge with older students isn’t their physical capacity, but memory. Long sequences of postures are difficult for many to retain. So I adapt. I simplify the practice into smaller drills—just a few moves at a time. For example, movements like “White Crane Spreads Wings” become manageable and meaningful exercises. The standard Tai Chi long form contains 81-85 postures (depending upon how you count them) and can take an average student a full year to learn, so breaking it down is crucial.
One of the key distinctions between internal martial arts and hard-style martial arts lies in the emphasis on internal organ health and joint care. Hard style martial arts focus on developing physical strength, rapid, coordinated actions building physical power, direct action toward whatever objective they have, and force generation from the arms and legs. Tai Chi gently stretches and massages the tendons and ligaments in opening and closing ways that generate power from inside the body outward.
Hard styles often place stress on the joints, whereas internal styles like Tai Chi gently stretch the joints without jarring the body and create a more coordinated flow of power from the body’s center to its extremities. That’s incredibly important for older adults who may already be dealing with joint issues—knees, ankles, hips. These practices increase circulation in those areas, which in turn promotes healing and regeneration.
I’ve seen people who arrived stiff and contracted gradually straighten up, regain mobility, and even become more cheerful. Movement, breath, and warmth return to their bodies. As circulation improves, they feel warmer, looser, and more youthful.
Tai Chi is often called the “fountain of youth”—and not without reason.
Of course, the practice can be adapted to different personalities and energy levels. Tai Chi is subtle and soft; Xingyi, by contrast, is the most direct and forceful. For people who want to sweat and push themselves, combining breath and energy in more vigorous ways can be extremely effective—just a different path to the same destination.
Younger students often prefer Xingyi or Bagua because they’re more physically expressive. Xingyi in particular appeals to those who enjoy punching and explosive motion. Bagua, on the other hand, has intricate, specialized footwork that draws in dancers and those who love choreography. Children, though, are a mixed bag. Many struggle with the patience required for slow movement. Tai Chi can be too still for them, so Bagua—with its dynamic circling and spinning—serves as a good middle ground between the slow grace of Tai Chi and the vigorous bursts of Xingyi.
When I was younger, I came from a karate background. When I first saw Tai Chi, I thought, “That’s for old people.” It seemed slow and unchallenging. I was fast and fit—why would I want to move like that? But once I began practicing, I quickly realized how difficult it is to move slowly with precision, to coordinate breath, movement, and awareness. I learned about concepts like the “string of nine pearls”—the idea that when you push off with your foot, energy travels upward in sequence: foot, calf, waist, torso, arm, hand, and fingers. That level of coordination is profound.
In some ways, Tai Chi is more demanding than the hard styles—not because it exhausts you physically, but because it develops an extraordinary level of body awareness. In hard styles, you often throw your body into movements, recovering balance at the last second. Internal styles are more about subtle weight shifts, spiraling, and coiling energy. Everything is deliberate.
Ultimately, all these arts serve different people in different ways. The beauty lies in their adaptability—and in the transformation they bring from the inside out.
Can you share some insights or anecdotes about your time training in China and becoming a 19th generation disciple of the Wu Dang Long Men sect? How has this experience shaped your approach to teaching and practicing martial arts?
In 1993, after more than two decades of practicing martial arts, I traveled to Shanghai, China, with one of my senior kung fu training partners. The trip was arranged through trusted contacts in New York’s Chinatown, and our goal was clear: to train with the Taoist Wudang Dragon Gate sect, known for preserving internal martial arts rooted in nature’s rhythms and spiritual cultivation.
Wudang, a sacred mountain range in China, holds a deep legacy of Taoist practice. Taoism, at its core, teaches alignment with the cycles of nature—an approach far removed from modern life’s obsession with man-made schedules. We thought we were well-prepared. I had been a multiple time Tai Chi Push hands National Champion, and a seasoned teacher. But in Wudang, I quickly discovered how much I still had to learn.
From the moment we arrived, we were tested—not in a formal way, but through Taoist wisdom. After being welcomed with a huge banquet, we were asked to show our kung fu immediately afterward, our bellies full and our bodies heavy. The lesson was clear: never overindulge, and always be ready. Life doesn’t warn you before it asks you to show up fully.
Through what could only be described as divine timing or good fortune, we were placed under the direct instruction of the top lineage holders in the Wudang Longmen (Dragon Gate) sect—masters who had no interest in diluting the art. Even though I came with a championship pedigree, they gently revealed how much depth I was missing. “Yes, it’s like that,” they would say, “but it’s more like this.” Layer by layer, they deconstructed and rebuilt our understanding.
In the West, martial arts often get watered down. Some of this is cultural—many Chinese masters historically held back knowledge, particularly from foreigners, for fear it would be misused or misunderstood. In our case, we earned their respect through discipline: up at 5:00 a.m., training from 6:00 to 11:00 a.m., rest, then again from 4:00 to 7:00 p.m., every day. I returned 25 pounds lighter, stronger, and deeply humbled.
What changed most wasn’t my form—it was my mind. I stopped identifying primarily as a teacher and reclaimed the mindset of a student. Teaching can narrow your lens. You’re so busy correcting others that you stop evolving yourself. Returning to the role of learner reminded me that mastery isn’t a destination—it’s a cycle.
Even the language barriers had meaning. Our translators didn’t always understand martial arts jargon, and words like “energy” or “intent” didn’t quite land. We had to feel the transmission, not just understand it mentally. That’s how these traditions were always passed—through oral and energetic transmission, not from a book.
Today, that experience has shaped how I teach. I focus on transitions, not just postures. The space between moves is where energy is generated, carried, and transformed. In true internal styles, each movement feeds the next like a battery recharging itself. It’s not about isolated power bursts, but continuous, flowing intention—mind, breath, and structure working in harmony.
These arts aren’t just about fighting or form. Done correctly, they cleanse your system, strengthen your organs, refine your nervous system, and expand your energetic awareness. You become more perceptive—not just of your own body, but of others. You can enter a room and feel who’s upset, who’s disconnected, who’s holding tension behind a smile.
Ultimately, the deeper you go, the more subtle and powerful the effects. That trip to Wudang didn’t just improve my martial arts—it rewired my understanding of energy, discipline, humility, and what it means to truly live in alignment with something greater than yourself.
If you would like to find out more about Paul Ramos, please visit https://www.dcmdtaichi.com/ or Contact Paul at [email protected]
