About Master Yang Yang, PhD

Master Yang Yang, PhD is the founder and Scientific Director of the Center for Taiji & Qigong Studies (CTQS), a New York–based 501(c)(3) nonprofit research organization conducting randomized controlled trials on Tai Chi and Qigong since 1998. Through CTQS, he and his collaborators have produced clinical trials in sleep, anxiety, balance, immune function, cognition, and general wellbeing.

As lead author on his team's 350-participant randomized controlled trial of virtual Tai Chi and Qigong for chronic low back pain — published in the North American Spine Society Journal (2024) — Master Yang's invited presentation was featured at Harvard Medical School's 2026 conference, The Science of Tai Chi and Qigong as Whole Person Health. The trial demonstrated clinically meaningful improvements in pain, function, and quality of life, plus improved sleep. Master Yang separately founded WaQi to translate research findings into broadly accessible programs. His curriculum is ingredients-based: he has systematized the individual practice components — stillness and movement — that traditional Tai Chi and Qigong transmit inside integrated forms, making each component teachable, adaptable, and deliverable at scale. He has refined this approach since 1982.

His research collaborations include Weill Cornell Medicine, Columbia, Yale, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, and Mayo Clinic. He has also presented his work at the National Institutes of Health. A planned 600-participant trial — recruitment opening October 2026, intervention beginning February 2027, and likely the largest Tai Chi and Qigong randomized trial to date for back pain, and the largest delivered online — will extend the team’s work to evaluate clinical effectiveness, healthcare utilization and cost, and workforce productivity, with funding entirely from private donations to CTQS.

He earned his PhD in Kinesiology from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, focusing on the benefits and mechanisms of Tai Chi and Qigong. A 19th-generation Chen Tai Chi lineage carrier and three-time intercollegiate martial arts champion in Shanghai, Master Yang began Tai Chi at age 12 to address a congenital heart condition, which resolved within four years — an experience that shaped his lifelong inquiry into Tai Chi as a path to health. His foundational training began in his hometown near the Chen Village region, the birthplace of Tai Chi. From 1979 he studied with three legendary 18th-generation Grandmasters — Gu Liuxin in Shanghai, Feng Zhiqiang in Beijing, and Chen Zhaokui during the Grandmaster’s visits to his hometown — relocating cities to follow his teachers, and became a formal disciple of Grandmaster Feng. He emigrated to the United States in 1993 and has taught for 40 years, including more than 25 years of clinical experience in the U.S. He works to distill this ancient art through rigorous science into simple, accessible practice that can serve people regardless of age, location, or physical condition. He is the author of Taijiquan: The Art of Nurturing, The Science of Power.