This year David Shaver celebrated his 90th birthday. A milestone, for sure. He decided that, for his health’s sake, he would skip this year’s World Taiji Day event and, while he was missed, we can forgive him for not wanting to contend with the weather. He needs to stay healthy, after all, in order to continue teaching his four taijiquan classes a week.
I’ve had the pleasure of meeting David at the 4th World Taiji Day, and teaching classes and workshops at Peaceful Wolf, but never had an opportunity to sit down with him and casually talk about taijiquan. In order to fix that I asked David if he would sit for a video interview, and he kindly agreed. We talked about a broad range of taijiquan topics over two hours and I learned many new details, but after realized, having known David as long as I have, that I could learn everything about his taijiquan practice by simply observing how he conducted himself, how he lived his life. When someone embodies something no words are necessary.
David has students who have studied with him for 15 to 30 years. That, right there, says volumes, and it’s no wonder if you know him. He lives his life according to The Way, and it’s evident. When you’re in his company you can’t help but feel balanced, centered, and joyful. So, if you can’t practice on any given day then just hang out with David. Afterwards you will feel fulfilled as if you did.
As a birthday present our community asked Lorelei Chang to paint some calligraphy for David. Lorelei graciously agreed and chose the idiom Shou Bi Nan Shan -“May you live as long as the southern mountain.” Her work is stunning. This was initially going to be presented to David at World Taiji Day, but since he didn’t make it George and Joe surprised him with it yesterday before taking him out to lunch.
Happy Birthday, David. To many, many more.
(L to R): Joe Pandolfo, George Hoffman, David Shaver