About
Monk Yun Rou
Photography: David Fryburg
Photography: David Fryburg
Daoist Monk Yun Rou (his name means Soft Cloud) has been called the new Alan Watts for his Daoist teachings and the Zen Gabriel Garcia-Marquez for his works of magical realism set in China. Born Arthur Rosenfeld in New York City, he received his academic education at Yale, Cornell, and the University of California. By leave of the Chinese government, he was ordained a monk at the Chun Yang (Pure Yang) Daoist Temple in Guangzhou, China. His award-winning books, optioned for film in both Hollywood and Asia, bridge spirituality, philosophy, and history, while his work has appeared in Vogue, Vanity Fair, Parade, Newsweek, The Wall Street Journal, WebMD, Fox Business News, and numerous other websites and newspapers. From 2010 – 2013, he hosted the hit national public television show Longevity Tai Chi with Arthur Rosenfeld. The American Heart Association profiled Yun Rou as an inspirational resource in 2016.
Photography: David Fryburg
Monk Yun Rou began his formal martial arts training in 1980. In 2011 he was named Tai Chi Master of The Year at the World Congress on Qigong and Traditional Chinese Medicine. In July 2014, Yun Rou joined the heads of the five tai chi families on the dais, representing American tai chi, at the International Tai Chi Symposium in Louisville, Kentucky. He has studied Tang Soo Do, Chinese Kenpo (to instructor rank), Shorin Ryu karate, White Crane kung fu, Choy Li Fut kung fu, Wing Chun kung fu (to instructor rank, Moy Yat lineage), Shing-Yi Ch’uan kung fu, Baguazhang kung fu, Yang style tai chi (Dong Family Lineage), Shuai Jow style tai chi, and, exclusively for the last 25 years, Chen Style kung fu. His Chen style tai chi lineage follows Chen Wang Ting (Ming Dynasty General, Founder of the System) » Chen Yan Xi » Chen Fa Ke (died 1957, taught in Beijing) » Chen Shuo Li »Chen Quanzhong » Yan Gao Fei » Monk Yun Rou (with contributions from Dong Hu Ling, Fu Yuan Ni, Chen Zhenglei, Li En Ju, and Zhu Tian Cai). He teaches in Southern Arizona, South Florida, and around the world.