Martial Arts and Healing

Our ongoing goal for the students of Zhen Ren Chuan Martial & Healing Arts Center is to help them enhance their well being and life skills by virtue of practicing physical movement.

The real challenge of this blog is to bring awareness of this life altering gift to the public. Practitioners of Martial & Healing Arts find great benefit in strengthening the body-mind connection; the combination of physical movement and mental focus improves mental perception and awareness. This system of physical movement combines proper structural alignment and breathing techniques, allowing natural energy flow to occur within the body. Movement training includes learning how to relax the body while holding position, proper alignment, and intent, while transitioning from one position to the next. Intent is the mental component, and is powerful enough to affect the biology of the practitioner. After a cycle of movement is completed over a number of practice sessions the muscle memory of the body will change. This prepares the body to accept the challenging process of focusing the mind to achieve deeper changes on a biological level, allowing internal healing.

People of any age, including younger practitioners, benefit significantly from martial training. Capacity and aptitude of the student work hand in hand, producing noticeable and quantifiable results. When students enjoy their time in school they are inclined to continue. The responsibility of an instructor is to inspire, challenge, and engage the student, all the while being mindful of the goals of the individual, or, with younger students, of the parent and the child. Instructors must balance ability to manage the moment, as well as maintaining vision to maximize the lives of a large number of people from age 4 to 101. In the months to come this blog will continue to provide information that will introduce the process of determining practical goals for each student, supported by testimonies of life-altering results of practitioners, both written and on video.

On our website, www.zhenrenchuan.com, you can find information about our school, and testimonies of parents about their children and of students who have overcome challenges using this system of physical training. The purpose of this blog is to introduce the processes which create life-altering results, and to explore every possible avenue to show how complete this “Chuan” (physical manifestation) can be.

Welcome to Zhen Ren Chuan

The purpose of this blog is to provide an opportunity for dialogue between myself and the Arlington community about the unique approach to personal training our school provides.

My name is Charles DeVirgilio. In July of 2010, Master Ian Factor and I founded Zhen Ren Chuan Martial & Healing Arts Center, located at 301 Broadway, in Arlington Center. Our desire was to establish a school based on a non-competitive environment, where the intent would be to “win over yourself,” versus “winning over others.”  We have done that; the practice of the movements we teach, coupled with the utilization of correct breathing techniques, have allowed countless number of practitioners to gain, mentally and physically, from their practice.

I have studied this style of martial training for many years, and in 1996, came to the school at this location. Over the next 11 years the school fell into disrepair, and in 2007 I purchased it. We began to revitalize the building inside and out with the help and passion of our students.  In April of 2009 we donated a public garden to the Town of Arlington in front of the school, which the students of the school maintain year round.

Before

  After

We offer classes for all age groups, and have been very successful helping young students learn to focus their energy. There are many testimonials posted on our website, as well as reviews on the internet, which speak to the effectiveness of the training we offer; I myself have repaired spinal cord herniations in my lower back and neck. This was accomplished with the correct sequence of Baguazhang movements and Chi Gong Breathing, techniques from our curriculum. 

Part of proper training is being part of community. Along the way, we initiated a Martial Arts Club at Arlington Catholic which ran for two years, donated classroom time to the young women of Germaine Lawrence Treatment Center, and initiated fund raisers for the Children’s Room of Arlington. We involve our students in a number of food drives and contribute to the Arlington Food Pantry.

Our class schedule, background on myself and Instructor Ian, videos, and our class schedule can be found at http://www.zhenrenchuan.com/ourinstructors.html. In January we are starting a Saturday morning (8:00 AM) Tai Chi/Chi Gong class, for those who would like to experience the unique quality of training at Zhen Ren Chuan on a per-class fee basis.

We welcome questions and comments, and will share more of our unique philosophy about personal training in the weeks to follow.