About Master Yang Yang, PhD
Master Yang Yang, PhD is the founder and CEO of WaQi, a virtual platform delivering evidence-based Tai Chi and Qigong for chronic pain, performance, and resilience — work featured at Harvard Medical School's 2026 conference, The Science of Tai Chi and Qigong as Whole Person Health. WaQi serves individuals, employers, and health systems.
The flagship Saturday Spine Class — a live weekly virtual program for chronic back pain — is rooted in Master Yang's own three-year, non-surgical recovery from severe back pain following a 2014 bicycle accident, and validated by his team's 350-participant randomized controlled trial — for which he served as lead author — published in the North American Spine Society Journal (2024), demonstrating clinically meaningful improvements in pain, function, and quality of life, plus improved sleep, through virtual delivery. The approach is patient-centered and complementary to conventional care: simple, low-dose practice tailored to each person’s physical condition, with sitting and lying-down options that allow participation regardless of mobility or pain level.
A second flagship — Performance & Resilience — serves high-demand professionals, with biweekly live sessions launching through employer partners and an on-demand library covering sleep, stress, balance, immune function, and related wellbeing topics.
Master Yang is also the founder and Scientific Director of the Center for Taiji & Qigong Studies (CTQS), the New York–based 501(c)(3) nonprofit research organization whose randomized controlled trials in sleep, anxiety, balance, immune function, cognition, and general wellbeing — conducted since 1998 — provide WaQi's evidence base. A planned 600-participant trial begins recruitment in October 2026, with intervention launching February 2027.
He earned his PhD in Kinesiology from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. 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 had 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.