Born and raised in China, Martin Lee came as a teenager to Stockton, California, where he attended the last two years of high school and junior college. He earned a B.S. from the University of California at Berkeley in 1960, his M.S. from New York University in 1962, and his Ph.D. from Stanford University in 1967 -- all in electrical engineering.

Dr. Lee's career has encompassed two years (1960-1962) as a staff member at the Bell Telephone Laboratory, five years (1962-1967) as a microwave engineer at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC), and two years(1967-1969) as an accelerator physicist at the Brookhaven National Laboratory. Since 1969 he has been an engineering physicist at SLAC.

Now an internationally recognized expert in the field of accelerator control systems, Dr. Lee has published more than fifty technical papers and has served as consultant to accelerator centers and laboratories worldwide, as well as to many of the aerospace companies and defense industries in the United States.

Dr. Lee found in Tai Chi the cure for his severe allergies and asthma, and his students led to his prsent status as Tai Chi master. Thanks to his scientific training and interest, Dr. Lee was able to develop a systematic approach to the understanding of Tai Chi and Ch'i Kung. He and Emily have taught thousands of students.

Born in China, Emily Lee moved to Taiwan when she was 10 and then to the United States when she was 17. She and Martin met and married when they were undergraduates at the University of California at Berkeley.

Mrs. Lee began her martial arts training in 1968. Soon after her studies began, she knew she had found the subject she really wanted to master -- the philosophy and practice of Chinese internal martial arts. During her ten years of study with Master Kuo, founder of the Lien-Yin Tai Chi Chuan School in San Franscisco, she mastered both Tai Chi Chuan and Pa Kua Chuan, an internal martial art that requires great physical and mental discipline. Emily Lee was the only woman whom Master Kuo accepted as a student of his most treasured art, Pa Kua Chuan.

After five years of intensive training, with the permission of her teacher, Emily began teaching Tai Chi Chuan with her husband -- a tremendously valuable community contribution they have continued for twenty years. Together they founded the Tai Chi Cultural Center in 1978.

As a result of her understanding of the principles and philosophy behing Hsing Yi and Ch'i Kung -- the result of two years of full-time study with Professor Yu Pen-Shi and his wife, Ou-Yang Min, who were her live-in masters -- Mrs. Lee became on of the most popular and inspirational teachers in the Bay Area. She is one of the few women Tai Chi masters who is expert ni the complete system of the Chinese martial arts.

Master Kuo Lien-Ying was a master of martial arts and Tai Chi teacher to both Martin and Emily Lee. He was in his seventies when Martin and Emily began their studies with him. He was the fourth generation grand master from the Yang family Tai Chi martial arts system descended from Yang's son. He appeared as himself in the Hollywood movie "The Killer Elite" starring James Caan. He was also a congressman from Inner Mongolia.

Professor Yu Pen-Shi, M.D. was a distinguished physician and Hsing Yi and Ch'i Kung master famous in China. Martin and Emily were fortunate enough to become his godchildren and students. Dr. Yu and Master Kuo both learned Hsing Yi from Wang Xiang-Zhai.

As young man Dr. Yu attended a German-Chinese high school in Hankow, Hupeh, China. Later he studied medicine in Shanghai when a ship of the Hamburg-American line came to the medical college hospital looking for a German-speaking doctor to replace the ship's doctor. After he sailed to Germany, the company supported him in Heidelberg, where he earned an M.D. in gynecology and dermatology.

On returning to China from Germany, Dr. Yu began to study Shao-Lin boxing, a tough, aggressive martial art from which karate is derived, and Hsing Yi (hsing=physical form, yi=mental intention). Some historians believe that Hsing Yi can be traced back to the Southern Sung Dynasty (1127-1379).

Returning to Shanghai in 1927, he became a professor concurrently at Tung Teh Medical College and Southeast Medical College. From 1949 until his retirement in 1966, he was chief of the department of dermatology at the Shanghai First People's Hospital and was recognized as one of China's eminent dermatologists. However, during the Cultural Revolution being Western-trained and proficient in the traditional martial arts was a dangerous combination and Dr. Yu spent two years confined to a room.

In 1980, Dr. Yu moved to the United States and was a visiting scholar at Stanford University School of Medicine taking part in studies of ch'i at Stanford and at the University of California at Santa Cruz. While he was a visiting scholar, Dr. Yu lived with Martin and Emily teaching them meditation and martial arts.

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