Lee family

The Lee family of the United States is a historically significant Virginia and Maryland political family, whose many prominent members are known for their accomplishments in politics and the military. Through the past few hundred years it was believed that Colonel Richard Lee of Virginia descended from the Lee family of Coton Hall, Alveley in the county of Shropshire, England. But in 1987 this ancestral line was challenged by a hypothesis that Richard Lee, son of a Worcester clothier, was the Virginian Colonel.

The family became prominent in colonial America when Richard Lee I ("The Immigrant") immigrated to Virginia in 1639 and made his fortune in tobacco.

Members of the family include Thomas Lee (1690–1750), a founder of the Ohio Company and a member of the Virginia House of Burgesses; Francis Lightfoot Lee (1734–1797) and Richard Henry Lee (1732–1794), signers of the United States Declaration of Independence; Thomas Sim Lee (1745–1819), Governor of Maryland and, most famous, General Robert E. Lee (1807–1870) Confederate States of America commander in the American Civil War. President Zachary Taylor and Chief Justice Edward Douglass White were also descendants of Richard Lee I. Confederate President Jefferson Davis married Sarah Knox Taylor, daughter of Zachary Taylor.

Chee Soo

Chee Soo (June 4, 1919 — August 29, 1994) was the author of several best selling books about the philosophy of Taoism and in particular the Taoist Arts of the Lee-style. He was also a teacher of the Taoist Arts including Lee-style t'ai chi ch'uan, Qigong, Traditional Chinese Medicine and Feng Shou 'Hand of the Wind' Kung Fu with more than sixty years experience in Britain and around Europe and the Commonwealth countries.

Biography

Early life

According to his birth certificate, born Clifford Soo on 4 June 1919 in All Souls, Marylebone, London, he was the son of Ah Chee Soo who was a pastry chef at the Westminster restaurant. His father was Chinese and his mother was English named Beatrice Annie Soo. Although he enlisted under the name Clifford Gibbs, his mother's maiden name, in later life he took his father's name and was known as Chee Soo.

His book published by HarperCollins in 1986 called "The Taoist Ways of Healing" (ISBN 085030475X) contains some autobiographical information about his early life:

Bruce Lee

Bruce Lee (Chinese: 李小龍; born Lee Jun-fan, Chinese: 李振藩; November 27, 1940 – July 20, 1973) was a Hong Kong American martial artist, action film actor, martial arts instructor, philosopher, filmmaker, and the founder of Jeet Kune Do. Lee was the son of Cantonese opera star Lee Hoi-Chuen. He is widely considered by commentators, critics, media and other martial artists to be one of the most influential martial artists of all time, and a pop culture icon of the 20th century. He is often credited with helping to change the way Asians were presented in American films.

Lee was born in Chinatown, San Francisco on November 27, 1940 to parents from Hong Kong and was raised in Kowloon with his family until his late teens. He was introduced to the film industry by his father and appeared in several films as a child actor. Lee moved to the United States at the age of 18 to receive his higher education, at the University of Washington, at Seattle and it was during this time that he began teaching martial arts. His Hong Kong and Hollywood-produced films elevated the traditional Hong Kong martial arts film to a new level of popularity and acclaim, sparking a surge of interest in Chinese martial arts in the West in the 1970s. The direction and tone of his films changed and influenced martial arts and martial arts films in the United States, Hong Kong and the rest of the world.

Family

In the context of human society, a family (from Latin: familia) is a group of people affiliated by consanguinity (by recognized birth), affinity (by marriage), or co-residence (as implied by the etymology of the English word "family") and/or shared consumption (see nurture kinship). Members of the immediate family includes spouses, parents, brothers, sisters, sons and/or daughters. Members of the extended family may include grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, nephews, nieces, and/or siblings-in-law.

In most societies, the family is the principal institution for the socialization of children. As the basic unit for raising children, anthropologists generally classify most family organization as matrifocal (a mother and her children); conjugal (a husband, his wife, and children, also called the nuclear family); avuncular (for example, a grandparent, a brother, his sister, and her children); or extended (parents and children co-reside with other members of one parent's family). Sexual relations among the members are regulated by rules concerning incest such as the incest taboo.

Tai chi

Often shortened to t'ai chi, taiji or tai chi in English usage, t'ai chi ch'uan or tàijíquán is an internal Chinese martial art practiced for both its defense training and its health benefits. Though originally conceived as a martial art, it is also typically practiced for a variety of other personal reasons: competitive wrestling in the format of pushing hands (tui shou), demonstration competitions, and achieving greater longevity. As a result, a multitude of training forms exist, both traditional and modern, which correspond to those aims with differing emphasis. Some training forms of t'ai chi ch'uan are especially known for being practiced with relatively slow movements.

Today, t'ai chi ch'uan has spread worldwide. Most modern styles of t'ai chi ch'uan trace their development to at least one of the five traditional schools: Chen, Yang, Wu, Wu (Hao), and Sun. All of the former, in turn, trace their historical origins to Chen Village.

Overview

The term "t'ai chi ch'uan" translates as "supreme ultimate fist", "grand supreme fist", "boundless fist", "supreme ultimate boxing" or "great extremes boxing". The chi in this instance is the Wade–Giles transliteration of the Pinyin jí, and is distinct from qì (ch'i, "life energy"). The concept of the taiji ("supreme ultimate"), in contrast with wuji ("without ultimate"), appears in both Taoist and Confucian Chinese philosophy, where it represents the fusion or mother of yin and yang into a single ultimate, represented by the taijitu symbol . T'ai chi ch'uan theory and practice evolved in agreement with many Chinese philosophical principles, including those of Taoism and Confucianism.