Michael Winn has been a key figure and leader in promoting qigong and Taoist meditation in the West since 1980. He was a two-term president of the National Qigong (Chi Kung) Association, USA, the umbrella nonprofit organization serving all qigong teachers, healers, and students. He continues to help organize the Annual NQA Qigong Conference each year, which keeps him in contact with high level national teachers and methods of qigong development in the West.
He was chairman of the Healing Tao Instructor's Association of the Americas for nine years, a network of 200 qigong teachers affiliated with the Healing Tao system founded by Master Mantak Chia (also known as Universal Tao). In 1995, he founded Healing Tao University in the New York Catskills. With 30 retreats, it may be the largest offering of Tao Arts and Sciences in the world.
Michael has taught internationally in Europe, Asia, and South America, as well as at major centers in North America. He has published widely in the Empty Vessel, Qi Journal, and dozens of other publications. Coauthor of the chapter “Qigong Therapy” in the Physicians Guide to Complementary & Alternative Medicine, he has been invited to present papers at numerous international scholarly conferences on Taoism. In addition, he edited or cowrote seven books with Mantak Chia that propelled into public view in the West the formerly esoteric and hidden teachings of Taoist masters.
Michael also has synthesized his studies with dozens of Tao masters and qigong systems into ten Tao home-study audio-video courses that use simple qigong movements to activate spontaneous experience of the energy channels used in inner alchemy meditation.