Scott M. Rodell has studied martial arts since the age of nine. He has dedicated the last four decades exclusively to study of Yang Family Taijiquan (T’ai Chi Ch’uan) and Chinese swordmanship. Rodell spent many years traveling to find and study with the best teachers in this lineage to fulfill a person goal - renovating Yang Family Taijiquan. He sought out teachers known for certain specialties, pulling together elements of the system that have become separated and fragmented. Rodell has been privileged to receive instruction in Push Hands and Free Fighting from William C. C. Chen, Sword and Push Hands from T.T. Liang and the Yang Family Michuan Taijiquan, form, applications, push hands, fan, sword and spear, from Wang Yen-nien.  Rodell is the Director of the Great River Taoist Center. The Center was founded in 1984 and is headquatered in Washington, DC. Great River has branches and affiliated school across America (US and Canada), Northern and Eastern Europe and Australia. He began teaching internationally in the Russia at the request of the Soviet Wushu Federation in 1991. In 1992, the Moscow branch officially opened as a branch of Great River. Rodell is also the author of numerous books focusing on Chinese historical martial arts including: "Chinese Swordsmanship - the Yang Family Taiji Jian Tradition," "Taiji Notebook for Martial Artists," "A Practical Guide to Test Cutting for Historical Swordsmanship," "Traditional Manchu Archery of the Qing Imperial Guard," the "Shi Jian Pu, Manual of Ten Sword Skills," "Fundamentals of the Wudang Sword Method, Selected Translations with Commentary from a Manual of Chinese Swordsmanship,” "Dandaofa Xuan - Chinese Long Saber Techniques Anthology" and "The Taijiquan Classics: A Martial Artist's Translation." Rodell is best know internationally for his work reviving Chinese Historical Swordsmanship and is widely considered the father of the renaissance of this art. In particular, he brought back the forgotten art of test cutting with Chinese swords. In his capacity as a teacher, Rodell travels frequently to Europe, across the US and to Australia and Canada to lead seminars in this art. Currently, he teaches over 25 seminars a years. Over the years Rodell has taught a wide variety of classes to a diverse audience including Vietnamese refugee children, jail inmates, seniors at the Library of Congress, in addition to his regular weekly classes.