Taoist Institute

Few Martial Arts instructors now days have the experience of Dr. Totton. The Taoist Institute is a Gem.

I went here for almost a year, way back in 1989. I had previously taken about 2 years of Aikido training and was getting interested in other arts from magazines mainly (the primitive days of no internet).
I found this studio, with the main instructor Carl Totten, and the assistant, Scott Simpson, be be kind, patient, and filled with knowledge about the martial arts and Kung Fu specifically. The class I took was Southern Shaolin Five Animals, including forms and exercises, with Ed Parker’s Kenpo lessons as paired-​off non-​resistive «self defense» moves with other students. Other classes were also taught at the school, which caused my class to be moved to a time which I could no longer take.
So, I went back to taking some more Aikido, and eventually to some JKD classes for a year then finally Kung Fu San Soo in Reseda, of which I’m a huge fan.
This studio really has a great amount of information, regardless of how fanatical a Kung Fu student might be. Getting belt promotions does not seem to be automatic here either — you are expected to really learn — physicially and mentally. Very structured as I recall — and if you really want to learn the traditional arts, this is one of the meccas in SoCal.

I trained in Tai Chi with Prof. Carl Totten for 2 years at the Taoist Institute. Even though I don’t train there anymore, I continue to practice alot of the Chi Kung methods I learned there, the 24 Yang form and some of the martial applications I learned at the institute.
I eventually left because I found a teacher that taught a different, yet simlar, style of Taiji I was more interested in. If you want to learn authentic Chinese Martial Arts, the Taoist Institute is one of the best places you can go for said training.