Shen Hongxun, who has died aged 72, was a teacher of taijiquan and qigong, meditation and healing, in China, Europe and the US. Having studied western and Chinese medicine, he brought together his medical experience and his mastery of psychophysical arts to develop his own therapeutic system, called Buqi. He was founder of the Buqi Institute in Ghent, Belgium, and of Shen Hongxun College, based in Bristol, which runs courses around the UK.

Born into a prosperous Catholic family in Shanghai, Shen began to study taiji at 11, when advised to take up sport after an illness. He was soon taken as a student by a master in the subject, Yao Huanzi, and later studied a variety of systems under different masters. He also practised Chinese and Tibetan forms of Buddhist meditation, but chose to teach as a layman, without a religious framework.

In the late 1970s, after the Cultural Revolution, there was a flourishing of new versions of traditional self-cultivation systems going under the name of qigong. There followed a proliferation of schools and masters, among whom were charlatans or inadequately trained teachers, and the scandals that resulted eventually brought a government clampdown. Shen was called upon to help people who had suffered mental and physical problems as a result of practising ill-conceived systems.

In 1987 he was invited to supervise PhD students at universities in Belgium and Italy, and decided to stay in the west, along with his daughter, Jin, and his son, Zhengyu, who survive him.

Shen was considered a master of "empty force", able to move people from a distance through the creation of strong vibration, and taught his followers the skills of using such force for healing. He will be remembered by his many students, of whom I was one, for his power, generosity and humour.