Patricia Beadles Yu

Tricia Beadles Yu, 79, Renaissance woman, pioneering tai chi Teacher, lover of people and life, died peacefully at home in Madison, Wisconsin, on October 3, 2023, after a long struggle with trigeminal neuralgia. As founder of the Tai Chi Center of Madison and Tai Chi Health, she pioneered the integration of tai chi into Western exercise therapy using her musical compositions, poetry, and guided imagery. During a four-decade collaboration with health professionals, her programs have been published and translated into numerous languages and widely adopted by healthcare systems.  

An accomplished musician, poet, and gardener, Tricia loved bringing people together and hosted many holiday parties, several of which focused on the building of festive gingerbread houses. She will be remembered as a caring and fun-loving wife, mother, friend, and spiritual guide. In her last act, Tricia engaged in a determined and inspiring confrontation with pain and death, passing into the beyond exactly as she lived—with humor, grace, and courage.

Patricia (“Tricia") Beadles was born on September 23, 1944, in Champaign, Illinois, to Robert Oscar Beadles, a physician, and Mildred Flagg Beadles, a homemaker. The family moved to Colorado Springs in 1946 where Dr. Beadles established his medical practice. Tricia’s early years were steeped in adventure, curiosity, kindness and self-discipline—exemplified by themed parties, a full cookie jar, daily piano practice, and a family road trip that traversed the notorious Alaska Highway in 1958.

Tricia earned a B.A. in behavioral psychology at DePauw University in Indiana. At Claremont Graduate University in California, she earned an M.A. in education and met fellow student Bob Yu. The couple married in 1968 and lived in Taiwan from 1969 to 1972. While Bob studied and taught, Tricia immersed herself in the Chinese language, customs, and culture—and took her first steps into what would become a lifelong journey with tai chi. She first discovered tai chi in a public park in Taipei, returning each day to practice quietly in the back row. Eventually, Tricia would be accepted as Master Liu Pei Chung’s first non-Asian student of meditation and tai chi and was certified in the Kunlun Hsien Tsung Hsuen Men Sect of Taoism.  

After their stay in Taiwan, the couple embarked on a yearlong tour of Asia, visiting China, Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, and Japan. It was during these travels that Tricia honed her uncanny gift for picking up local languages. Upon moving to Madison, Wisconsin in 1974, Tricia began teaching tai chi in Madison’s Yahara Place Park. She went on to found the Tai Chi Center of Madison, which continues to thrive as one of the oldest and largest tai chi schools in the U.S. Over the next few years, Tricia became a mother to Kaiming, while continuing to teach tai chi and craft pottery to sell at art fairs. Although their marriage ended, Tricia and Bob maintained a deep and enduring friendship, ensuring that Kaiming and Bob’s later children Clarissa and Dayton Yu had meaningful ties to their extended family and community.

Over the next several decades, Tricia’s tai chi was defined by increasing mastery and innovation.  Daily practice, teaching, and decades of intensive study with masters Pang Jeng (“Ben”) Lo and William C.C. Chen led to her certification in the Yang Style Cheng Man Ch’ing Lineage. Working with physical and occupational therapists and researchers, Tricia integrated the traditional tai chi form with Western exercise therapies in the development of several programs to manage chronic conditions and increase access to tai chi. Each program and corresponding book maintained tai chi’s core principles of presence, centering, breathing, and movement and incorporated Tricia’s music and poetry: the ROM (Range of Motion) Dance relaxation and pain management program in 1981; the Tai Chi Fundamentals Program, simplified for use in healthcare; the Tai Chi Fundamentals Adapted Program with wheelchair and seated versions in 2014. A randomized trial of her Tai Chi Prime class improved participants’ balance, cognitive skills, leg strength, and mobility in just six weeks.

In 1989, Tricia reconnected with her childhood friend Douglas Swayne, a builder of homes in the Southwestern aesthetic and fellow musician of Taos, New Mexico. They married in 1991. While in Madison, they founded the musical group, “Uncharted Country”, composing, performing, and recording their original music. In 2007, after settling near Taos, they developed Tai Chi Health to disseminate materials for Tricia’s multiple tai chi programs. Tricia’s nerve pain worsened inexorably during the Taos years. Yet she remained positive and vibrant, cultivating expertise at growing and selling exquisite organic garlic at the local farmer’s market and gourmet restaurants. Tai Chi Health flourished and was handed off to a fully trained successor. Tricia delighted in singing with and writing lyrics for the Taos Women’s Choir’s “Rain Song.” Most of all, she cherished watching the next generation flourish, playing with her granddaughters, and spending time with those she loved.

In 2022, Tricia and Doug moved back to Madison to be closer to her family and community of lifelong friends. They surrounded her with love in her final year. In life, Tricia provided spiritual inspiration to countless individuals. In dying as she lived—with grace and courage—her chi, or life force energy, shines light into the hearts of the many she touched.

Tricia Yu is survived by her son, Kaiming Yu; daughter-in-law; Katy Yu; granddaughters, Savannah and Nova Yu of Madison, Wisconsin; sister, Barbara Shapiro of Colorado Springs, Colorado; brother, Robert Beadles of Fairbanks, Alaska; Dayton Yu of Madison, Wisconsin; and Clarissa (“Ming”) Yu of Okauchee Lake, Wisconsin. Finally, Tricia is survived by the love of her life, husband, friend and staunch ally, Douglas Swayne, with whom she shared a remarkable and joyous 70 years.

A celebration of life ceremony will be held in the spring of 2024 in Madison, Wisconsin.