Masters Donald and Cheryl Lynne Rubbo
Rubbo Art of Energy is the creative process of cultivating, controlling and expressing energy for the attainment of the profound. Within that, all of the arts can find true expression. Donald and Cheryl Lynne are authentic, optimistic and involved. YinYang manifest: two halves of one whole. Twin souls, connected in consciousness, assisting others to move to higher vibrational levels.
Masters
- Authors
- Artists
- Spiritual Teachers
- Martial Artists
- Bio-Energy Healers
Donald and Cheryl Lynne Rubbo are leading experts in mind-body medicine.
They have written two books, Extraordinary Breath, Making the Power of Deep Breathing Work for You (Xlibris, 2008), and the best-selling Primordial Qigong, a digital eBook, and were featured in The Empty Vessel, A Journal of Contemporary Taoism.
The Rubbos teach worldwide, and have presented transformative workshops and seminars, in the Bay Area at the Commonwealth Club, Marin General Hospital and San Francisco Veteran’s Administration Hospital, and internationally, at Centro d’Ompio in Italy, in Basel and St. Gallen, Switzerland and in Bucharest, Romania.
Their work focuses on transformational learning, by getting beyond gaining factual knowledge alone to instead become changed by what one learns in some meaningful way - questioning assumptions, beliefs and values, and considering multiple points of view.
Through their health-education nonprofit, the Paul D. Pickens II Research Foundation, the Rubbos taught free wellness and meditation classes, and sponsored community health events.
For his work in uplifting humanity, Donald Rubbo has received a letter of recognition from President George W. Bush and a Volvo-for-Life Award. In 2005, the Rubbos were featured on New Morning TV, a Hallmark Channel Faith & Values series about ordinary men and women who are doing extraordinary things.
Donald Rubbo has a thriving private practice in San Rafael, California, offering appointments for Bio-Energy Healing, Consultations, Instruction, Instructor/Healing Training, Distant Healing, Telephone Consultation. Click here for more information on private appointments with Donald.
Visionary
entreprenuers, the Rubbos have dedicated their lives to healing the world, one
person at a time.
Stillness. Awareness. Sensitivity. Wisdom.
Donald Rubbo
Donald grew up in New York City, New York, the son of Don Rubbo, Sr, a mentor and guide of such renowned creative talents as Peter Max and an affiliate of Andy Warhol in the mid 1960's. Don’s philosophy of ‘life is art, art is life,’ inspired and influenced many of his students, especially his son. Donald works in such media as serigraphy, watercolor with gold leaf, stained glass and artglass.
Donald grew up in one of the first artist lofts in New York City’s Greenwich Village, on 365 Canal Street (the former Canal Street Lumber), and, with his father, planted one of the first community gardens in Manhattan’s Lower West Side, in the weed-filled sidewalk plot next to the former Mead Paper site at Canal and Varrick Streets.
In 1969, at the age of 12, Donald started studying karate, and then switched to the Chinese form, learning Shao Lin Chuan from "Nelson" at Five Tigers Martial Arts on Chambers Street.
At 16, Donald became legal guardian for his younger brothers and at 18 he moved with them to San Francisco. Donald started attending Grandmaster Kuo Lien Ying's martial arts studio across from Portsmouth Square Park in Chinatown, continuing with Shao Lin Chuan training. See below for more information on Donald.
Cheryl Lynne Pickens Rubbo
Cheryl Lynne grew up in Marin County and San Francisco, the daughter of J.P. Pickens, a leading force in the early North Beach, San Francisco, music scene, circa 1963, along with David Meltzer and James Gurley, defining and inspiring the psychedelic rock genre. J.P.’s second album, The Serpent Power, was named number 28 of ‘40 Essential Albums of 1967.’
Cheryl Lynne grew up in the various houses of the commune of the Diggers/Free Family, which was highlighted in the popular book “Sleeping Where I Fall,” written by Peter Coyote, published by Counterpoint in 1998.
In 1973, she followed her younger brother Paul to Grandmaster Kuo's studio and began studying Shao Lin Chuan. She quickly developed a reputation for grace, precision, flexibility and speed.
Serious Students
As serious, dedicated Kuo students, Donald and Cheryl Lynne practiced outdoors in the park in front of the studio, arriving every morning at 5:00 am, rain or shine. Grandmaster Kuo demanded that his students practice every day, and would not allow them to learn another movement if they were late or missed too many days.
Both Donald and Cheryl Lynne, who met at Grandmaster Kuo's studio in 1975, excelled at the demanding art of Shao Lin and they went on to master Tai Chi Chuan and several other internal arts forms from China. The discipline they developed from daily practice at Kuo's has shaped and defined them, and provided a strong foundation for them to teach the martial and healing arts.
Their teachers include Kuo Lien Ying, Bing Gong, Angela (Shen) Wu, George Kuo Ming Xu, Bruce Kumar Frantzis, Dr. Xie Pei Qi, Master Yang Yuan Jing and Master Zhu Hui. Click here to see Our Teachers.
As leading authorities and popular educators, drawing from their more than 35 years of excellence in the healing arts and martial arts, the Rubbos have brought to the community:
- Five Tigers Martial Arts Summer Day Camp, for children ages 6 to 12 (1995 to 2000)
- First Qigong program in a California Hospital: "Qigong for Health and Wellness" Marin General Hospital, 1995.
- Free Weekly Wellness Class (now in its 12th year!)
- Visiting Masters Series, featuring internationally acclaimed masters in healing, movement, art and music
- Qigong for the Dean Ornish Prostate Cancer Lifestyle Trial
- A Rigorous Three Year Teacher Training Program
- Free Tai Chi and Qigong for Seniors Class (now in its 3rd year, sponsored by Bank of Marin)
- Free Health and Wellness for Hispanic Women (sponsored by Wells Fargo Bank)
- Free Meditation Class for Cancer Patients
- Established ongoing Health, Healing, Movement and Martial Arts programs in Switzerland, Italy and Israel
- 27 years of martial arts classes, workshops and retreats, in Tai Chi Chuan, Qigong, Shao Lin Kung Fu and other internal systems
Donald Rubbo's Art Bio:
Donald's father, the artist Don Rubbo, Sr., was Donald's earliest influence. Don Rubbo, Sr., was a mentor to and business partner with Peter Max, a contemporary of Andy Warhol, and a mentor to many young New York artists in the 1960’s and 1970’s.
At a very young age, Donald picked up a camera and taught himself photography. (This photo of Don Rubbo was taken by Donald) He soon realized that it was not just a hobby, it was an urgent expression of his soul, and he shot a minimum of one roll of film a day, with a Nikon FTN. His father encouraged this obsession and helped him build a darkroom in their family home, which was one of the first artist’s lofts in SoHo, in a converted lumber store on 365 Canal Street, New York City.
Romare Bearden lived in next door to the Rubbo family, on Canal Street, 
and befriended the young artist. To show his appreciation for Donald’s talent and dedication to art, he gifted him with a silkscreen from his “Mother and Child” series.
Other artists whose work had a profound influence on Donald were Ansel Adams, Diane Arbus, Gordon Parks, Alfred Stieglitz and Eadward Muybridge. Inspired by Impressionism painters (Monet, Manet, Van Gogh, Degas, Sargent), the stunning art glass of Louis Comfort Tiffany and the refined aesthetics of the Arts and Crafts Movement, Donald saw beautiful art in the most ordinary of subjects.
When Donald was twelve George Goodstat, a NASA scientist and art aficionado who was a friend of Don Rubbo, gave Donald a job at Bank Street Atelier, a fine art stone lithography printer, where he became one of the youngest apprentices in the industry. He started as a floor sweeper, moved up to print puller, then to printer and finally to curator. Bank Street Atelier printed works by James Rosenquist, Jim Dean, Audrey Fleck, John Lennon and many more.
At the same time, he also started on his profound martial and internal arts path, a life-long passion that instilled discipline, precision and virtuous conduct, and helped to transform him from a rebellious New York City street kid into the Spiritual Warrior that he is today. He met his wife future wife and soul mate Cheryl Lynne Pickens, at Kuo Lien Ying’s martial arts studio in San Francisco’s Chinatown in 1976. He founded Rubbo Art of Energy in 1980.
After Bank Street Atelier, Donald worked for Felice Inc., curating serigraphs and lithographs by Salvador Dali, LeRoy Neiman, Don Kingman, Gloria Vanderbilt, and others.
While still in his teens, Donald taught himself stained glass, and ran a busy stained glass restoration company in Fayetteville, New York.
At 24, Donald spent a summer studying at Dale Chihuly’s Pilchuck Glass School in Seattle, Washington.
In 1983 Donald was hired by Narcissus Quagliata to help build and install a 12’x54’ stained glass mural commissioned for the Webster Building, at 2101 Webster Street, Oakland, California.
During the 1980’s Donald explored mixed media, combining watercolor and gold leaf to create stunning paintings with nature and cosmic themes.
Donald and Cheryl Lynne Rubbo, as spiritual beings, honor all spiritual traditions, and have been immersed for over almost four decades in Taoist and Buddhist mysticism, and for two decades in Tibetan tantric mysticism and Tibetan tantric Buddhism.
In the early 1990’s, to deepen his spiritual understanding, Donald taught himself to paint Tibetan thankga-style watercolors.
Donald continues to express the artist within himself through Rubbo Expressions of Chi.
"If one life has breathed easier because you have lived, your life has been a success." Ralph Waldo Emerson