With a growing knowledge of traditional Chinese martial arts, Cheng set out to delve deeper into the theories and history that gave such depth to the arts. For his senior thesis project, he interviewed internal stylist Master Daniel Yu Wang of Beijing on an oral biography of Yang Lu-Chan, the founder of Yang style Tai-Chi. He also helped translate several essays for Master Wang, which have been published in Inside Kung-Fu and another Tai-Chi compilation text. With Master Wang's theories and his own "hard knocks" experimentation, Sifu Cheng would re-interpret the applications of the Yang style Tai-Chi form that Professor Daniel Lee had taught him years earlier, with radically different results. He also translated some notes made by Master Vincent Chao-ling Hwang and spent time at his house discussing certain Tai-Chi theories and playing hands.

The results of those hours of hard practice and investigation became the "Combat Tai- Chi" video series, which Inside Kung-Fu Magazine and CFW Enterprises produced. Cheng had sworn that while his first Yang style teacher (Prof. Daniel K. Lee) lived, he would not do an instructional video series on the Yang style form. Instead, he chose to focus on the real-time combat applications of each move in the form, examining each technique in depth and carefully explaining the logic of full-body combat as contained within the Yang style long form.

Prof. T.J. Desch-Obi, Sifu Mark Cheng, Master Darryl Grauman

This opened up a whole new door for Tai-Chi practitioners, showing them that Tai-Chi fighting was far more than just the "push & shove" techniques that they were used to seeing. In a society that was used to seeing geriatric or New Age Tai-Chi practitioners, Cheng's Combat Tai-Chi series put the teeth back in the tiger and established him as one of the youngest authorities on Tai-Chi in the USA.

In addition to the video series, Sifu Cheng was often asked for articles. He and his writings have appeared in Black Belt Magazine, Inside Kung-Fu, Martial Arts Training, Martial Arts Legends Presents, and Martial Arts & Combat Sports. He also began traveling for seminars, going to South Africa in 1997 at the invitation of Master Darryl Grauman to teach 2 weeks worth of non-stop seminars with close friend, Dr. T.J. Obi-Desch, an African martial arts researcher, championship competitor, and student of legendary Capoeira Angola mestre, João Grande.