I have been doing martial arts for over 20 years. I was inspired at the age of 12, after watching a Bruce Lee movie (I was far too young!) and a friend of mine, Kevin Troth (who I haven't seen for nearly 15 years, so if you are reading this, hell Kevin!), who already did White Crane (I think) Kung Fu. I started to watch all the martial arts movies I could, I was totally mesmerised by the mysticism of the East, the Buddhist iconography, the superhuman powers of the Kung Fu Masters...
I was quite a shy, unsure kid and I became convinced that martial arts would make me cooler and more confident (and therefore more popular, especially with the ladies - hey, I was 12!). It did, eventually, but it took 20 years....
Anyway, back to the story. Eventually I managed to convince my parents to let me take up a martial art and took up Sakaido (a sort of hybrid kickboxing style that seems to have disappeared nowadays). After then I took up kickboxing, training with Howard "the Hawk" Brown and the English Contact Karate Association. I then got all carried away with myself and like a kid a sweet shop I started sampling any martial art in the local area; Judo, Ju Jitsu, Aikido, Jeet Kun Do, and lots of different things. This was when I first came across Tai Chi, I thought it as just old people waving their arms around, but after doing a few seminars with the likes of Dan Doherty and Earl Montague (I must point out I never trained with these guys, just attended some of their seminars) I realised it was a very, very effective martial art!
It, as you can probably imagine, all became far too much for me and I suffered martial art burn out (the promise of more confidence and more popularity had not come true and I became jaded and cynical), so between 19 and 22 and I didn't really do much at all.
Although, in that time I did start to get more heavily involved in Buddhism and Eastern philosophy. But that is probably a subject for a different post!
Then at 22, I found myself horribly unfit (I had been into climbing and white water canoeing and hiking and mountaineering in my late teens, but as all my friends moved away to university I gradually stopped doing anything much) and decided the best way to get fit again was to take up martial arts (I had really started to miss them!). So, having always wanted to give it a go, I took up Thai Boxing (Muay Thai). This was a few years before the massive explosion in the popularity of Muay Thai, caused by Tony Jaa movies and at the time it had a sort of mystical reputation as a very brutal art. I really got into it and within 8 months was a fully qualified instructor and was taking part in professional competitions.
Then I hurt myself. And got ill, very ill. I lost about 2 stone in weight over night.
So after just 2 years of flying high in Thai Boxing I was horribly unfit, thin and didn't know what do with myself (other than sulk!). Around this time though, I came across the Barefoot Doctor. I picked up his book "Barefoot Doctor's Handbook for the Urban Warrior: Spiritual Survival Guide
", I loved what he had to say and how he said. And he kept going on about Tai Chi. That inspired me to take it up properly (as well as thinking that is was a nice gentle way to start doing some exercise again). So I found our local instructor Duncan Howorth and started attending classes. It was a very small, friendly group and I really enjoyed going. After awhile I slowly regained my fitness and took up Thai Boxing again and did both Tai Chi and Thai Boxing. Unfortunately Duncan moved away and the classes folded, luckily I had managed to learn the whole form (the Beijing Style 24 step form) and could practice it by myself.I carried on with the Thai Boxing.
Then. I hurt myself. Again!
So, I decided that Thai boxing was just too much for me now (it had been frustrating never seeming to manage to get back to the heady heights of my early 20's) and quit, and started looking for something else to do, I flirted with Western Boxing and Fencing, but they never really hooked me like Muay Thai had.
Then, utterly by chance, I met Mark Peters of Kai Ming Tai Chi. He taugh the Cheng Man-ch'ing Yang short form (which was the one I actually always wanted to learn). He booked on one of my NLP trainings and we struck a deal where he taught me Tai Chi if I taught him NLP. Excellent deal!
He made me an instructor in 2007 and I have been teaching ever since...
So, why do I Tai Chi? What is it about it that made me choose it over all the other martial arts? Well, that will be the subject of my next post. I think I have written enough already!
Matt
The Tai Chi Guy
www.thetaichiguy.co.uk
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