Martial Tai Chi™

Shooting From The Hip

Everywoman

NOTE: Since first writing this article, I've returned to it a couple of times to openly express myself some more, so it has got a bit repetitive in places. Please excuse this - I just want to get my thoughts out in the most open and honest way possible. I'm sure I could polish it up - make it a lot tidier, but I'd rather just leave it as it is so nothing gets missed out. It's quite a rant, and I know there will be people who will think I shouldn't write such pieces - that to do so reveals that I'm being affected by my critics and that I'm giving them too much power by bothering to respond. But then again, I think sometimes things need saying and if anyone else can identify with its sentiments and feel glad that someone else is speaking out, then it will have been worthwhile. There have been times when my day has been uplifted by the right rant in the right place, so here goes...

I teach the way I do - absolutely openly, as well as happily rationalising and reshaping the material - because I have always been essentially an everywoman. I've always been on the students' rather than the teachers' side. I have never remotely approved of the cliquishness and elitism of martial traditions that try to hold on to secret teachings. I have an active distaste for mysteriousness, subterfuge and special codes. I have always been more interested in the needs of the many than the desires of the few and the needs of the underdog over the privileged.

Occasionally over-zealous students of more mainstream teachers shriek and jeer at me, naively claiming that I'm teaching something wrong or suggesting that I don't understand the depths or true meaning of it all. Needless to say I would not be where I am today and would have not the recognition I enjoy if they were right. Cards on the table now - experienced teachers know - they understand the value of what I do. Anyone who wishes to can enter my name into a search engine and see what comes up. Despite the efforts of the people who dislike me personally, and / or the ethical / moral / religious stances I take, reviews of the teaching and material I produce speak for themselves. My authorising teachers told me to openly teach everything I know and to change anything I like because I know what I'm doing, and I've taken them at their word - albeit rather hesitantly at first. I'm not entirely happy with the DVD material I have produced to date and intend to revise and remake certain volumes over time, because my skills and teaching have improved as I have gained in confidence, changed more and rationalised more freely. That said, I was actively encouraged to produce the DVDs I produced when I started out and I think this was in recognition of the fact that there was little material available teaching martially useful material. I wanted to share what I knew because of the frustration I had felt at times as a student. But a good 5 more years of practicing and teaching this stuff without holding back at all on the martial content has revealed new and deeper insights about what really works best and what is most powerful - what you need and what you don't. I've gone on improving as have my students and I've learned on the job, as most people do. I make no apology for the material I've already released, but better stuff is still to come.

My detractors are often perturbed by the fact that what I do seems a little unfamiliar. I would put its unfamiliarity down to the fact that it is eclectic: it is not of a single lineage or even single style, though it has been likened, and I think quite accurately, to some of the smaller frame Yang style Tai Chi. But if it doesn't look exactly like any one style it is because it tries to get down to the universal principles contained within all accurate optimal martial movement. Please note that I have used a completely authentic Tai Chi rationale to arrive at it and personally consider it to be the epitome of Tai Chi rather than an offshoot from it. I know that others would argue this point vociferously, so it is not an issue I care to push - it would only lapse into semantics. Definitions of terms in common usage are arrived at by consensus rather than rigid adherence to accuracy, so if people want to call what they do Tai Chi and what I do something else, they are quite welcome to do so - I'm really past caring and don't care especially about the term. I love the art itself, not the concept of it.

Those detractors have very little idea how varied the material used to convey truth can be. They certainly have no idea how much top teachers create new material all the time in order to try to best convey information, usually because so many teachers pretend that their exercises have ancient origins. Deception is never good, but sadly it is shockingly prevalent. Ultimately the detractor has no grasp of how much one can make martial knowledge ones' own and do with it what one likes. As I've said, I was specifically authorised by my teachers to do just that: this isn't actually so unusual. The critics have no idea how much trickery and deception is employed by even the most respected lineages to purposely throw students and observers off the scent of understanding, so you really can't judge a book by its cover. People get so fixated on this style or that or this or that minute detail - trying to find the exact right recipe when really sometimes we just need to fill our stomachs and it doesn't matter a great deal what we fill them with.

Once you know how to move optimally, you can adopt any shapes you like, employ whatever strategies you like and structure the teaching of it however you like. When you understand martial strategy you can explain it from whatever angle you think the student is most likely to understand. This is the number one difference between myself and many other teachers: I am desperately trying to convey this stuff so that the student can be left in no doubt. I don't require them to work hard and suss things out for themselves - I don't mind if they're not bright enough to do it - up to a point, I don't even care if they're a bit lazy - I want to give them the knowledge anyway - there's no deserving and undeserving - I have no room for elitism. I see it as my responsibility as a teacher to convey what I know. So much martially useful material is openly available now, trying to hold on to precious secrets can be silly at best and downright deceitful at worst - trying to create a mystique around something it really doesn't deserve - it just isn't all that special. Some of the tricks people show are so artificial - they are totally irrelevant to combat.

Quite honestly, martial training isn't rocket science and it certainly isn't anything to do with some great gnostic spiritual enlightenment quest. I think the so-called "internalists" are being found out through disciplines such as MMA. It isn't enough to be able to claim to do something - if "internal kung fu" practitioners are to be taken seriously they have to put up or shut up and for every teacher who tries to preserve some treasure solely for the consumption of an elite few, there'll hopefully be many more who will simply plunder and openly reveal in the interests of the masses.

I don't do MMA or any other kind of martial sports, so sometimes people throw my statements back at me and ask what medals I've won or how I've ever proved anything to anyone. I just tell the truth, teach openly and produce DVDs. Most of my experience stems from coming from a rough background involving a fair degree of criminality and most fights were not fought with a shred of conscience with regard to fairness. I have been involved in literally hundreds of violent encounters and can easily count more than half a dozen friends and closer acquaintances amongst the murdered. So I don't see MMA / martial sport as the ultimate arbiter of what makes a good martial art - real fights are not won on submissions or joint breaks. The sort of violence we SERIOUSLY have to worry about day to day involves a lot more stitching up and much higher incidences of fatality than the posturing, pushing and shoving of lads and bouncers enjoying a night out. I mostly focus on the violence of real criminals that shows up in spite of our best efforts to avoid it - the violence that permanently traumatises and takes lives unless it is stamped on.

I do not make myself popular by discussing such things openly - well so be it - I don't need to care one way or the other. If anyone wants to come and train with me they can, but yes they will have to give me the benefit of the doubt enough to come and see and feel first hand what I can do. If they don't like what they see on film or are not prepared to come and train with me, I am 100% happy with that situation. They should know in advance that the focus of what we do is real life violence and not sport or pleasure fighting. We handle the subject in a light-hearted and analytical way because martial training can be a lot of fun in an environment in which you feel relaxed, safe and in control, and it is fine to train in such a way most of the time.

Ranting and Ranting Some More, Off The Cuff

I suppose the spirit of my classes can be quite different from peoples' expectations. I'd say we are probably a lot more light-hearted than most people expect and physically a lot rougher than they expect. We handle military strategy in a fairly intellectual manner and generally avoid any kind of mystical philosophy. We're just not really interested in Daoism or "qi". I get tired of being asked about "qi" and whether my approach is like this person's or that person's - I just don't think it is even relevant most of the time - it is way too vague a concept to even discuss at all. Biomechanics, strategy and psychology are what we need to discuss - those things are relevant.

To be honest, a lot of martial artists and most of the internet crowd get on my nerves - they're just way too into orientalism and having weird and disaffected nihilistic identities. There are way too many mystic egos with way too many stereotypical expectations and preconceptions about what oriental combat training should be like. There is some great stuff in Chinese culture, but there is stuff that's less good too - it isn't a case of "West bad, East good". Too many people want to go for the whole imagined "Ancient Chinese" cultural package deal. Most of my crowd would rather go mountain biking or hang-gliding than sit around drinking, talking about Chinese philosophy or watching cage fights, not because we're posh, but because we're not and because we've managed to extricate ourselves from difficult circumstances and want a peaceful life from now on. We're not enamoured of violence - we accept it as an unacceptable aspect of the world and deal with it when it finds us, in spite of our best efforts to avoid it. We're not automatically into subcultural ideas, conspiracy theories or zen crap either.

I have no desire to teach the cynics either - the ones who doubt everything and trust no one. As I say, I'm an everywoman and I'm interested in the needs of the many - the ordinary person - the average Jo. Most people are pretty rational and reasonable and those are the kinds of people I teach with great pleasure. Ordinary people expect martial training to be a bit rough and rugged - they're much better equipped to laugh off the occasional injury, whether theirs or someone else's, and accept it as part and parcel of what we do - they don't have the same pretentions or pride getting in the way. My students are not hobbyist fighters or dilettantes, fascinated by fighting - by and large they are fairly normal people living fairly normal lives who just happen to want to know how to defend themselves and their families. They like what we do because it is quite clever - it isn't just about getting big muscles and then breaking people - it has subtlety and variation in it - it's well rounded and versatile: it can suit bigger, stronger, slower people or smaller, weaker, faster ones. The same body mechanics can be used to deter, thwart, overpower, restrain, damage or destroy. We explain the purpose of everything we do and equip our students with the rationales, principles and strategic decisions that are theirs to make. They are empowered by a full mechanical reasoning of how what we do works and they get to try one method alongside another as much as they like.

Ordinary people expect their martial training to be rational, practical and effective rather than mystical or profound. I can tell you the diehard mystics object like hell when you physically get the better of them and they're deeply unhappy when you give them a mundane physical explanation for what just happened. Effective and easily explicable martial techniques are not what they're training for - they don't care about angles and levers.

I've encountered a disproportionate amount of unpleasant "mystical" type personalities while learning and teaching the so-called "internal" martial styles and they have always been the kinds of people who see themselves as on the edge - subcultural, deviant and renegade. They're just a different bunch of sheep that's all - the ones who are more drawn to the darkness than the light. That's not typically how they see themselves, but they are. They are yin-identified for all that means - it certainly isn't all good and there is no allure there for me.

Ordinary folk generally have quite good common sense - they're a lot easier to teach than the intellectuals and mystics. They invariably have fewer chips on their shoulders: I love my students to bits. The mystics can bugger off and take their chips with them - keep trying to get to their elusive true sauce somewhere else. I'm content because I know what I know: I'm not still searching. I know the same cannot be said for them and that is what keeps them wound up and unhappy: that's why they spend so much time shrieking on internet forums. I tried to put a few things straight in such places for a while, clear things up a bit and challenge the bullying that was taking place, but I'm glad to be out of all that.

Laughably, the shriekers sometimes try to insult me by calling what I do "low-level" or "external" or describing it as "Karate", but those things are only insults if you see yourself as above them and I don't. More often than not, I'd consider those supposedly "low-level" practitioners to be doing much better Tai Chi Chuan than the average Tai Chi freak. If the critics ever want to turn up to train with me and try getting gobby then, they'll get what they deserve: at least they will if they're physically robust enough to take it.