My Kung Fu and Tai Chi Journey: Tradition, Lineage and the Path to UK Kung Fu School

Every martial artist has a story.

For some, it begins with a film, a particular teacher or a moment of inspiration. For others, it becomes something much deeper — a journey that continues to evolve over decades.

My own martial arts journey began more than 40 years ago, and it has taken me through different martial arts, teachers and experiences. Along the way, I have come to understand that martial arts are not simply about learning techniques. They are about people, patience, discipline, practice and passing knowledge from one generation to the next.

That connection between teacher and student is what we call lineage.

For me, that lineage has developed through both Kung Fu and Tai Chi, and the two have become increasingly connected within my own training and understanding.

Where My Journey Began

I first became interested in martial arts as a young boy, starting Judo at the age of 11.

I was fascinated by the physical skills, but also by the discipline and structure that martial arts demanded. I eventually began teaching at 18, and teaching itself became an important part of my development.

As my interest in martial arts grew, so did my desire to understand different approaches to fighting, movement and body mechanics.

Over the years I studied Thai boxing, kickboxing, Tai Chi, Hsing-I, Ba Gua, Jeet Kune Do, Escrima and Aikido.

Each brought something different.

Some taught me about striking. Others taught me about movement, balance, timing, sensitivity or structure. Rather than seeing these arts as completely separate, I became increasingly interested in understanding the principles that connected them.

But the most important part of my journey was discovering the Kung Fu systems and teachers that would ultimately shape my own path.

Learning Chang Chuan Shu

One of my important early influences was Chris Ellerker, who was then Chairman of the British Council for Chinese Martial Arts.

Under Chris, I studied Chang Chuan Shu, or Long Fist Kung Fu.

This introduced me to a very different way of approaching martial arts.

There was a strong emphasis on movement, coordination, flexibility, kicking, hand techniques, forms and the relationship between individual techniques and practical application.

But, as with all good martial arts teaching, the physical movements were only part of the lesson.

I was learning how to train.

How to repeat something hundreds of times.

How to accept that progress takes time.

How to look beyond simply performing a movement and begin to understand why it works.

Those lessons have stayed with me throughout my martial arts career.

Discovering Teh Ji Han Jeung Dao

At the age of 21, I began training with Chris Linstead, the founder and instructor of the Teh Ji Han Jeung Dao style of Kung Fu.

This became a particularly significant stage of my martial arts journey.

I found myself drawn to the practical nature of the system and the way its techniques could be trained, tested and applied.

But just as importantly, I found a teacher from whom I could continue to learn.

In 1993, I began formally teaching Teh Ji Han Jeung Dao to children.

Four years later, in 1997, I achieved my senior student grade under Chris Linstead.

That progression — from student, to instructor, to senior student — represents an important part of the lineage that sits behind my teaching today.

My Tai Chi Journey

Alongside my Kung Fu training, Tai Chi gradually became another important part of my martial arts journey.

Initially, I was interested in Tai Chi from a martial perspective. Over time, however, I began to appreciate its wider lessons around structure, balance, relaxation, movement, breathing, awareness and the quality of how we move.

I was fortunate to learn Tai Chi from Chris Ellerker, and this became another strand of my martial arts education.

Tai Chi also gave me a different way of looking at principles I had already encountered through Kung Fu.

Things such as balance, posture, rooting, weight transfer, timing and body alignment are not unique to one particular martial art. Tai Chi simply gives you a different environment in which to explore them.

The slower pace can make details much easier to see.

A movement that might happen almost instinctively in a faster martial art can be slowed down and examined.

Where is the weight?

What is the body doing?

How does one movement connect to the next?

How efficiently can the body move?

These questions have increasingly influenced my own martial arts practice.

Training with Deyin

An important part of my continuing Tai Chi education has been my training with The Deyin family and qualifying as an instructor.

Professor Li is an internationally recognised teacher and authority in Tai Chi, with a deep family martial arts heritage. His own training included learning from his grandfather, Li Yulin, and his work has played an important role in the teaching and development of standardised Tai Chi forms.

For me, training with Deyin provided another opportunity to learn directly from

someone with an extraordinary depth of knowledge and experience.

It reinforced something that I have come to appreciate throughout my martial arts life: the more you learn, the more you realise how much there is to learn.

Training Tai Chi at this level is not simply about remembering a sequence of movements.

It is about precision.

It is about understanding the purpose behind the movement.

It is about posture, structure, coordination and connection.

And it is about repeatedly returning to the fundamentals.

That approach has had a wider effect on my Kung Fu training too.

Kung Fu and Tai Chi — Two Paths, One Journey

I don't see my Kung Fu and Tai Chi training as competing disciplines.

They have different characteristics, different training methods and different emphases, but they have also informed each other throughout my journey.

Kung Fu has helped me understand Tai Chi as a martial art.

Tai Chi has helped me understand movement in Kung Fu in greater detail.

The slower, more deliberate practice of Tai Chi can reveal things about balance and structure that are easy to overlook when moving quickly.

Equally, my experience of practical martial arts gives me a different perspective when practising Tai Chi.

For me, this is one of the great benefits of spending a lifetime studying martial arts.

You begin to see connections.

What Does Lineage Mean?

Lineage can sometimes sound like a very grand or complicated concept.

For me, it is actually quite simple.

It is about where your knowledge came from and who taught you.

A martial art is not simply something you download from a book or learn from watching videos. Traditionally, knowledge is passed from teacher to student through direct experience.

The student learns.

The student practises.

The student makes mistakes.

The teacher corrects them.

Over time, the student develops their own understanding.

Eventually, they begin teaching others.

That is how martial arts survive.

My own lineage is therefore not just a list of names or grades. It represents the people who invested their time and knowledge in me and helped shape the martial artist and teacher I have become.

From Judo, through my Kung Fu training with Chris Ellerker and Chris Linstead, and through my continuing Tai Chi education, including training with Professor Li Deyin, each teacher has contributed something to my understanding.

From Student to Teacher

One of the most important lessons I have learned over more than four decades of training is that being a good martial artist and being a good teacher are not necessarily the same thing.

Teaching requires you to understand what another person needs.

A beginner may need something explained in a completely different way from an experienced martial artist.

Some students learn by watching.

Some need to feel the movement.

Some need repetition.

Some need technical detail.

Some need encouragement to keep going when something feels difficult.

Teaching has forced me to look at martial arts from many different perspectives.

It has also made me appreciate just how much there is still to learn.

Building UK Kung Fu School

Over the years, my training and teaching eventually led to the creation of UK Kung Fu School.

The school is built around many of the principles that have guided my own journey:

Traditional training.

Practical martial arts.

Discipline.

Consistency.

Respect.

Personal development.

And a genuine sense of community.

I want students to develop real skills, but I also want them to understand that those skills are built over time.

There are no shortcuts.

A martial artist improves through repetition, correction and experience.

The goal isn't simply to collect techniques or progress through grades. It is to develop a deeper understanding of movement, timing, distance, balance, control and application.

Passing It On

Perhaps the most rewarding part of a martial arts journey is eventually being able to pass something on.

When I teach a student a technique that I was once taught, there is a direct connection between the past and the present.

The movement may have been taught to my teacher decades ago

My teacher passed it to me.

I practised it, tested it and developed my understanding of i

Now I teach it to another student.

That student will hopefully take it further.

This is the real meaning of lineage to me.

It isn't about claiming ownership of knowledge.

It is about being responsible for what has been entrusted to you.

Still Learning

After more than 40 years of martial arts training and decades of teaching, I don't see myself as having reached the end of the journey.

Quite the opposite.

The longer I train, the more I realise how much there is still to understand.

There are always details to refine.

Movements to improve.

Questions to explore.

And new students who remind you that something you have done thousands of times can still be looked at from a completely different perspective.

That is one of the things I love about martial arts.

There is always another layer.

My Journey Continues

My journey began with a young boy discovering Jud

It continued through Chang Chuan Shu, Teh Ji Han Jeung Dao, Tai Chi and many other martial arts.

Along the way, I have been fortunate to learn from teachers who were willing to share their knowledge and experience with me.

Today, through UK Kung Fu School and my Tai Chi teaching, I have the privilege of passing some of that knowledge on to the next generation.

The journey from student to teacher is not a straight line, and it certainly isn't finished.

I am still training.

Still teaching.

Still learning.

And still sharpening the blade.

That is martial arts.

A journey of learning, practice and passing it on.