My very first martial art training was in Judo as a young kid - must have been around 7 or so - later I did some boxing too
Of course around that time the Kung Fu series and Bruce Lee were all the rage, and this sparked my interest in the Chinese styles. However unlike today there was very little information around and even fewer clubs - it was all either karate or judo. There was no internet either (pre-historic or what!) and outside of films and TV the only source of information were some American and Hong Kong magazines. It wasn't until the late 70s that the Chinese arts began to be taught more widely
At age 17 I began my training in Chinese martial arts, with John Ding at his newly opened class in Barkingside. John was originally from Malaysia and had a background in Shaolin and Preying Mantis before learning Yang family Tai Chi Chuan under Chu King Hung, who was one of the top teachers in London at that time
At the time I didn't know very much about the different styles of Kung Fu, so it was pot luck that I landed in an authentic "fighting" school of Tai Chi rather than one of the more..shall we say "vague" classes that were also springing up at the time
Class training was once or twice a week and consisted of a lot of (painful) stance work, form training and push hands and application. The class sessions were supplemented with the Monday night crew - a group of us who trained together regularly at the gym in the old Claybury Hospital. Lads such as Steve, Terry, Tony Powell, Dusient, John Elliott and Rob Brenner. I suppose the training was a bit crude - working out applications by trial and error and generally whacking each other about. But they were always good, hard, informative sessions with a great spirit of camaraderie.
John's classes expanded and he eventually opened a full time school in South Woodford (still there I believe). By this time I had started teaching my own classes. I worked full time at the centre, both taking classes and editing Tai Chi and Alternative Health magazine which John had launched.
In the meantime I had got the chance to traing with John's then teachers - firstly Chu King Hung and later Gin Soon Chu. There was a week long course in France with the latter and he also came over the UK a few times. I'd also met some other friends and started training with them - most notably Rob Murray and Dave Nicholson.
Rob came from an old-school karate and jiu jitsu background but was interested in trying anything. Over the years we trained a couple of times a week together, exploring JJ, tai chi, wing chun, stick fighting, RBSD, extensive fitness training and just generally trying things out. I learnt a lot through training with Rob and he is someone who to me has always exhibited the importance of an open mind and a determined attitude in training
Dave Nicholson was running Tai Chi and Hsing I classes in Yorkshire. Dave also had an interesting background (his dad was a bare knuckle fighter back in the day) and he brought a unique Yorkshire down-to-earthness to the Chinese Internal styles! We clicked straight away and for many years shared knowledge, trained together and ran workshops and competitions. Pound for pound Dave was one of the hardest hitters I'd felt and again I learnt a lot from our association.
As you might expect a lot of this training was starting to take me out of the "classical" approach. While I had a wider interest in health, philosophy, etc like most people from my background my main interest was in self defence. Things like knife defence, working in crowds and so on were not being addressed in the traditional style so I began looking round to "fill in the gaps"
By this time John and I had parted ways so I was now my own boss and set up my own group. I kept up my Tai Chi training with Jim Uglow, but also became a "workshop tart" and trained as widely as possible. People I have trained with at workshops include (in no particular order):
Ji Jian Cheng
George Xu
Erle Montaigue
Dave Turton
Peter Consterdine
Rick Moneymaker
Sensei Kanazawa
Yap Cheng Hai
Richard Dmitri
Steve Morris
By this time I'd also moved out of London and was teaching in the Peterborough area, as well as travelling back down to London once a week! It was about this time I first got hold of a video of Vladimir Vasiliev. I must have played that tape a hundred times, trying to work out how he did what he did. Coming from an "internal" background I could appreciate the fluidity and power of his movements but thought his partners were falling over a bit easy...His approach intriguedme so I contacted him and was pleased to learn he was due to visit the UK. At that seminar I got to feel Vladimir's skill first hand. Many years of push hand type training and "real" experiences had left me confident in my ability to stay on my feet. With Vladimir I felt like a total beginner and gained an undestanding and appreciation of why his partners seemed to fall so easily.
Very soon I was on a plane to Toronto for the first of several visits to "Systema HQ". At first I was drip feeding Systema into my training and teaching but there came a time when the sensible thing was to embrace it totally. It's not something I've ever regretted and has opened up so many different aspects of training as well as benefitting other areas of life
Since that time I've hosted Vladimir in the UK and trained in the UK and Moscow with his teacher Mikhail Ryabko and some of his top guys such as Sergei Ozhereliev and Sergei Borschov as well as Konstantin Komarov
I still like to keep an open mind and look at all types of training - it's so much easier with Youtube these days! There are some good people about - for example I'd rate Dave Turton as one of the top self defence guys in the UK and Steve Morris of course is a legend. But overall I'm very happy with the training I have now and the access I have to such skilled and generous teachers. In a funy way though I think people are a bit spoilt for choice these days and it perhaps makes them less appreciative of what is around. The martial arts world is still sadly largely insular and parochial and aside from a few friends it's not a world I choose to inhabit very often! Of course a lot of it is big busines now, either the McDojo type or the commerciality of some of the MMA people, but, hey, everyone has to make a living. The downside of that is some of the silliness apparent on internet forums over the past few years, but I'm sure that's a passing fad.
So that's what you might call my "formal" training background. Outside of that I've done the odd bit of doorwork over the years, for friends who were running clubs in East London and was involved in all the usual silliness young men get up to when they don't know any better. More recently I find myself back in the live music world and it's been interesting to have resort to "direct action" a few times again - some things never change it seems!
I also worked for the Crown Prosecution Service for a few years, which was an educational experience - both from gaining an understanding of how the legal system works from "behind the scenes" and also in seeing all the different cases coming in. My work at Crown Court included putting evidence bundles together, including scene of crime and autopsy photographs. Believe me once you've seen the results of a frenzied axe attack you will never underestimate the danger of dealing with edged weapons.
My wife is currently Crime Reduction Officer for the local area which again has lead to new understanding of how criminals operate - so I guess you could say I have experience with both sides of the coin.
My own personal training these days still has a large self defence element, but is more geared towards health and mobility as I approach 50! Hopefully I maintain some of that youthful interest and enthusiasm though perhaps tempered with a little more realism or cynicism.... If I had to sum up my approach it would be "Take your art seriously, take your work seriously, but don't take yourself seriously"
Apologies if I've left anyone out from the above and thanks to all my teachers, training partners and students past and present. Here's to the next 30 years......
