Like almost everyone else I know I sort of stumbled into Taiji. I had practiced various forms of karate, Goyu-Ryu, Shotokan and Uechi-Ryu, and enjoyed them all immensely without actually excelling in any. I dabbled a bit with Jujitsu and Aikido but quite frankly I could never get my head around why or indeed my hands around how, the grappling forms could be applied as a self-defense art. I still struggle with that one as it still takes some time to put them locks on. I also had a stab at Taekwondo. Ouch. That hurts.

So why did I start on this path of getting beat up. Well at school I was tiny. At 16 when I left school I was about 4'10" (that's a bit less than 1.5m in new money) so my parents decided I needed to do something to enable me to look after myself and be able to take the knocks. I was 11 at the time.

The stuff (Goju-ryu, Master Dennis Martin, at Vernon Sangster Sports Hall, Anfield, Liverpool) was good and did it's job. I still got beat up but now they went away with a bruise or two themselves. Very satisfying that. But I ws just a kid and after 3 years or so found other things to do.

But the bug had bit and I started training again a few years later, this time Shotokan (Terry O'Neill, at Shaolin Martial Arts, Victoria Street, Liverpool). This was brutal. I still relay tales of Terry's training methods with a great deal of admiration and just a little horror. I stayed there for just 2 years. I felt like I'd got battered.

Later I took up Uechi-Ryu (Sorry man I've lost your name (which is really disrepectful but even my current students will tell you how bad I am with names still), Hope Street, Liverpool). This was a dream to work with. It had poise and precision and raw power all in one and I really enjoyed myself here. I was ready to stick with this one untill I ripped a ligament in my foot playing American Football (Iwas fitter and less weighty back then!). By the time I got over the injury I had been offered a job outside of Liverpool, so after 18 months I left Karate and moved to Leicester.

And became a cabbage.

On returning to Liverpool some 4 years later I tried getting into one or two other arts (Jujitsu, Aikido and the like) but couldn't really get started in them, I had a young family now to take my time up. And it takes up a lot of time I can tell you. So I just went to the gym and worked out during the day because I was on permanent night shift and martial arts centres only open at night. The gym was in Knowsley and run by Terry Phillips, a former Mr UK and Europe. Nice place, must look it up again some time.

Then all hell broke loose. I got sick. I got meningitis.

Four days later I regain consciousness.

Six months later I'm ready to start getting fit again.

So I join a local gym, The Cheshire Lines in Sefton, and start to work out. After the place is open for 6 months or so a Tae-Kwon-Do class opens. So I joined. Phil Gadd was a nice bloke if a little loud. He showed us the ropes and then proceeded alomg the course of every martial teacher to beat us up with these ropes. Hard work is TKD and it played merry hell with my knee joints. I'm about 34 now and so the bones are beginning to complain about past mistreatments.

About this time a Tai-Chi session starts up as well at the same gym. So I joined that as well. It didn't hurt and before the class was over I had already asked what was 'going on here as this looks suspisciously like a fighting form done slowly'. Well yes it is was the response but you are not ready yet to get into that side of things. Meet Richard Lee, a nice bloke really from Malaysia. Don't get me wrong I really enjoyed training with Richard and he did give me a lot of stuff to work with and plenty of opportunity to develop my ability, but there was always the feeling that something was being held back. I stayed with Richard for about 18 months and toward the end of this time I discovered this bloke who taught everything through video. Then heard he was visiting the UK for a workshop. I attended with a friend of mine Roger Billingham and had my eyes opened big style. The daft bugger gives ALL the information you can handle and you are left just about understanding the stuff that you cound get your head around. The rest was simply beyond me so it got forgot.

When I get back to Liverpool I tell Richard about this stuff and while impressed I am told that this is secret stuff and I am not to show this to the rest of the class, but just to show it to Richard and we can keep this for ourselves. I really couldn't get my head around the idea that this stuff is openly available to all and that I have to keep it a secret. My line of thought was that if a student of mine discovered a source of information like this and asked me why I had never taught it I would be pushed to give a valid reason for witholding the information. My belief is that if you give someone a flasshy bit of kit and they don't know how to use it, it will simply gather dust or get broken and fail to work. If they know how to use it and it is usefull then it will be used. Information ant training are the same, if I am taught something that I am not ready to learn, I simply won't be able to 'get my head around it' and lose the information. (That happens more often than I let on by the way.) If I am up to the task of learning, then I can do the stuff. It is up to me to put myself in the way of any learning opportunities I have and hope I can learn from them. I can't cope with 'secrets'. So I parted ways with Richard and started training with the daft bugger from the workshop.

Enter Erle Montaigue.

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