Starting to Learn

At the age of 18, I had just started university in Manchester and moved into student accommodation. Wanting to make new friends, I said yes to almost anything I was invited to, including when one of my housemates want to go to one of the university martial arts clubs. I had been to some Karate classes when I was 10, but never had any interest in it, or any form of sport or exercise. As a result, I wasn’t expecting to like it. To my surprise, it grabbed my interest straight away, and I ended up staying even after my housemate lost interest and stopped going.

After a while, I wanted to find out more about other martial arts, so I started reading a lot of books and magazines on different martial arts. Eventually I came across a book that talked about the martial art of Tai Chi Chuan. I had heard of Tai Chi, but just thought it was some sort of Chinese health exercise. Finding that it was also a powerful martial art and the skill and history behind it led me to become fascinated by it, and I wanted to find somewhere to study it. After a few weeks of searching, I finally found a class that looked right. They taught Chen style Tai Chi Chaun, taught both the health and the martial art elements. This was exactly what I was looking for, so I decided to go and try it out…