In this episode Richard Moon, a lifelong martial artist and performer, shares his journey from playing in a jug band and performing with bands like the Grateful Dead to becoming deeply involved in yoga and eventually Aikido, which he encountered by accident and learned as a "way of life more than a way of fighting."

Richard Moon describes developing a "very freestyle, jazz-oriented approach" to Aikido, which eventually led to corporate coaching with Chris Sorson and international peace building initiatives with Louise Diamond and a $30 million project in Bosnia funded by Dan Whalen. Richard Moon emphasized the importance of centering, intentional transformation, and harmonizing with the universal movement through practices like the "universal breath" and the "drop back, sink open" technique, concluding with O Sensei's teaching that "Aikido is the realization of love."

Episode 41: Teaching Tai Chi as a Martial Art with Nick Walser and Ian Kendall

In this episode I talk to two Wudang Tai Chi teachers from Brighton, UK: Nick Walser and Ian Kendall. Both students of the late Dan Docherty, they have continued to practice the tai chi that Dan taught them and developed a new training system called 5 Snake.

5 Snake is a unique and powerful method for finding flow, resilience, and calm through partnered close- quarter practice, and they're here to tell you all about it.

Find out more at: https://5snake.co.uk/ and 5 Snake on Instagram, YouTube and Facebook.

Read my latest blogs on tai chi and martial arts at: www.thetaichinotebook.com

Welcome to episode 40 of the Tai Chi Notebook Podcast!

Today we’re joined by my friend Benjamin Palmer. Ben has been running a Xing Yi Quan training group in deepest darkest Somerset for a good few years now, but Ben has also been training Mishima Kempo, an eclectic Japanese martial art and is thinking of starting a class in that soon.

We share the same Xing Yi teacher, Damon Smith who has been a previous guest on my show.

I visited Ben’s Xing Yi class a couple of weeks ago to teach his group some grappling and afterwards we sat down for a chat, and a nice cup of tea, so here we are in Ben’s kitchen!

Links:

Mishima Kempo: http://mishimakempo.com/

FoxFist: https://foxfist.com/

Xing Yi UK: http://www.xingyi.org.uk/