" You are what you do the most and you are what you think about the most, you really do get to choose the person you want to be".

Why I do what I do...

I was a flaky kid that was only good at 2 things, sports and art, I had terrible focus, didn’t learn well and had no direction, even though I was in elite football from the age of 11 (I hated football, I was told at the age of six that I’d learn to love it... that didn’t happen). 

As I grew up, I was frustrated by my ability to sometimes do things really well, while other times I was truly atrocious. My brain and focus were constantly letting me down. I know my parents and teachers got frustrated, although they didn’t show it often, sometimes I would look like I wasn’t trying even when I was, I was the kid who won a lot of stuff but would also be the one to get stupid things wrong or not understand something simple.

I quit football at the first opportunity to study as an artist, although I did fall back into semi-professional football in my late teens (I’m glad my parents didn’t let me quit too early, I wouldn’t be where I am now if they had).

It was while studying art in 1989 that I found Muay Thai, Yoga and had my first glimpse of meditation and the power of the mind. It changed everything; I had found disciplines that allowed me to use my full skill set. Where a sport requires you to be very good at the skills needed to win the game, skills which are often quite limited due to the needs of the sport, a discipline requires you to improve for the sake of improvement and often in a far more varied set of physical and mental dexterities. This was my journey for the next decade. 

It was after suffering my second knee injury, that again required surgery, that I began looking for more advanced tuition and in 1999 stumbled across the then 58-year-old Master Lu Jun Hai teaching Shaolin Mizong Kung Fu and Yang style Tai Chi Chuan. Another pivotal moment in my life, I’d seen and trained with a few masters and plenty of champions, there are some incredible martial artists out there…. But when you see a true master, it’s different? These are the ones that have trained since they were a child, 4 hours a day, 7 days a week and dedicated their entire lives to their art. And all this was done in the incredibly tough and unforgiving environment of 20th century Shanghai, under his father who himself was considered one of the top masters in the area.

I trained with Master Lu for one and a half to three hours 3-4 times a week, at times getting up at 3am to fit in my own training before work, training in my lunch breaks, training when I got home, training before training and sometimes an hour after training when I got home and in 2004 I had the honour of becoming a 7th generation disciple to the Mizong system. I still have the privilege of training under Master Lu’s guidance to this day. 

Seeing a martial artist of such a high level, I realised that I wanted to discover the secrets that gave the master's their skills, and find out what kept them moving so well as they aged...

The secret was simple... You become what you do and what you think about the most.

This is how you get what you want, this is how you become the person you want to be, mentally and physically. I thought a master had some secret training method, there isn’t, you just dedicate yourself to your practice. You breathe it, you become it...

Perserverance and consistency... and you eat bitter as the Chinese say.

Now even back then I was still anti competition (I hated competing), but under Master Lu’s guidance I have represented Great Britain with the British Kuoshu team, I've won numerous medals at national competitions including 4 golds at various British Championships and 5 Golds at the world championships in Shanghai.

I have been fortunate enough to train with a great many and varied group of martial artists, ranging from doormen, military personnel, street fighters and martial artists of different styles from novices to European and world champions... and over this time I realised that the medals don’t mean much, what I learnt along the way was the real treasure.

And then I had children.... and that truly honed my focus and the direction of my mission, they became the reason I want to be the best I could be.

I want to be the person I needed when I was young.

So, what is my mission?

It is to teach my students to live the best, happiest and healthiest life they can. I want them to understand that they have infinite potential, that they can be the masters of their own future.

I want to teach them how to learn and love learning for the sake of learning (because it’s something we do our entire lives).

I want them to live fearlessly and realise that mistakes are natural and inevitable and that everyone (especially the successful) make them all the time. Our mistakes are the things that help us move forwards, not something bad or to be feared.

I want to teach them to enjoy being under pressure and not fear it, because pressure is how diamonds are formed....

I want them to know that we grow through adversity, that bad things are opportunities to grow and not things to drag us down.

I want them to ask the questions (that I was too scared to when growing up). I want them to fail, make mistakes and laugh at the absurdity of life. I want them to live fearless, happy and healthy lives.

For Master Lu I want to promote the incredible art of Mizong Quan, so that others can benefit from tough, agile, smart and elusive classical training so that they too can fulfil their potential and live the life they deserve.