We are all martial artists in one degree or another.  As we grow up in our childhood years we naturally play-fight without knowing we are training ourselves for life, and in our later years,office politics trains us in another form of combat.  In my school years, I took my childhood martial arts training a little further with mock wrestling matches during lunch and after school.

Later on in my childhood, the high school I attended necessitated the formalisation of my martial art development and I joined the local Taekwondo club, being the youngest student in the club to achieve his first black tip (in those years, that is -1978).

Further on, in my young adulthood during my university years, I discovered another form of Martial Arts – Shaolin Kung Fu and immediately fell in love with it, in all its glory. During my travels, I tried to compliment my kung fu training with other martial art forms such as, Jujitsu, Aikido,and White Crane, but I always turned back to Shaolin Kung Fu.  Life, however, got in the way with the creation of a wonderful family and all the responsibilities that go with it, until one day, my daughter saw me training in the back yard and asked if I could teach her too.

I did one better and found the Shaolin Kung Fu Martial Arts Academy and we both enrolled in 2000, training together in hand to hand combat in the Saturday mixed age classes. It was wonderful watching her grow up with what I had loved all my life and knowing at the same time that she was learning a skill that may one day prove very useful.

I take it a little more easily these days than the rest, and treat my martial arts as a life-long commitment. I figure what better way to stay fit than to do a sport that is so useful in life in more ways than just the physical.

I was invited to help teach in 2008 and I hope to pass on to those who come to my class, the appreciation of the complexity of the Shaolin form.  Aside from Martial Arts one of my hobbies includes understanding the world around us, so come and exchange ideas with me about Newtonian physics, Quantum physics, special relativity, and space-time, I may not know as much as I would like to, but you will certainly have my attention.  My career path has been in electrical engineering so if you want the low down on electrons and their strange way of travelling, come see me!