John Bell

My experience in martial arts go back to the sixties where I learnt judo for a number of years.
In the nineties I tried various martial arts/self defence classes including wing-chun, akido, karate, and found that these were not for me.
I started to learn Tai Chi in 1997, with the "John Ding Academy of Tai Chi". I attended 2 classes a week for 5 years learning Tai Chi and push hands. In 2002 I was then invited to attend the advance senior Tai Chi class where I would be taught by the Tai Chi master, covering all aspects of Tai Chi, including instructor training (weekend seminars), Straight Sword, Broad sword, Self defence, Tai Chi application, Qi-gong, single and double push hands and freestyle push hands.
During the time I was with ‘JDATC’ I also attended a number of week long Tai Chi retreats (2 per year). I also went to China with the Tai Chi Master, where we combined sight seeing & Tai Chi training with local Chinese Tai Chi masters and their students. We also visited all the Tai Chi villages & Temples to observe how they trained their students, these included, The Shaolin Temple, Yang Village, Chen village, Taoist Temple, the Wudang Mountains where a lot of other martial art schools are located.
We visited Hong Kong to train with the Tai Chi Grand Master Ip Tai-Tak.
I left "John Ding Academy of Tai Chi" in January 2010 and I met with Phillip Shields (Dong Style) and started Tai Chi and push hands training (also qi-gong, Da-Lu, walking push hands, applications). I liked what I saw, the in depth training of "Dong Style Tai Chi" I started training only with Phillip, going to as many of the classes that I could attend. I took early retirement from my Job in August 2011, this allowed me to train daily. I trained and helped out when required with classes 5 days a week (minimum 8 hours training a week) up to February 2014.
Since the beginning of 2014, I started to teach Tai Chi at 4 classes a week, now 3 classes per week. I teach Yang style Tai Chi (slow set), qi-gong, push hands, broadsword and now have started teaching the double stick form.