I trained Chen style with Dr. Cui, who’s the one standing beside me in the picture at the back. 

He’s a mentor to me, but he’s the same age as me, I think—we’re either half a year or something different in age. He started training when he was around 4 years old. His uncle was a direct lineage to the Chen family who taught him, so he’s been practicing Taiji for most of his life so it’s like 60 years he’s been practicing.

He’s an incredible martial artist. He understands the martial aspect of Taiji really well. He’s strong, he does postures, and he’s super flexible—still doing postures that are really difficult to do and because he’s been doing that his whole life, he’s maintained them.

He’s a really cool guy; we have lots of laughs together. He’s like my brother and we have this really lovely connection with each other. 

He was a great teacher; he taught me three different Chen Style Taiji forms during the time I was with him and now we have an everlasting friendship.

There is a lot of respect and we still have this admiration for each other. He has incredible support for me, and I have incredible admiration for him and his dedication. He trains every week; he has done for as long as I’ve ever known him. 

He’s an acupuncturist in New Zealand and was actually a qualified neurosurgeon in China.

The other people in the photo are all students I trained with for about four years, learning the Chen style forms and they’re still there. I was training with them probably 15 years ago now.

I haven’t seen them for about six years so I went back in the class and walked in. They didn’t recognise me at first because of the beard at and then they all recognised me. 

It was really cool because I hadn’t seen them for a long time. Then I trained with them again, doing the same forms that I learned with them. They came up to me after and said,

“Oh, you do the form really well.”

I said, “Well, I practice all the Chen Style forms,” and they were really happy that I had still been practicing.