About the Site Author
Site Author - Anthony Fidler
My name is Anthony Fidler. I'm now 40, and have been a serious practitioner of Tai Chi since 1997. I've also taken a strong interest in Aromatherapy, Seiki and Buddhist Meditation (Vipassana and now Zen).
Yang & Chen Tai Chi
I've been very fortunate over the years to have been able to carry out most of my Tai Chi training intensively in China, on a personal basis with good teachers and have trainined there for at least 3 months a year, most years since 1997.
My Tai Chi encompasses both Yang and Chen and I'm passionate about both.
I practiced Simplified Yang 24 & Competition 42 for many years, but switched over to Traditional Yang Long Form in 2009. Yang 85 (108) is a very beautiful form to do.
My Chen Training has come more slowly. I've practised Lao Jia 74 since 2005 and have recently learnt Chen Xiao Jia 64 from the Kaifeng Lineage which is simply beautiful. I hope to teach it one day.
Tai Chi hasn't come easily for me. In fact I would say I was so uncoordinated and broken in my energy flow that I was literally ill and the learning path has been really hard but in recent years, it has become much easier. Great changes are possible in life, with some effort and heart.
This journey has left me with a lot of experience and patience for teaching the Tai Chi and I am excited about sharing it with others in the future.
Aromatherapy
I've taken quite a meandering path in the therapeutic training world and my interests spread very wide, but I qualified in aromatherapy with Gabriel Mojay's school ITHMA in 2005.
It still feels like something waiting to fully blossom and I haven't made a professional practice out of it yet, but continue to experiment with the essential oils which I have a very strong affinity for.
I expect this area of my life to awaken more fully once I feel its time to commit to spending more of my life in England and Europe rather than Asia.
Seiki
I have had an ongoing interest in Seiki since my first meeting with Akinobu Kishi in 2004. This is a deep and rich journey. For me, it has been more about my own personal path so far, but I am very interested in working with it, with others in the future.
Buddhist Vipassana & Zen
I picked up my first spiritual book, in a £1 book bin outside a shop in Cambridge in 1990, while I was a student there. It turned out to be a Zen book - 'The Transmission of the Lamp' and was a translation of the enlightenment conversations between Chinese Chan (Zen) Masters as they passed the lineage on from one to the next, opening their minds with incomprehensible strange phrases and gestures.
It sat on my book shelf and for a while, my brother's , for over seventeen years unread, until finally I awoke to an intense excitement to read it, while out in Asia. I couldn't wait to fly home and pick it up and returned to China with it soon after, to read it a few lines at a time over many months.
I had a strong Burmese Vipassana practice from 1997 - 2001 and along with my Tai Chi this formed the focus of my life during these years, apart from English teaching which came to the fore in 2000 / 2001.
I felt an urge to explore Mahayana after this, and touched the edges of Tibetan Buddhism and Zen for many years until in 2009, I found myself unexpectedly at a Zen Centre in South India and this has opened up my practice again in a practical way. I stayed there for two months in 2009 and am continuing my journey with the same teacher in 2010.
A Traveller
At heart I am a traveller. I feel at home in India, the Himalayas, Nepal, Tibet and China and everything I do seems to be inspired by the connections I've made on my journeys.
I am only now starting to find myself in my work which I see as being a manifestation in the West of my ongoing life in the East.
My name in Chinese is 'Eastern Peace' and I aspire to live up to it.