Hello! I’m Graham Barlow, a black belt in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu (BJJ), and a teacher of Tai Chi and Xing Yi based in the UK. As you can see, I’m as comfortable standing barefoot on the mats wearing a jiujitsu gi as I am wearing a Chinese outfit in a field! I started Tai Chi in 1993 Xing Yi in 2001 and Brazilian Jiujitsu in 2011.

I collaborate on and create a couple of podcasts – the Tai Chi Notebook podcast and The Heretics Podcast.

Interviews with me:

Paul Bowman interviewed me for the Martial Arts Studies podcast:

Byron Jacobs interviewed me for the Drunken Boxing podcast:

I also appeared on Ken Gullette’s Fighting Arts Podcast in 2018, where I talked about integrating Tai Chi and BJJ:

“What happens when a tai chi person takes up Brazilian Jiu Jitsu? Graham Barlow, the man behind the Tai Chi Notebook blog, did just that. He is a tai chi student and teacher, and a black belt in Jiu Jitsu. He has also studied Xingyi and Choy Lee Fut. In this conversation with Ken Gullette, Graham talks about the differences in the conditioning required for groundfighting, and whether any skills transfer between the two arts. They also discuss the concept of “real” self-defense and whether it requires the ability to take on an MMA fighter. It is a free-wheeling, real-world conversation between two guys who love martial arts.”

You can read interviews with me about my martial arts background here and here.

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With this blog my aim is to is provide quality information on martial arts in general and specifically the arts I practice: Tai Chi Chuan and Brazilian JiuJitsu mixed with some XingYi and Choy Lee Fut. All the opinions are my own and not necessarily those of other people or organisations.

I create this blog for free, but it takes time to write, and I would like to be able to expand it into a fully-featured resource on martial arts including more instruction.

If you like my work then please donate to help fund me to make more of it!

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© Graham Barlow and The Tai Chi Notebook, 2023. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to The Tai Chi Notebook with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

All the writing here is my own work. You are NOT free to reproduce my work anywhere online or in print without written permission from the owner of this site. Get in touch and we’ll talk about it!

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