My guest for this episode is Jess O’Brien, author of the book Neijiaquan and co host of the Neijiaquan podcast, which he runs with Isaac Kamins.
Since 1999, Jess has studied extensively under BK Frantzis. Over the years, he has also trained with other, preeminent internal martial artists like Luo De Xiu. He has been active in martial arts since his teens.
In this episode we discuss what drew Jess to the internal arts and how he trained with various different teachers before becoming a student of Bruce Kumar Frantzis.
My guest in this episode will need no introduction to anybody who trains in the Chinese styles of Xing Yi and Baguazhang, especially in the United States. Tim Cartmell is a lifelong martial artist who spent many years living in Asia learning the internal arts, before heading back to the US where he took up BJJ, becoming a black belt. Tim is now the head jiujitsu coach at Ace Jiujitsu Academy in Fountain Valley, California where he teaches classes and trains professional MMA fighters. https://www.acejiujitsu.com/
In this podcast I ask Tim about his training tips, especially for older martial artists, where he thinks martial arts is going in the future and his approach to combining all the arts he knows into a single principle-based, reality-driven approach.
You can find out more about Tim at his website www.shenwu.com and don’t forget to check out the Shen Wu Martial Arts group on Facebook.
I hadn’t talked to Tim before this interview, but many of the people I’ve had as guests on my podcast have rated him highly, and now I know why – for somebody with so much experience of martial arts Tim is a very humble and genuine guy, as I hope you’ll discover over the next hour or so.
You can support The Tai Chi Notebook Podcast by becoming a patron. Head over to www.patreon.com/taichinotebook and become a patron today! You’ll get a version of the podcast you can download, exclusive video clips and articles.