The Devon School of Tai Chi was set up by Matthew
Rochford in 1999 with the aim of offering high quality
Tai Chi and Chi Kung instruction to people and organisations
in Devon, the UK, and abroad. The School is part of
The Wu Kung Federation, The British Council For Chinese
Martial Arts and The Tai Chi Union For Great Britain.
Our qualified instructors have experience in several
styles of Tai Chi, although we primarily teach Yang
style Tai Chi. We offer a Tai Chi program which has
been set up to help students achieve a steady progression
through and understanding of, the key elements of Tai
Chi.
We have pioneered the use of Tai Chi in a huge variety
of settings from multinational corporations and advertising
agencies to sheltered housing and homeless projects.
We believe in the power of what we do and the expertise
we have. You can have confidence in us and our enthusiasm
and integrity.
We teach in a progressive way which takes into consideration
your pace of learning. We care about our students and
teach Tai Chi and Qi Gong clearly and patiently.
Matthew was born in Aberdeen in 1969, and first came
to hear about tai chi when he was studying at Newcastle
University. In 1991 he met Harry Simmons and Alan Higgins
both of whom had been practising tai chi for some years.
Learning Cheng Man Ching and other forms Matthew was
also introduced to Peter Warr (student of Professor
Li Deyin) and Master Huang Jifu. After four years learning
from Alan and Harry, Matthew moved back to Scotland
and studied Shiatsu. In 1996 he began a Tai Chi and
Chi Kung teaching course with Peter Warr, which he completed
after 6 years of training and assessment. Matthew has
learnt a lot of different tai chi forms during the last
16 years. More recently he started learning more internally
orientated tai chi methods from Luke Shepherd (a student
of Patrick Kelly, himself a student of Master Huang
Xinxiang of Malaysia).
This year Matthew started Tai Chi Nation, a new company
designed to harness the growing movement of chi-related
arts.
