Martial arts

Dan is a martial arts practitioner, researcher and teacher from Perth, Western Australia.

He is the current chief instructor of the Academy of Traditional Fighting Arts based at the Bayswater Martial Arts and Yoga Centre. There he teaches Okinawan karate, Chen Pan Ling style taiji (t'ai chi) and other gong fu (kung fu) as well as various traditional weapons systems.

Dan is the author of the award winning blog “The Way of Least Resistance” as well as two upcoming books, “Essential Jo” and “Applied Karate”.

He is also known for his popular Youtube channel which is aimed at providing clear and detailed instruction on traditional martial technique.

Dan has been training continuously in martial arts since 1981.  His studies have included the following:

• Okinawan karate; and
• the Chen Pan Ling system of gong fu (kung fu), including taiji (t'ai chi), bagua (pa kua), xingyi (hsing i) and shaolin (hard style gong fu); and
• traditional Chinese grappling and throwing arts known as qin na (chin na); and
• various weapons arts from China, Japan and the Philippines (including arnis/escrima/kali).

Master Chen with Dan after the 2009 Bai Shi ceremony

In 2009 Dan was accepted as a first generation bai shi (inner door student) of Grandmaster Chen Yun Ching of Taiwan, son of the late Chen Pan Ling.  In that capacity he shares in the honour and obligation of preserving the encyclopedic body of traditional knowledge passed down from Chen Pan Ling to his son Chen Yun Ching.

He is one of the few instructors  teaching rarer “internal” arts such as xingyiquan (hsing i chuan) and baguazhang (pa kua chang) in the Perth area, and certainly one of the only instructors fortunate to have a direct  (first generation) lineage to one of China’s grandmasters.

Dan holds weekly classes in Bayswater, a suburb of Perth, Western Australia.  To train with him, contact the Academy on its website.