I became interested in the martial arts when I was a boy, watching Kwai Chang Caine on the television series Kung Fu. At the time, 'kung fu' was a strange, exotic, and feared discipline. There were a few judo clubs around the country and a little karate, but the Chinese methods were relatively unknown. You occasionally saw sensationalist news stories describing 'kung fu killings' or 'kung fu assaults'. I loved it - not for the violence, but for the mystery and the suggestion of hidden depths.

I spent many years studying and learning about different martial art 'styles', and I am still interested although I haven't practiced anything for years. On the whole, I was disappointed with my experiences. Predictably - I say this in hindsight - I encountered a large degree of only superficial understanding, violence-oriented practice, and little if any of the philosophy suggested in Kung Fu.

My journey began with karate. I learnt that there are about ten main karate styles, although compared to the Chinese pantheon they are not drastically different. I stopped training just before my brown belt, which precedes black belt. I would have attained it, but my problem was I did not feel at all different. The training was entirely 'external', concerned only with appearance and physical movement. I could not articulate this at the time, but knew instinctively something was not right. And I was both frightened and appalled at the way my senior instructor recounted tales of violence in the pub, with a great deal of laughter: one incident involved breaking someone's ribs. Years later I saw him documented in a magazine, still teaching, with about twenty year's experience. He was a fourth degree black belt, and a formidable fighting machine. The article described his discovery of the 'original' karate, which is what he was finally teaching. It's called Shorin-ryu, and this is the Japanese equivalent of Shaolin - the name of the Chinese temple where Kwai Chang Kaine studied.

The Shaolin temple did actually exist, and still exists today, although I am not sure what form it takes. I doubt if it represents the wisdom and authority of the ancient retreat, where martial arts were only part of a wider context - Buddhist studies. Historically, the philosophical decline of the martial arts could be attributed to the point where they became separated form Buddhism.

Shorin-ryu may have historical interest, but as a style it is not especially notable. The Japanese methods are often quite basic. When I was training, one of my teachers taught us how to throw the arm up for a forearm block; he said that if someone was attacking us with an iron bar it would break the arm, but rather that than the head. At 17 or 18 years old, it occurred to me that it would be a lot more intelligent to get out the way. That kind of blunt crudity is typical of karate. For greater sophistication, you have to look towards the Chinese methods.

I was still hungry for knowledge, and spent many hours in London martial art book shops. I became fascinated with some of the concepts like ch'i or energy, which, I discovered, is called prana in yoga and ki in the Japanese methods. It's not generally part of karate training, but is the basis of aikido - I did this for a short period in Brighton. Aikido philosophy is wonderful: peaceful, humanitarian and sophisticated, and with a relatively unknown esoteric dimension using sonic and visual symbolism. However, I have been disappointed at all the actual aikido I have seen, consisting as it does of an unrealistic and co-operative choreography, presented as valid self-defence strategy - which it isn't.

In the London shops, I was especially interested in two styles - Wing Chun, and Tai Chi. The former was the foundation style for Bruce Lee, and had a growing reputation as something a bit special. The latter is the most well known 'internal' style, which acknowledges subtle energies.

Over the years, I practiced Wing Chun in Preston, Leeds, Manchester and London. I studied Tai Chi in Lancaster, Brighton, London and Manchester. I discovered that although Tai Chi is the most well known internal style, there are others which are equally important. For a while, the internal style of Pa Kua satisfied my craving for esoteric depth, and I studied it in London.

Wing Chun was supposedly developed by a Buddhist nun and designed to counter the more prevalent Shaolin methods. It is supposed to be 'soft', effective for women, and is partly internal. It cannot be taught properly in group classes, and engages the thinking mind as well as the body - although it is often taught much like karate, through imitation and crude repetition. It is a problem-solving method, using subtlety and strategy rather than brute force. Unlike Shaolin and other styles, it is logical, rational, and has neither excessive nor elaborate movement.

One of my teachers said it was the 'last word' in martial arts, i.e. the highest and most evolved form. He was one teacher I did respect. I visited him in his White City flat, with his wife next door, and his beautiful little girl would wander in occasionally to see what Daddy was doing, which made us both smile. He was a professional painter, had studied anthroposophy, and was a decent, 'normal' person - which I could not say for many of the teachers I met. He had spent many years training in Tai Chi and Goju-ryu karate (one of the few Japanese styles that recognises 'softness'), besides his Wing Chun. He was mostly interested in the 'art' aspect of these disciplines, comparing the demands of combat to conducting an orchestra, and some years previously came very close to a challenge fight with Bruce Lee - not out of ego, but to test his skills. Very few people knew about him because he was both modest and civilised, and yet his understanding was impressive. Sadly, I only had lessons for a few months.

Most people do not realise that Tai Chi can be an effective fighting style, and that the original form, called Chen style Tai Chi, has fast and dynamic movement. Traditionally, Tai Chi was often studied alongside Pa Kua and Hsing I - the two other internal styles which are most recognised. 'Tai Chi' means something like 'supreme ultimate', is based on the yin yang symbol, and contains both straight and circular movement. Pa Kua means 'eight trigrams', and refers to the symbols at the heart of the I Ching philosophical system. Hsing I means something like 'the form of the mind', and the movements are linear and said to correspond to the five elements of Chinese medicine and philosophy. I enjoyed Pa Kua; it is a fast, sinewy, and snake-like method, based on the principle of constant change.

After trying Tai Chi with different teachers, and learning about many others, I have decided it is not for me - not, that is, the way it is normally taught. I have been in some delightful classes and met some delightful teachers, but on the whole they attracted and expressed a female orientation - what the Chinese would call yin. Lovely and soothing as it is, Tai Chi should properly address the other half of the polarity - yang - and the full system does this in two stages. The first is called push hands, where you learn contact sensitivity and reflexes, and this moves on to sparring. The full syllabus extends even beyond this, and I never met anyone who knew it all. The result is, most Tai Chi only addresses the yin aspect. Nothing wrong with that, and if you practice it for relaxation and meditation, that is what you need. But it is not the full picture, I have a meditation practice already, and my constitution is naturally placid. If I do too much slow and gentle movement, my organism starts to cry out for a little vigour.