39 this coming week.

Started when I was 15 with a little tae kwon do, just a few months, but I kept practicing the basic moves diligently after that.

At seventeen, joined chung moo quan, did that to black belt. Dropped that curriculum some years after quiting, some friends demonstrated to me that kung fu was better.

Somewhere around 23 learned a basic longfist set from Zhang Hongchao in Chicago, good teacher and a nice break attitude wise from my previous school.

At twenty-eight studied six elbows under Chun Man Sit, saw the value of taixuquan, was less interested in the other parts of the curriculum. Set my sights on learning the taixuquan set and associated spear set and eliminating everything else for the most part from training time.

In 1998, learned the entire system of bjj from Gracies in Action videos.

Around 2000 started studying six elbows and taixuquan from Mike Reyes, about 2005 finished learning the basis of the taixuquan set, dropped the other practices from my training, two of us who learned the whole set began working together to more fully grasp it.

2006-7 began studying footage of a wide variety of taixuquan teachers associated with our line, specifically looking for changes over time and differences in application, and analyzing each. Adopted an approach similar to Kong Chi Wah, Chun Man Sit's teacher, with some other important influences. Studied application with the intent of then setting up a number of drills to test my understanding.

2008 studied a variant of Chen style in Henan China, the specifics of the footwork and kua work were of interest, I found them very strong in applicability, but my interest was especially strong since they seemed to match exactly the sort of postures(and the implied footwork) used in most of the older pics of people doing taixuquan. Began implementing this approach into my taixuquan, with positive results.

2009 With the help of two others who know my system, began utilizing the drills I came up with to test my observations on taixuquan's applications. The drills were meant to be non-style specific, so that others could join in and all would have more exposure to dealing with more varied approaches. At this point, a small group are attending these labs, almost all people who know at least an entire system, plus some people training for mma fights(not taixuquan students). I suspect the next few years at least will be a result of this focus.