Edward Shearer

My journey into Chinese healing and martial arts began in the mid-1990s following an undiagnosed illness after backpacking through India and Nepal. Through changes in diet and the practice of qigong, I experienced a recovery that sparked a deeper interest in the relationship between health, movement and the body’s capacity to heal.

While studying at SOAS in London in 1996, I began training in Wing Chun Kung Fu and was first introduced to Tai Chi, though it would take several more years before I practised seriously. By the early 2000s I had encountered the practice in different contexts, first in the Turks & Caicos Islands, then in Cuba. In 2001 I began training at the Shaolin Temple UK, studying both external and internal martial arts. It marked the beginning of a much deeper commitment to the Chinese internal arts.

What drew me was not martial technique alone, but the shared principles underlying traditional movement systems and Chinese medicine: structure, balance, breath, nervous system regulation and the efficient use of the body. Acupuncture felt like a natural extension of that path.

In 2004 I began my formal four-year acupuncture training at the International College of Oriental Medicine, graduating with a BSc (Hons). In 2007 I travelled to China for clinical observation at Tianjin First Teaching Hospital, while also training in Chen Village, Henan Province, the birthplace of Chen Taijiquan.

Having now returned to the UK, I practise from a dedicated clinic space in East Hampshire, where my work is informed equally by classical acupuncture training, hands-on clinical experience and decades of studying movement through the internal martial arts.