Antoine Richard - Taiji instructor

Unlike many practitioners, my path in martial arts is quite a simple story: I chose one art — Chen-style taijiquan — and stayed with it. Not from lack of curiosity, quite the opposite: year after year this discipline keeps revealing itself as an endless source of insights on many levels.

I started for two reasons: first because I wanted to learn some self-defense without diving head-first into fighting madness, and second, to understand how ancient Chinese philosophy can be embodied and applied in a fighting method. In 2011 I began training taiji and the Chen Yu method with one of his direct disciples, Nabil Ranné, and I’ve been practicing this method ever since.

Because Taiji has so many facets — and because they all complement one another — it’s the only “sport activity” that has kept my full attention over the years. Working on developing gongfu is a lifelong adventure. Curiosity can be fed forever. The continuous refinement of body awareness, the study of body architecture, the development of fighting skills, the concentration and the patient, structured learning of mechanics — all of this gradually condenses one’s presence.

I was born in France and have lived in Berlin since 2009. I’m a CTND-certified instructor and continue to study with Nabil Ranné. I teach classes and workshops at the main CTND Berlin school in Prenzlauer Berg — the very place where I began my Taiji journey in 2011. I also wanted to share my enthusiasm for learning gongfu in my own neighborhood (North-Kiez Friedrichshain), where I’ve been living for more than 15 years. That’s why I built the smaller CTND Berlin-Friedrichshain branch and created this page. I’m happy to teach in German, English, French, or Italian.

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Read below my short interview from Gongfu Crew's Instagram!