Whenever I see tai chi on tv, it always seems to be old people in parks. Fair enough really, that's the idea I had of tai chi before I started doing it. So it was a bit of a surprise to turn up at an indoor tai chi lesson and find one person waving a sword around and another person twirling a spear, neither of whom were particularly aged...

The younger you start tai chi, the better, as with anything - children have their brains much more switched on to absorb things! However, I took up tai chi aged about 52 and have since progressed enough to win medals in competitions and to gain my teaching qualification, under the expert tuition of the instructors at Wu's Tai Chi Chuan Academy in Bethnal Green (www.wustyle-europe.com), which is a great place to train - kind instructors who gently take you through the syllabus, nice people to train with, and lessons on most days of the week, not just once a week.

Ah well, I wish I'd come to tai chi years ago, but now that I've been doing it a while, I feel a lot younger, a lot fitter and a lot more relaxed! So tai chi is suitable for all people to do - old, young, middle-aged, it's all good!