Jess O'Brien, Guest Instructor

Bio

"Anyone with a desk job needs a daily physical practice to keep your nerves and body functioning,”
says Jess O’Brien, and “keep the stress out.”

Jess is an editor at New Harbinger Publications in California, which specializes in integrative health topics. His own book, Nei Jia Quan (published by North Atlantic Books), offers in-depth conversations with masters ofChinese internal martial arts, Bruce Frantzis among them. The title is the umbrella name for the three main internal martial arts—tai ji, ba gua, and hsing-i. Jess led a BTC ba gua workshop last spring and will teach hsing-i here April 8.

The two have been trained together as brother and sister arts since the late 1800s. Though hsing-i in particular may seem off the beaten trail, it was actually the first martial art that many of Bruce’s senior students learned from him. Jess has trained with Bruce since 1999 and with various martial arts masters since he was a teenager.

“These are different flavors that some will find useful,” he says, ways to become more at home in your body and also to see the process Bruce went through when he created the Energy Arts program that BTC practices.

A martial enthusiast, Jess tells students who are fearful of trying fighting applications, “There are thing you have that you don’t know you have.” These training processes can uncover unrealized strengths and aspects of the self.

His teaching approach is to train hard but have fun, keeping a lighthearted mentality even when doing something strenuous. He enjoys “seeing myself grow.”