About Joe Martin
A Lifetime of Martial Arts, Movement, and the Study of the Body
Joe Martin’s work grows from more than six decades of martial arts study and a continuing investigation into a deceptively simple question:
What must happen in the body for a principle to become functional?
That question has shaped his approach to martial arts, Taijiquan, bodywork, teaching, and ultimately writing.
A Continuing Study of Taijiquan
Martin has practiced Taijiquan for more than thirty years, with particular emphasis on Yang-style methods and the development of internal skill. His continuing study of Yang-family methods includes Yang Old Frame under Liang Dehua.
The Body as a Common Language
Alongside martial arts, Martin’s professional work in Structural Integration, Professional Kinesiology Practice, and manual therapy provided another way of investigating the human body.
The disciplines are different. The body obeys the same principles.
From Practice to Method
This investigation eventually contributed to the development of Esoma Kungfu and Esomassage. Esomassage applies principles associated with Tai Chi to therapeutic bodywork, using posture, rooting, relaxation, breath, intent, weight transfer, and whole-body movement as part of the method itself.
Why the Student Canon Was Written
Much of traditional martial arts instruction is expressed through concise phrases: relax, sink, root, open, connect, follow, issue. Such instructions can be accurate and still leave a student with an unanswered question: How? The Yang Taijiquan Student Canon was developed to investigate that missing territory.
Teaching the Condition
If a principle is important enough to teach, the student should be given a way to understand what creates it, how to cultivate it, how to recognize it, and—where possible—how to verify it.
Writing as an Extension of Teaching
The objective is not simply to give the reader information. It is to help the reader acquire understanding.
Selected Background
More than six decades of martial arts study and practice More than thirty years of Taijiquan practice Yang-family Taijiquan practitioner Continuing study of Yang Old Frame with Liang Dehua Certified Structural Integration practitioner Professional Kinesiology Practice (PKP) Developer of Esoma Kungfu Developer of Esomassage Author of the Yang Taijiquan Student Canon Founder, ESOMA Press