A brief history of HME in Melbourne, Aus

Before relocating to Noda City, Chiba prefecture in Japan, Paul McIntyre started training at the the HME Melbourne branch school and eventually owned and ran the school in Australia for many years.

HME Melbourne was established back in circa 2006 by one of Sifu Adam Mizner’s most senior students and my first teacher in the system, Sifu Andy Mack.

Andy came down from Queensland at the time with an intention to propagate the system of his teacher Sifu Mizner.

I came across Andy at the time and was highly impressed with the level of skill and sincerity of approach toward a wholistic path of practice. It did not take me long to commit to ongoing training which evolved into a ‘live-in’ situation along with a good handful of other dedicated students.

We lived and trained daily in a converted warehouse in Fitzroy. We were lucky to have Sifu Mizner come to stay with us and we all took the opportunity to train overseas with Sifu Mizner in Phuket, Thailand.

It was definitely a time of immersion and developing together. Eventually however, Andy Mack made a decision to leave Melbourne and relocated to Northern Thailand. This left a small but dedicated ‘study group’ that continued to train together and to offer group training publicly in Melbourne.

In around 2012, Sifu Mizner held the inaugural HME International training Camp in Phuket, Thailand. To my memory there was about fifteen people in the room. (How things have grown since then!)

It was on this trip that I first met Ramzi Nabulsi. Even back then it was hard to ignore the immense and striking presence of this young man dedicated to his martial and spiritual practice. We immediately became friends and training partners.

Whilst originally from Melbourne, Ramzi was based in Jordan at the time. However, we took the opportunity to train intensively together whenever Ramzi was able to spend time in Melbourne.

Eventually I was to become the senior teacher remaining in Melbourne and after years of being a hobbyist teacher I embarked on a transition to full-time self employment as a TaiChi teacher and bodywork therapist.

Fortunately, and with the help of Gabriel Mizner who had recently relocated to Melbourne, I was able to establish a strong student and client-base a couple of years ahead of Covid and the extensive Melbourne lockdown era.

Throughout the lockdown era the school managed to continue to grow via online classes and intermittent periods of in-person contact. However, at around this time I made a decision to relocate to Japan with my family. As fortune would have it, in the same time period Ramzi made a decision to return to Melbourne with his family.

Ramzi was a natural choice to support the continuation of HME’s longest operating branch school. With the support of Joey Yu Zhou and other dedicated senior students at the time, the school continued to offer public classes taught by myself remotely from Japan, by senior students and weekly with Ramzi.

Eventually in 2023, after about a year of teaching once per week, Ramzi was to come on board with the school as the main instructor and now runs classes with the support of senior students on a bi-weekly basis. I continue to teach remotely on a weekly basis. The school continues to grow and thrive.

Throughout these past years the school would have without a trace of doubt failed if not for the ongoing dedication of the student group and especially the senior students who are a huge part of the life and running of the school.

Senior students at HME Melbourne continue to train and grow in their practice. They support their teachers by helping to run classes and maintain the physical space. They support the system and the art through their own dedication to practice. This includes being a major sustaining factor in the school community and sometimes traveling to train intensively.

If you come to trial a class at HME Melbourne you will no doubt be welcomed and supported by our senior students to experience authentic practice of the HME TaiChi system.

With regard to the history of HME Melbourne, to tell that story in-depth will require more time, deserves more images and greater descriptions of some of the colorful and invaluable characters along the way.

I might have to join the ranks of the many podcasts to be able to tell that story! Perhaps, sometime in the not too distant future then /\

Paul McIntyre. HME Senior Instructor. HME Tokyo

Paul runs private and small group training in Noda and Tokyo, Japan. Contact to find out more