Stephen Russell, also known as the Barefoot Doctor, is a practitioner and teacher of Taoism, its medicine, philosophy, meditation practices and martial arts and "magic" system, or wu wei.
His pseudonym is taken from the barefoot doctor system set up by Mao Zedong in 1960's China, which gave farmers basic medical training to bring health care into rural areas.[1]
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Russell's training comprised studying Aikido at 11, a Japanese martial art relying on the practitioner using the opponent’s strength against them without having to use their own. He also learned to meditate and do basic energy healing as part of the training. In his teens he switched to studying T'ai chi, one of the three Taoist ‘internal martial arts’, so called because they rely on following a set of internal principles while in the midst of movement or action. In his early twenties, he studied human consciousness with psychiatrist R D Laing for three years.
In 1979, he lived for four years with the Taos tribe in New Mexico, where he studied shamanism. During this time, he also trained in the two other Taoist internal martial arts, Hsing I and Pa Kua, as well as Taoist meditation and acupuncture, acupressure, moxibustion, and massage techniques.
He returned to London in 1983 where he set up and ran an acupuncture practice for 17 years, as well as facilitating self-help workshops based on using all these techniques as a self-help system. He also ran a series of music-based events he developed to raise consciousness in a group setting. These were originally called Drum-Offs as they relied on each audience member bringing a percussion instrument. He also taught baby massage with obstetrician Yehudi Gordon for five years during this time. Additionally he released two albums of relaxation music with Polygram International in 1986 and 1987, called First Orbit and Sundancer respectively.
Russell ran his own private healing practice until 2001. From 2001 until 2003 he created and sold a range of fragrant body products. These were called Barefoot Doctor’s Chi/Qi and Barefoot Doctor’s Damn Sexy which was on sale at 360 Boots branches across the UK as well as Bon Marche in Paris, Henry Bendell on 5th Avenue in New York and at Fred Siegel in LA
He has written twelve books, including Barefoot Doctor's Handbook for the Urban Warrior, A Spiritual Survival Guide and Pure: A Path to Peace, Power and Prosperity, as well as numerous spoken word CDs and DVDs including Meditate and Tai Chi Short Form. Russell was a weekly columnist for The Observer[2] for five years.
In addition to giving talks, leading workshops[3] and commenting on holistic and spiritual matters,[4] he is primarily also a composer and producer of mood-altering music and plays in clubs and at festivals as the frontman of the Barefoot Doctor Band, which ran from 1989 until 2005, and in which the self-help message was conveyed in the music, lyrics and audience participation. Russell has been a regular guest on London Live radio, as well as Channel 4's The Big Breakfast. He made a series for BBC UK Style named "Barefoot Doctor" which was broadcast in 2003.
As well as continuing with his music production and talks, Russell has created a popular self-development training website, Barefoot Global,[5] which has been running since 1998. He runs a number of other online courses including the School For Warriors.[6]
In summer 2009, Russell launched a weekly radio show on Ibiza Global Radio. He also performed live in Ibiza at Bazaar (Santa Gertrudis),[7] and launched "Jewels Of Enlightenment", a DVD, CD and book package focusing on the practice and philosophy of Taoism. Russell has also recently launched www.superchargedtaoist.com [8] as his main website.
Some members of the mainstream medical profession, who consider the application of his practices to Western ailments to be unscientific, have criticised the advice given in his Observer column.[9][10]
In January 2007, a number of female users of Russell's site accused him of sexually predatory behaviour, and five complaints were filed with the patient group Witness. Russell was forced to issue a statement confirming that he had had sexual relationships with a small number of ex-patients from his acupuncture practice.[11]
He admitted having become involved in "salacious" email exchanges with fans who had approached him through his website, and confessed that these were "really stupid", but insisted the women had approached him as a "celebrity" rather than a doctor, in the sense that they were fans of his work rather than "sick people asking for help".[11] Russell denies some of the allegations made to Witness, and believes them to be part of a slur campaign against him.[12]