Chris Tai teaches what machines can’t: how to feel, how to choose, how to live.
He is a breathwork coach, philosopher, and lifelong martial artist. Founder of InhaleXcel, a system dedicated to mastering the breath as a gateway to presence, excellence and purpose.
With over 40 years of experience in movement and internal discipline, Chris has trained with monks, misfits, and masters around the world. In 2014, he became the first certified Wim Hof instructor in both the US and France. Since then, he has developed his own practice blending physiology, Taoist wisdom, and somatic intelligence into a direct, embodied practice.
Chris trains coaches, mentors high performers, and leads workshops across the US and Europe. His work is not wellness. It’s not optimization. It’s a rebellion of presence. Breath is the entry point. Ownership is the path.
Chris’s mission is simple: to prepare people for the moments that matter, through truth, through movement, through breath.
His motto is : “Be the light, not the flame.”
Chris Tai Melodista was born in Paris in 1974 to his Vietnamese mother and French-Jewish adoptive father. He began his training in diverse styles of martial arts at the age of 6 and obtained his black belt in Japanese jiu-jitsu at 17. Chris competed in the first MMA competition in France and has since invested over 40 years in martial arts practice and more than 30 years in the discipline of personal development.
In his 20s, Chris traveled to Lhasa, Tibet, to deepen his practice in Buddhism at its source. During his stay, he had the opportunity to teach Kung Fu and Qi Gong to some of the monks. After almost a decade of working as a photographer in advertising and fashion for numerous high-end companies in Madrid, Chris moved to the U.S. in 2009, seeking to make more of an impact in the world.
Chris has achieved an impressive series of certifications, including life and love consciousness coaching with Kathlyn and Gay Hendricks, NLP licensed master practitioner, clinical hypnosis, Pranayama and Qi Gong, Russian martial art Systema instructor, combatives instructor, and MovNat trainer level 1&2, as well as stick massage bodywork therapy. In 2014, Chris traveled to Poland to meet and study with Wim Hof and became the first person certified by Wim Hof, aka “The Iceman,” in the U.S. and France. He also mentored with Dan Brulé to further his style of breathwork.
Chris Tai is the founder of Radical Expansion, a company dedicated to performance coaching through breathwork, movement, and mindfulness. He created this company to teach the knowledge he had compiled throughout his lifetime. The simple and easy method he founded is now taught by coaches in Europe and the U.S. Over thousands of people and hundreds of seminars worldwide have benefited from this practice.
Chris considers himself an eternal student and continues to teach and encourage people to become the person they were searching for through practice and quality of choice.
