Shark Designs Courses
Meet The Team

Shark Desings Staff Biographies

We have compiled a short biography of our instructors, so that you are able to have a little background knowledge of those who will be teaching whilst on one of our courses.

Founder of Shark Designs
Mark Hordon (Chief cook and bottle washer. Master of none, Servant to all!)

Mark is a very understanding and attentive instructor who has spent well over 20 years professionally teaching all ages and abilities of students the Chinese Internal & Mystical Arts of Chi Kung and Tai Chi Chuan.

Mark spent most of his adult career in Arts & Designs, which included Sculpting, Fine Arts, Industrial Model Making, Metal & Woodworking and of course Leatherworking. But well before these professional vocations, and as far back as he can remember, his fascination with the wonderful world of Bushcraft, Camping and Survival dominated most of his spare time. Being especially interested, within these genres, in all aspects of Fire Lighting and Knife Sharpening, Mark has developed over 5 decades a deep understanding of these two subjects and written many articles about them, some of which have been published on the Shark Designs website (www.sharkdesigns.co.uk) and in magazines such as ‘The Bushcraft Magazine’.

As well as running Shark Designs, with his beautiful wife Helen, Mark is constantly seen demonstrating many aspects of Fire Lighting, Knife Sharpening and Leatherwork at the various Bushcraft, Survival & Outdoor Adventure Shows, as well as the various Wood Fairs and Craft shows that they both attend throughout the country, under the name of Shark Tinderbox.

Retail Ops Manager
Helen Hordon (Photographer, Product Designer and General Gofer. Servant of none, Master of all!)

Helens background is in Art and Design. She studied at Cambridge College of Arts and Technology, Chelsea School of Art and the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School.

She started out working in the theatre for a short while and then went on to run a small business in London's famous Petticoat Lane.

After meeting Mark she settled into a life in retail and 3 years ago took the plunge to join Mark full time and help him to run Shark Designs.