He preserves his connection to British universities to this day, believing that the message of Aikido has particular relevance for young people in the modern world. In the mid-1980s, he established a dojo in Bearwood, Birmingham. By 1994, the dojo had relocated to Digbeth, Birmingham. Chris Mooney's dojo began at the end of 1994 at Fazeley Street in the industrial heart-land of Birmingham, UK, though he had been teaching before that. It was housed in a large factory room with a tin roof and a large pillar right in the middle of the mat, situated above a reggae recording studio. There was a lot of natural daylight, due to a large area of single glazed windows, which created excessive heat in the summer months and a freezing cold during the winter. Many of the materials needed to build the dojo were scavenged from the industrial waste found nearby; including light fittings found in skips and old pieces of carpet and wood. The dojo lasted there for six years. In the year 2000, the dojo moved to the YMCA in Northfield, where the grim industrial surroundings were exchanged for the more populous South Birmingham suburbia. It was now a converted a squash court, using all the materials brought from Fazeley Street, and a lot of volunteer effort members and supporters. Although the tatami at Northfield was much smaller than at Fazeley Street, there was no longer a pillar in the middle of the mat. The dojo stayed there for nine years. At that time, Chiba Sensei gave Mooney Sensei's dojo the name that it bears today: Ei Mei Kan — "“the House of England's Light”". In 2009, Ei Mei Kan moved to its present home near Cofton Hackett, Birmingham, with the aid of many students. It was opened by Kazuo Chiba Sensei at a Shinto ceremony held in the same year. It now resides in a renovated church, the old mission hall. Chris Mooney Sensei was asked to begin teaching at Ashton University in 1981 by William Smith Shihan, at the age of twenty three. He later began to teach at Birmingham University, and in 1988 hosted his own master, T. K. Chiba Shihan, at the Munrow Sports Centre of Birmingham University for the 1988 summer school. At the same time Ian Grubb (currently 6th Dan Shidoin) opened a dojo at the University of Warwick.