Strength in numbers – a lesson for all martial artists

Posted: September 30, 2012 in Discussion Articles, Event Reviews, In my honest opinion..., Recommended Links
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1 week out from a major show at Neptune stadium – the biggest fight venue in Cork City, I’m inspired by the scale of it all. Martin Horgan of Siam Warriors goes all in with every show that he promotes, investing time, money and his reputation to bring fighters from all over the world to our doorstep. This show is no different with big names like “Liam Harrison”, “Dane ‘Daddy Kool’ Beachamp”, “Anthony ‘Kabouter’ Kane” and “Craig Jose” all travelling to put their bodies on the line. For Muay Thai enthusiasts, these names are very familiar but for those of us involved in other martial arts, a quick youtube search will tell you that these guys are not coming here for a tickling orgy.

The international talent aside, what really makes this show, and the others that have gone before it, is the home-grown talent on the card. Cork people are proud; Proud of their rebellious reputation and their fighting Irish persona and we’ll crawl butt naked over thumbtacks to support our own warriors. On this card, Cork is represented by Aaron O’Callaghan, Sean Clancy, Dave O’Brien, Shane O’Neill, Johnny Sheehan, Elain McElligott, Derek Flynn, Wayne Sheehan, Eoin McCarthy, Barry O’Connor, Conor O’Keefe, Killian Bush, Mark O’Mahony, Steve O’Mahony, Gar Byrne, Andy Reck.

At K2C, we have 2 extra reasons to be in full voice at Neptune. A young Spartan Thai warrior we’ve been keeping an eye on since he was a junior is Dommie Kelly – mentored by Seamus Cogan and John Kelly out in Spartan Thai Ballincollig. The first time I ever tried a Muay Thai class was at the Spartan gym and Dommie was just between the junior and adult classes – age wise. Next week, he’ll been opening the show with a tough fight and I’m sure he’ll do his coaches proud. Of course, there will be an eruption when a certain Darren Cashman makes his way to the ring. His Muay Thai students at K2C will tear the roof off the venue and will be behind him for every jab, cross, hook, elbow and knee. Robert NG will have to be ready to fight an entire army of Cashamaniacs!

When you look at the card, you have to admire the strength of Cork Muay Thai. It seems like there’s a massive stable of top fighters, all in great shape and all challenging the very in best the world. But as you analyse it more, you begin to realise that this Cork team is assembled from a range of gyms. From Siam Warriors in Blarney Street, Cork Thai in MacCurtin Street, Spartan Thai in Ballincollig, Cobra Thai in Tramore Road and Midleton Thai. Of course there are a number of other great gyms who regularly take part in these shows including Brucie’s Gym in Bandon, Fight Factory in Fermoy and a whole load of others which I’m sure I’ve left out or haven’t gotten to know yet.

Coming from a karate background, I greatly admire the level of cooperation between the Muay Thai clubs and the scale of this upcoming show is a direct result of that patience, compromise and camaraderie. I’m sure the clubs have rivalries and at times don’t get along but the ability to rise above it all and pull together events like these means that each subsequent generation of fighters gets stronger, more skilled and more inspired as they get to witness the best of the best compete in their own backyard. All instructors involved from all the clubs listed above should be very proud of this.

I’ve witnessed and been part of a generation of karate clubs who bicker, belittle each other and refuse to work together. I’m ashamed of it and I hope in seeing the success of Cork Muay Thai, that my peers will join me and come to the realisation that by not coming together if only for local tournaments a few times per year, or for seminars, we are only destroying our own martial art. By operating in mutual isolation, we are missing out on the “iron sharpens iron” effect of local competition and we are not realising the “Strength in Numbers” which makes events such as next week’s.

In recent years, I’ve tended towards BJJ, MMA and kickboxing. While not as bad as karate (cooperation wise), it’s not as good as Muay Thai. Across the board, I think we all have a lot to learn and I hope to play my part from here on to help foster cooperation between all the clubs in all the martial arts we host at K2C.

A man who may well be years ahead of me, is Leonard Coughlan from CMAP.ie who will, no doubt, be at the show in Neptune next week. CMAP is a voluntary undertaking of Leonard’s aimed to promote all martial arts in Cork. Like Martin Horgan, he has invested considerable time and effort into this project and deserves support and respect for the service he is doing his fellow martial artists.

For any martial arts instructors of any discipline out there who might be reading this, I urge you to make contact with Leonard and avail of his directory of Cork based martial arts clubs. He’s one of the good guys and is genuinely not looking for anything off of you. That may seem odd, but it’s true! And that’s coming from me (a karate guy) about Leonard (a taekwondo guy) and as everyone know, we’re supposed to hate each other ;-)

I’m off to think about how I can do my bit to practice what I preach. First on the list is an open invitation BJJ rolling session. If you’re into BJJ, let me know if you’re interested in getting involved in a one day open sparring session?

Till next time folks – “Take care and take care of each other” – Jerry Springer

5 tips for rapid, consistent development for martial artists

Posted: September 28, 2012 in Discussion Articles, In my honest opinion...
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Every so often, I take time to think about my own development as a martial artist. I think about the things I’ve gotten right and the things I could have done better. At certain points, I’ve experienced a plateau – where I felt like even though I was putting in the training, I was at a stand still. While at other times, 1 week would bring on a huge leap all at once. My recent experience with “Vic & Stevie’s Ultimate Fitness Challenge” has taught me something about martial arts development and how to have more consistent leaps and less frequent plateaus.

In fitness training, progression also follows a series of mini achievements. However, a good personal trainer will not allow a client to dwell on last week’s goal. She/he will always present a new challenge, raise the bar a little higher and above all else keep the ball perpetually rolling in the right direction.

In martial arts, we don’t have personal trainers (generally speaking). We attend group classes. We are responsible for turning up for those classes and if we’re not there, the class goes on without us. And while most martial arts have achievement ladders like a belt system or tournament rankings, the programming is not there like it is with personal training within the fitness industry.

In effect, we are our own personal trainers. We decide on our own goals and plan out how best to get where we want to go. As somebody who has been involved in programming, motivation management and measurable progression within fitness, here are 5 skills I feel a martial artist needs in order to grow consistently with fewer development lulls:

  1. Be disciplined. This is a phrase I have changed my mind about in recent years. Coming from a traditional background, discipline, to me, meant bowing, keeping straight lines, never questioning an instructor and basically being submissive to authority. Now I realise that discipline is doing what you need to do even though it’s not what you want to do. This includes hours of repetition of basic techniques, eating correctly to fuel your body sufficiently, getting cardio training done consistently and above all else not making excuses. For years I had confused discipline with good behaviour when in fact some of the worst behaved athletes in the world can be extremely disciplined in their training and thus really successful. A recent quote I read sums this up. “You can have excuses or results… not both”
  2. Use critical thinking. Thinking back on my earlier development, this is one skill I wish I employed much sooner. Critical thinkers never accept what they’re being told as truth unless it makes logical sense. I remember believing, for years, that Japanese karate instructors had super powers. As good salesmen, they would have you believe that the older they got, the more powerful they got and that as frail men of 80 or 90, they could brush aside the most vigorous attacks of men in their prime. Of course, all the Japanese instructors I have had the privilege to train with have been exceptionally good but just like in every other sport, their speed, strength, flexibility and endurance was declining with age. So why would I take them upon their word that they were the only exception to a biological and evolutionary rule? – Because at the time, I wasn’t using critical thinking. In a word, I was gullible and I fell for a marketing tactic that made sure that Japanese Instructors could demand outrageous sums of money for their time. Critical thinking is your defence against somebody trying to pull the wool over your eyes. If you’ve got it, you’ll avoid some serious bull out there and get the correct facts every time. Correct information for reliable, logical sources will save you massive amounts of time in your training. How do you know the information you’re being given is correct? Ask the following questions: Does this make sense? Is this true in every other sport? Has the person telling me this info an agenda forwarded by me believing them? Does this work? Am I seeing results? Choose who and what you believe very carefully and don’t go along with anything just to be respectful.
  3. Listen, listen and listen more. As children we are taught to speak and later we a taught to write. There are no formal lessons teaching us to listen and yet, as a form of learning, it’s arguably the most effective. As a martial artist, listening goes hand in hand with observing details and at the highest levels, minor details become ever more important. To listen correctly, you must be quiet long enough for the person who has the knowledge you need, to speak. As a rule of thumb, the more you talk, the less you listen and thus if you want to learn about martial arts, you need choose your words carefully, ask the right questions at the right time and listen to the answer accurately and in full. For visual information, you listen with your eyes – or observe.
  4. Plan, Record, Review. There’s an adage in business coaching: “What gets measured, gets done” and this is true of martial arts development also. If you set goals for yourself, always remember to track your progress with tangible mile markers. And when you achieve goals, take time to celebrate and review. This is easy to do in sports like running where you record lap times or minutes per mile but in martial arts development, we have to think creatively how we can measure certain skills. My favourite tool for this in martial arts is video recording. I like to record a practice session, review the footage, make changes and in subsequent recording, make sure that those aspects have improved. You can measure reaction times with a stopwatch or flexibility with a measuring tape. Whatever methods you use or skills you measure, the important thing is that you record and review constantly and keep an eye on goals and progress.
  5. Study the trend setters. Thinking back to my youth, I remember all my friends and I watching Diego Maradona and John Barnes dribbling past defenders in the soccer World cup. Whenever a footballer came up with a new flashy skill, you could guarantee that within a matter of weeks, a youngster in Cork was able to mimic it. There was, and as far as I’m aware, still are no regular technical seminars for soccer where the likes of Christiano Ronaldo teaches soccer skills for a weekend and yet kids all over the world are able to do the tricky dribbling tricks he uses on the big stage. The thing is that soccer is on tv and watched by millions and the skills of the trend setters like Maradonna and Ronaldo are celebrated with multi angle views, slow motion replays and highlight reels. In a sense, this coverage is a technical seminar constantly airing on worldwide tv. Up to the coming of the Youtube era, martial arts did not enjoy the same level of coverage and the only way young martial artists were exposed to the top levels is if they attended seminars or were lucky enough to travel to international tournaments. Poor quality VHS videos tapes were few and far between and DVDs for sale were expensive and limited in scope. However, with youtube and the emergence of the MMA juggernauts UFC, the tide is changing. As a martial artist you need to immerse yourself in video footage of the very best athletes in every discipline that you’re studying. Better yet, you need to share the best videos with the youngsters around you because it’s the youngster that have the best mimicking abilities. We have a lot of catching up to do with the likes of soccer and rugby but with Youtube, the power is at our fingertips so we have no excuses.

Of course, these tips are by no means exclusive to martial arts development. The same can be applied to academic studies, business and any other sport. However, martial arts in the mid to late 1900’s was infused with such bull, false marketing and fanciful claims that in terms of intelligent, scientific and logical practices, we are still lagging behind the times.

Instructors/teachers, can you read minds?

Posted: September 23, 2012 in Discussion Articles, In my honest opinion..., Martial Arts Business Topics, Miscellaneous
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Today, I’ve got just a short seed planter of a blog. I’m a big believer that being good at something and being a good teacher of something are two entirely different things. One of the most important skills of being a teacher, in my opinion, is being able to read minds – or at least body language. If teaching something that requires attention to detail and concentration on technique, this skill becomes even more important.

Have you ever seen this expression in your students when teaching? Do you know what it means? Could it mean that he has just lost the will to live? Yes, this, my friends, is boredom. What do you do? Do you say: “Hey, you! Don’t be rude. How dare you get bored in my class! Pay attention or get out!”? Or maybe perhaps, you should click your fingers in their face and say “Wakey wakey spacer!”

Well, you could, but then you’d be a prick. However, at least you’ve noticed the boredom in the first place and that’s a start. Some instructors/teachers are oblivious to facial expressions or body language and just keep droning on and on despite students getting the nods directly in front of them.

Boredom is like a plague and needs to be nipped in the bud before it takes hold of a class, destroying the energy in the room and dampening your enthusiasm for what you’re teaching. A bored class has stopped absorbing information so you are wasting time continuing the lesson. You’ve reached the point of diminishing returns and if you want your students to progress, you need to snap them out of it. Once recognised, you need to act fast and light a fire under your group to release new forward momentum.

So what should you do? My tips if you see this facial expression:

  1. Crack a joke or tell a funny story. A 2 minute mental break from something that requires intense concentration will round up the ones you’ve lost and as long as you get back on track shortly after, you won’t annoy the ones who were still listening anyway.
  2. Switch the exercise momentarily. “A change is as good as a rest” is a proverb which best describes this. If doing an individual drill that requires attention to detail, then a sudden switch to a high tempo partner exercise for 3 – 4 minutes and back again will give achieve more in the long run.
  3. Start asking random quick fire questions. If you spot a glazed look on someone’s eyes, few things wake them up faster than being put back on the spot. Ask “Which of those two options do you think will work John?” and suddenly his eyes will snap back into focus and you’re back on track. Most of the time, “John” will make up an answer that has nothing to do with what you asked because he wasn’t listening in the first place. “The blue lemon on the monkey’s back!” Just say, “Yes, good answer” and carry on. You’ve got what you needed. He’s paying attention again and everything else is irrelevant.
  4. Do something outrageous. From time to time, I like to shock my students (gently, of course). Just today, I playfully rugby tackled one of them as a vacant expression descended on his face. He got a fright but as soon as he realised what happened, he giggled, as did the rest of the class. 5 seconds passed and we were straight back into our drill again with renewed vigour. Total down time: 10 seconds. Bear in mind, this works in a martial arts class. It may not work in a history lesson!

What should you not do?

  1. Don’t get upset or insulted. That’s not helpful. If you snap at a student who’s bored, they’ll pop out of boredom for a few minutes but will slip away again shortly. If you continue to snap, tension will build, they’ll no longer enjoy your class and you’ll lose them anyway.
  2. Don’t doubt your material. It’s human nature for a class to lose interest when things get difficult or technical. It’s a matter of attention spans and can sometimes be greatly affected by stress levels outside of class, tiredness, age or even a learning difficulty. If you have the necessary skills, you can teach a group of 5 year olds how to watch paint dry. If you don’t, you’ll lose even the most studious of academics.

Follow these do’s and don’ts and I believe that you’ll have every class eating out of the palm of your hand and your students will perform better in the long run.

What do you think? Are there any other tips an instructor/teacher should follow? What outrageous things have you seen a teacher do to break boredom? Have you ever fell asleep or gone on auto pilot in a class and missed out on important details?

Why do ‘athletes’ tend to bypass traditional martial arts? – A neglected age demographic

Posted: September 16, 2012 in Discussion Articles, In my honest opinion..., Martial Arts Business Topics
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It’s been just over 2 years since we first opened K2C. As a lifetime martial artist with a fast developing passion for MMA, I had a goal to help create a space where martial arts styles could not only co-exist but also cross train in a facility customised to their needs. Having lived in Florida and seeing the martial arts ‘schools’ there, I couldn’t return to training in an old run down community hall without mats, toilets, changing rooms or heating, thus the concept of K2C was born. From concept to reality has been a long road but here we are.

On the journey, my personal martial arts career has taken a number of turns I wouldn’t have predicted. For one, I’ve become a kickboxing coach. Initially, this was a bit outside my comfort zone but I’m well in the groove now. I’ve also made a fairly significant shift from a traditional martial artist to a full contact martial artist. My own training schedule is mostly dominated by kickboxing, BJJ and MMA and in terms of how I train; it’s a far cry from what I had become accustomed to as a pure karate-ka.

I now find myself in a position where I’m coaching a new generation of both traditional and full contact martial artists and my experience of both sides of the tracks has shaped a number of conclusions I have about coaching. The following blog is a rant about what I feel the world of traditional can learn from full contact. Before possibly insulting fellow traditional martial arts instructors, I must stress that this rant is very generalised. You may already have adapted to include some of my suggestions in your training and if so, fair play. I’m merely highlighting the limitations from my experiences.

So here it goes:

Traditional Martial Arts, by their very nature, are technical and intricate. It takes patience and focus to be able to spend hours, weeks and years perfecting technique, to achieve grades and competition success. However, one thing that is rarely tested in my experience is physical fitness. Although fitness in inherently improved whilst practicing technique and sparring, there’s a whole different level of physical strength & endurance out there. Elements such as core strength, speed & agility, cardio vascular endurance and anaerobic thresholds are never fully pressed in a typical traditional class.

Take boxing for example. Apart from sparring, bag work and pad work, boxers must also practice skipping to build up cardio vascular endurance. Fighters will skip for twice as long as they’re expected to fight in one fight and vary the speed of skipping to mimic the intensity variations of a real fight. This practice is part of warm up and is a daily, grinding routine for boxers.

Another example is Strength & Conditioning for MMA. This is a completely separate practice session for MMA fighters where they test their bodies to absolute limits, pushing, pulling, lifting and jumping. Every single session is about finding the outer limits of your ability and going beyond. This session is normally completed 2 or 3 times weekly for 1 hour.

Now you might argue that traditional martial arts doesn’t require the same level of fitness and strength or perhaps that the technical nature of the art transcends brute force. While it is true that all things being equal, technique wins, to rest on your laurels with average physical fitness is backward thinking and naive.

I often like to compare group photographs of traditional karate clubs (as is my background) versus full contact clubs following a seminar or class. Have you ever noticed the differences in age demographic or the body shapes of those training? Make it easier; Count what percentage of each group has a 6 pack of abs or how many would fit in to a photograph of an Olympic boxing/taekwondo squad.

Now I know that last paragraph will insight anger and insult but let’s ask a few more questions first. As a traditional martial arts instructor, which age group would you like to see more of in your class? Which age group could you really get stuck into (technically and competitively), to push the boundaries of your art. Which age group would fly the flag for your discipline, would be heroes for young kids and a blank canvass for experienced black belts to influence? I’m talking about the age demographic 16-30 or what I will from here on refer to as ‘the athlete’. Would you agree that this age bracket is where most traditional martial arts students drift away? I think you’ll definitely agree it’s not the age range of the largest percentage of members in a group.

Why is that?

Can it be that exams and socializing tempt them to the dark side? Could it be work and family life gets in the way? No, it can’t. If that were the case, you would see the same dip in numbers across all sports/martial arts but you don’t. Go back to the group photographs and look at them again. I’m suggesting you’ll find all those prime ‘athletes’ are involved with disciplines that press their limits such as rugby, soccer, Muay Thai, MMA, running, weight-lifting, triathlon, skiing etc. Almost every soccer/gaa/rugby club in the country has an adult team (if not 2 or more). Each team takes approx. 15 adults in the prime of life. Yet most traditional martial arts groups wouldn’t have half of that membership for the same age bracket.

Is it because it’s a niche market? Again… no. Look at the volume of kids’ classes within martial arts. Karate or Taekwondo has been experienced my most Irish children at one point in their childhood and class sizes for kids classes by and large are very healthy and would rival any other sport. So what is it? Why is traditional not seen as a viable option for ‘the athlete’?

One word… “Fitness”

It’s what ‘the athlete’ cares about most. To cater for ‘the athlete’, you must first understand what he/she wants. If I’m 20 years old, I’m relatively injury free. I’m strong, fast and athletic. I feel invincible and I want to prove I can beat any challenge. I have 2 options Karate or MMA? It doesn’t take a genius to figure out which one I’m going to enjoy more. Unfortunately traditional martial arts are known as the poorer cousins (fitness wise) to boxing, muay thai, bjj, mma etc. It’s a perception painted on all of us traditional instructors by years of neglecting the needs of a whole age demographic and now it’s back to bite us in the ass. Sure, we can have healthy numbers of kids taking classes. We can wear black belts and take pride in the knowledge and experience we have accumulated. The one thing we can’t expect to have though is the respect of ‘the athlete’. Why not? – Because traditional karate does not give you abs! It’s too slow moving and doesn’t challenge the physical fitness of ladies/gents in the prime of life – at least not to the same extent as the other disciplines. It’s no longer seen as a viable alternative for getting in the shape of your life during the prime of your life.

And furthermore, as a result, we’re missing the head stone of our pyramid, the icing on our cake, the jewel our crown. We don’t have nearly enough prime ‘athletes’ competing with fitness levels that shock spectators, inspire young teens and mobilise crowds of fans for our art. Imagine 100m sprinting as a sport without a solid age bracket 16 – 30. Why would anyone bother with running in a straight line without seeing how Usain Bolt smashes World records? Why would anyone take up boxing without having the opportunity to see the likes of Katie Taylor beat up the rest of the world? Who have we got in traditional karate? Chuck Norris? Karate Kid? Come on guys… let’s get real here.

Now there’s a vicious circle of causality that we’ve got to overcome if we want to reverse the typecasting associated with traditional martial arts. There are things like the organization of regular open tournaments, cooperation between associations, Olympic status, finding inspirational athletes to compete, getting more education of what we do etc. There’s no doubt that the lack of a proper stage for our current athletes falls short of inspiration for a new generation and that has a huge influence on attracting ‘the athlete’ also. However, fixing that and the other problems listed above are huge tasks and mostly out of our control for now. There is one thing that we can control and that’s how we run our classes. Here’s a list of things I think will contribute to traditional martial arts regaining its respect. It won’t change the world over night but the longest journey starts with but a single step.

1. Up the tempo

We’ve got to make the training more appealing to ‘the athlete’. This means more high tempo class planning. Put technical aspects into circuit training mode so that students can improve while building physical fitness. It takes time but over a few months, this will help get ‘the athlete’ to train with you.

2. Banish lecturing

Technical training needs to be done with the minimum of words. If ‘the athlete’ stops moving for any more than 30-60 seconds at a time during a training session, you’re going to lose them.

3. Encourage cross training

Incorporate cross training. Bring in a boxing coach for example, or strength & conditioning coach. Make your team fitter and stronger. Give them abs that ‘the athlete’ will be jealous of.

4. Make weight management a priority

Introduce weight classes to your training. Although weight classes are not in all associations and styles, it’s no excuse to relax and just eat regular food. Assume everybody who’s competing needs to be as lean as they can be and make that a priority – diet wise and cardio wise (skipping or running). Remember, ‘the athlete’ who turns up to try out your class will run a mile if everyone else training with you is out of shape.

Rafael Aghavyev – the role model I’ve chosen for my karate students

5. Find and promote a role model

Seek out and find ‘the athlete role model’ that you want your students to become. If there isn’t one within your art, choose someone from a different art. Once chosen, celebrate them. Hang a picture of them in your training space and encourage your students to watch videos of them. Learn about how they train. If you can have more than one, that’s even better.

6. (Although controversial) Forget the spiritual aspect

Within traditional karate (again, this is my background), there is a pseudo spiritual vein running through it. As instructors, we have been taught to preach the practice of a Zen-like disposition and “Seeking perfection of character” etc. Guess what ‘the athlete’ aged 16-30 thinks of this? It’s rubbish! If they want spiritual guidance, they’ll do Yoga or join the church of scientology. Let’s stick to what we’re qualified to do and teach them how to kick and punch like ninjas.

You may not agree with some or all of my suggestions. Again, these are opinions I’ve formed based on my experience and this is the mind-set with which I’m approaching my task of coaching the current generation of a traditional students.

What do you think? Are you ‘an athlete’ that has been turned off traditional martial arts for any of the reasons above? Are you an instructor who feels likewise? Do you think I’m going against the grain of tradition in my thinking? Have I gone too far? As ever, please comment below and get involved in the conversation. Ideas and conversations help us improve.

2011 in review

Posted: January 1, 2012 in Event Reviews
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The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

A San Francisco cable car holds 60 people. This blog was viewed about 3,100 times in 2011. If it were a cable car, it would take about 52 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

Speaking with Victor Barry on Redfm about Self Defense!

Posted: August 16, 2011 in Audio Messages, In my honest opinion..., Recommended Links
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This morning, I was invited on Cork’s Red fm to some advice about self defense on the streets. Anyone who knows me will know that I jump at the opportunity to be on camera or on microphone so of course I agreed straight away. Here’s the clip from the show courtesy of Red fm.

http://audioboo.fm/boos/441114-liam-og-on-redfm-s-victor-barry-show-self-defence-advice

As a martial artist, I’ve been trained in “Self defense by numbers” – in other words, if someone does this, do that and so on. My personal feelings on self defense though are not quite as black and white as that. Unfortunately, real world violence is rarely scripted and if you were to learn (or try) the millions of possible attacks and their defenses, you probably wouldn’t have time to be attacked in the first place – you’d be in the gym your whole life!

Most traditional and sport martial arts have a self defense element to them – this is true – but in my opinion, real world self defense is a totally different kettle of fish. There are some arts that come a bit close to real world stuff including Qin Na (which is one I mentioned in the interview) or Krav Maga (made popular by Jennifer Lopez in her film “Enough”). Colleagues of mine in West Cork do a system which they call “Real World Defense Systems” and if Self Defense is your ultimate goal, you should definitely be talking to these guys.

We do have a course on self defense which we run from time to time called “Street Smart Martial Arts”, which is where I got the material such as F.I.R.M. Action which I mentioned during the interview. On this course, we cover a range of things, including psychology of violence, legal issues of self defense and also a study of real-world cases.

If you’re interested in Self Defense classes with any of the class types I’ve mentioned, just drop me a message and I’ll send you in the correct direction.

K2C Live – Episode 1

Posted: August 14, 2011 in News, video
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I recently committed to producing a fortnightly video podcast to publicise K2C Martial Arts & Fitness Centre – the centre I help run. Here’s the first of many episodes. I hope you like it!

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