Why I started Kyoshin Personal Safety


I started training in Shotokan karate at the age of 8 and fell in love with martial arts almost immediately. 

I achieved my black belt (1st dan) at a young age and began assisting with instruction.  This is where i found a passion for teaching others.  I continue to teach karate to this day, running a successful club (www.kyoshin-dojo.org.uk).

My enjoyment of teaching led me to gain my degree in science and become a secondary school teacher.

Over the years I have taught hundreds, if not thousands of students.  Whenever a new member arrives at my karate club I ask them for their reason for starting martial arts.  Quite often people would state they wanted to feel safer in everyday life.  I then had to explain why karate might not be the best choice as it takes many years of study for the techniques to become embedded enough to be effective in a ‘live’ situation.  I have also over the years met karate-ka (people whom train in karate) that have found themselves in volatile situations and not known what to do to not been able to draw upon their karate knowledge.  This then leads to many conversations into the difference between martial arts and self defence (check out this blog if you want to know more about this).

These experiences, coupled with my love of science, in particular biology, left me looking for a way to help.  Kyoshin Personal Safety was born.  I became qualified as a self defence and breakaway trainer and put together a course that explained the science of why many techniques don’t work in high stress situations and taught several techniques that would be effective.  The aim was for individuals to be able to leave the course with the knowledge and skill to be able to escape from some of the most common grabs, without the need to study a system for many years.

I have been amazed at how well the course has been received and loved getting feedback on how to improve and develop it further, hence we now include a section on the law of using force.

I firmly believe this is stuff that everyone should know.


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