Our Philosophy

Our philosophy on teaching martial arts is very clear.  It must be fun, safe and produce a self defence capability and awareness.

Training should be fun and enjoyable

The social aspects of training and the interaction with other people is a very important aspect.  Mutual trust and respect is required in training with partners and everyone must benefit from the experience.

The experience must be enjoyable.  The training must be fun.  It is possible for the training associated with such a serious subject as self defence to be enjoyable and conducted in a pleasant and relaxed atmosphere.

The training for and the doing of gradings in the syllabuses is a challenge, both intellectually and physically.  Students can challenge themselves to work as hard as they wish and the secret to success, as with all things, is the effort devoted to the task.  Training is intellectually and physically rewarding as well as being fun.

Safety is paramount

Injuries must be minimized.  Students must feel safe and comfortable in the training environment.  Much of the responsibility comes down to instructors ensuring a safe and nurturing environment for all students to succeed and grow their skills and knowledge.  It is up to the students to follow the instructors' lead in creating a safe environment for practice and training and to follow the safety practices requested by the instructor.

Self defence capability essential

Many martial arts say that they have of a vast range of advantages to cater for all manner of interests by saying that it involves fitness, self defence, competition, self-confidence building and all manner of benefits.  We are clear about our focus - it is on producing a modern self defence capability.  Self defence and the implications of having to defend yourself is a very serious matter.  Developing programmes, strategies, a training regime and methods to achieve this is a very challenging matter indeed.  Few martial arts schools are capable of delivering this capability despite the claims in the advertising material.  It is our focus to achieve this self defence capability - that is what we do.  Whilst the training can be a lot of fun and very enjoyable activity, the clear objective is to provide this self defence capability.  As a result, we do not to sporting or competitive forms of training at all.