Martial Arts

I have been studying and training in the Martial Arts for 19 years now. I believe in borrowing techniques and skills from various Martial Arts. This provides me with a variety of conventions, principles and techniques used in other arts that I can utilise to "round out" my training.

You may like to read the following article:

The Complete Martial Artist

To date I have studied the following Martial Arts:

Taekwondo (Lion Park's Song Moo Kwan)
Capoeira (Porto da Barra Grupo de Capoeira)
Karate (Goju Ryu)
Krav Maga

Taekwondo

I have studied Taekwondo the longest - since 1989. Lion Park's Song Moo Kwan is a school of traditional Taekwondo, as opposed to the freestyle Taekwondo that has become more popular of late. It has provided me with a solid grounding in the Martial Arts as we practice everything, including locks, throws, close-quarters self-defence, knife self-defence, forms, and contact sparring.

Capoeira

I have studied Capoeira since 2002. I find it provides me with insights into movement and evasion. Whereas Taekwondo encourages straightforward movement, often meeting force with force, I find Capoeira encourages evasion and counter-attacks with a hint of sneakiness. Also, I have noticed since starting Capoeira training that my upper body strength and flexibility has increased. The style I practice is referred to as Capoeira Regional and the school is known as Porto da Barra Grupo de Capoeira.

Karate

I studied Karate for a few months. I found it offered very little to me that I could not already find in my training in traditional Taekwondo. I think it is a common misconception that Taekwondo is all about the legs and Karate is all about the hands. The training seemed to differ very little. The few differences I found involved lower stances and a greater use of knife-hand and back-fist attacks.