My Martial Arts Background

[started 01/03/2007, last update 03/03/2010]
Full MA experience listed here


CONTENTS

Introduction
-1999-2002: Warwick Uni (ZSK)
-2002-2006: Broadening My Horizons (Various)
-2006-2010: Roger Gracie Academy (BJJ)


Introduction: For anyone that wants to know my background in martial arts (as usual, this will be a little long-winded…), I started off with a year of fencing at Yarm School. Up to that point, I had never been especially interested in sports, mainly because I was crap at them all. Fencing appealed to me largely because I’m a geek: I saw it as a way of connecting with the fantasy books I read avidly (and still do, when I get the chance outside of PhD reading) throughout my youth. The same impulse would lead me, somewhat bizarrely, to a brief stint at horse riding in another school. I think I started fencing lessons around 1993/1994, but not completely certain - I do remember it was just before I moved down South.

1999-2002: Martial Arts at Warwick Uni ^

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to keep up the fencing at my new school, so had to wait until 1999 to get back into martial arts. In September of that year, I began my English Lit BA at the University of Warwick, having spent the previous summer getting excited about what martial art I could try out (I got some kind of "intro pack" through the post, which listed the various sports on offer). At this point, I knew almost nothing about martial arts beyond what I'd seen in films, but decided that I wanted to try kung fu, due to my enjoyment of the related cinematic genre.

In my corridor in the first year, there was a guy by the name of John Booth who had some kickboxing experience (along with muay thai, I think: whatever it was, seemed to have kept him in good shape, so I assume it was probably one of the heavier contact martial arts). In the run-up to the Sports Fair (held near the start of the year annually, where all the sports clubs have a stall and try to recruit new members), I asked his advice on what martial art to take. John suggested kung fu - at that time, the only club advertising itself as 'kung fu' was a little known MA called Zhuan Shu Kuan. In short, it could be described as kickboxing with traditional trimmings (stances, forms etc).

I duly signed up with a friend from my halls. She eventually lost interest, but I kept up my training three times a week pretty much throughout the whole of first year. I was also keen to grade, an ambition delayed after Glen Cudjoe (the main instructor) quite reasonably thought I wasn't displaying sufficient effort when demonstrating the form. That would be a recurring problem (I'd eventually lose any interest in the traditional side), but I was suitably improved to go for my first grading at the next opportunity, receiving a a blue tag.

I continued grading steadily, though my enthusiasm waned in the second year to the point that I stopped making so many Tuesdays. The fact that Tuesday classes were held at the (now defunct) gym on Westwood campus was probably a factor too – Westwood is on the outskirts, so a reasonable walk away. In the final term of second year, my attendance dropped significantly: I’d failed to make a smooth transition from the leisurely first year (where nothing counted towards your final mark) to the more important second year (which did count). That meant I had to cram furiously before the exams to catch up on all the reading I’d missed, so ZSK slipped down in my priorities. So word of warning to anyone just starting uni: enjoy your first year, but start working harder in your second. ;)

In the university holidays between the end of second year and the start of the third, I had a look at what martial arts were on offer near my home. It turned out that the leisure centre next to my school in Chesham had a kickboxing class, which IIRC was called ‘Pegasus Kickboxing’, run by a trim, grey-haired instructor named Mike. I can’t quite remember how many sessions I attended, but I’d guess around four, each of which were two hours long. Mike was keen on fitness, so there was a long warm-up, followed by hitting pads and later some sparring (to my surprise I found myself paired up with a girl from school I hadn’t seen in years). Not a bad place to train, so if its still going I can recommend it to anyone in the Chesham area. I'm assuming Pegasus sends out competitors regularly, as there were a number of buff looking people in kickboxing trousers training away from the rest of class.

The start of the third year meant that I could have another wander round the Sports Fair, and perhaps try out some additional martial arts. Over the course of my BA, I had a go at capoeira, samurai jiu jitsu (currently operating under the name of Jitsu. See this thread for more on that organisation), aikido, wing tsun and escrima. I think all of those were in my third year, but some might have been in the second. Either way, I wasn’t too keen on any of them, so continued to just train in ZSK.

By 2002, I was into the last months of my BA degree. I’d learned the lessons from second year, so worked much harder this time round. However, my training still suffered in third year – I think that must have been due to the BUNAC working holiday to Banff, Canada during the Summer, where I followed my girlfriend (who I had first met in class at the end of 2000). The scheme started before the end of term, meaning my training was cut short.

2002-2006: Broadening my Horizons ^

My marks for the BA were good enough for me to apply for a Masters degree later the same year, again at Warwick. I had no wish to leave university just yet, as my gf was still there another year, and I also wanted to continue training in ZSK: I’d made a number of friendships through the club over the preceding three years, making ZSK a major part of my social life. So, I returned to Warwick after Canada, renewed enthusiasm meaning that once again I was attending every session of ZSK I could make (although in the third term, I injured my ankle, which again cut my training short that academic year). It was at this time that I got into the geeky world of internet forums, which in turn sparked an interest in MMA, and by extension, grappling.

I wasn’t ready for MMA yet, but on the advice of somebody from a forum, I decided to try and organise some groundwork sessions with a judo black belt friend of mine I knew from ZSK. We booked the activities room four or five times, where Mike ran me through some of the basic positions and a few submissions. Towards the end of my Masters degree I had another opportunity to try the ground. One of the forums I posted at had a meeting in nearby Warwick (the University of Warwick, rather strangely, is actually located in Coventry. As ‘Coventry University’ already existed, the founders decided that Warwick would work as a name – the fact it sounded a lot posher no doubt helped), where I arrived late for the self-defence session with Dave Turton. He was followed by Andy Davis, an MMA instructor, but when it came to rolling, I wimped out of a fellow forum goer’s request to spar (something I was able to rectify three years later, when I met him again at the Midlands Throwdown).

Having successfully completed my Masters, I moved down to Bristol to be near my gf, as well as save up some money for our round the world trip. This meant that it was difficult to train in ZSK anymore, so I hardly went to any ZSK classes at all between the end of 2003 and the beginning of 2005 (when I began my PhD at Warwick). Unless I'm remembering incorrectly, it was during my Masters that I attended my last grading in ZSK - I passed, and became a brown belt. However, although I initially had a vague idea that I'd try for the black tag and then black belt at some point in the future, I pretty much lost any motivation to progress further up the rankings over the course of that year. This was compounded by my inability to take more than one class of ZSK a week, as I worked in London half the week. If I ever find myself able to train more frequently in ZSK, then I might get back to grading, but I'm not really interested in learning the traditional forms and fixed spars, which means its unlikely.

In Bristol, I had the opportunity to again try out some other martial arts clubs. First of all my gf and I popped down to a taekwondo class - a martial art which had taken a serious bashing in all the forums I frequented - in Kingswood, and it proved to pretty much fit what I’d read on the net (though I found it fairly enjoyable up until the ‘street style’ section: nice people). Next up was the excellent wushu club run by Neil Genge, which I tried purely for acrobatics – attending about five classes, I was thrilled to finally manage a somersault and kip-up, although admittedly the sprung floor kinda helped.

The last club I tried before setting off for Hong Kong was Kevin O’Hagan’s MMA class, which also marks the first time I started logging my training. Hence why it’s the first training log entry in this blog.

Between 2004 and 2005, I popped along to a few more MMA classes, mainly in London, along with a few other MA, like hapkido and kickboxing. I also made it back to Warwick a few times to train at ZSK, but very intermittent. In February 2005, I returned to Warwick for a PhD, so decided to not only make my ZSK training more regular, but also get into Judo and something going by the name of 'Kempo Ju Jitsu'. Annoyingly, I got injured early on, which put me out of full training for almost a year (although after a few months I was able to train around the injury at ZSK).

Also worth mentioning that I've made a number of throwdowns since 2005 (the first one being that Tung-Fu meet in 2003), mainly due to the Bullshido website. These events are a chance to train and spar with a whole bunch of people from different backgrounds, not to mention a great opportunity to put faces to names on internet forums!

2006-2010: Roger Gracie Academy ^

Once I recovered from the shoulder injury in 2006, I endeavoured to finally join up at a BJJ club - my first option was the Gracie Barra gym in Birmingham, but their beginner classes were at times I couldn't make. So, that left the Roger Gracie Academy in London, where I began in November 2006 (unless you count the intro in October), having watched a class the week before. Reading on the internet, especially at Bullshido, provided an excellent set of principles that would serve me well as I started BJJ. This thread in particular has become something of a touchstone, and I'd urge anyone interested in training martial arts to give it a read.

I trained as regularly as I could in those first few months, in order to get my third stripe and move on to the advanced class (due to the greater choice of classes that would entail, as third and fourth stripes can train in both the beginners and advanced). Normally I managed two or three classes a week, which was all my convoluted travel schedule would allow.

Eventually getting that third stripe in June 2007 was probably the impetus for concentrating fully on BJJ, as it considerably expanded the amount of classes I could attend. Before that, I had intermittently gone back to my old ZSK class, but since the promotion and an increase in PhD workload, it's been all grappling. My last ZSK class was April 2007.

My first BJJ competition took place August 2007: first fight, first loss, though amusingly I still got a bronze, because the guy who beat me went on to win the division (there were only four of us competing at super featherweight). Shortly after that, I popped over to the Belfast Throwdown: video below is me rolling with Waqi, and is the most recent footage I've got of my sparring. At the time, he was a very experienced blue belt, who could easily have smashed me, but mercifully went light - I'm the white belt.



On 14th February 2008 (they accidentally put January on the certificate, but meh, close enough), I got my blue belt from Jude Samuel, a black belt instructor at RGA. I was especially pleased to get the belt from Jude, as he's the only black belt to have rolled with me, and also the person who has taught the majority of the classes I've attended. So, out of the people capable of promoting me, he's definitely best placed to judge my current level.

That means that I've now accomplished one of the goals of this blog, which is to track somebody's progress from white to blue. I've noted each grading along the way, and this spreadsheet goes into exact detail on how many classes, hours etc (if, like me, you're geeky enough to care about that sort of thing).

Of course, what qualifies a person for a blue belt is a subjective decision by a particular instructor, and therefore varies from academy to academy. A good measure is competition, and by that score, I've certainly got a long way to go, as the Bristol Open back in August 2007 marked my sole fight so far. I'm not likely to compete as a blue for a while, as I'll need to feel a whole lot more comfortable with the weight of this new rank first.

At the end of 2008, I had a lovely christmas present in the form of a redundancy from KPMG. In other words, I got bitten by the credit crunch. One of the advantages of that is that I've had a chance to bounce around various clubs in the UK, due to job seeking: after no longer being able to afford the fees at RGA, I moved to the affiliate in Kilburn, then I found myself in Surrey training at Nova Força. After that, I headed back to Warwick Uni for the end of my gf's MA, when I trained at Combat Athletics in Canley. As of September 2009, I'm back with RGA, at the affiliate in High Wycombe under brown belt Kev Capel.

[If anyone reached this page by Googling "warwick uni bjj", "warwick university bjj", "warwick brazilian jiu jitsu", "warwick bjj" or something like that, then you may be in luck. I've been trying to get a BJJ training group going at Warwick Uni: see Facebook for more details.

If you want an idea of what normally happens, this is a typical meet. However, its not a class, just a place to meet for drilling and sparring. If you're a student at Warwick Uni and want to learn BJJ, then head for either Gracie Barra Birmingham, or Combat Athletics in Canley, a short walk from campus.]

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