Combat The Real Dangers In Life With Martial Arts

If you’ve been thinking about taking up Choi Kwang-Do (or one of the many different martial arts that exist) you may be initially drawn to developing self-defence skills. After all, personal safety is important. Ironically, most martial artists have no desire to use their combat skills in real life. It can be reassuring to know that if the need arises you have some sort of strategy to fall back on, but how often will that occur for the average person?

As Grandmaster Kwang Jo Choi (the founder of Choi Kwang-Do) says, “You may go through your entire life without ever having to use your self-defence skills, but good health is important to everyone, all the time”.

The thing is, there are other dangers that we face in life and it is important that we give ourselves the best chance of warding off these dangers. Consider these conditions and illnesses:

• Stress
• Heart disease
• Depression
• Asthma
• Bone and joint conditions
• Obesity

These are all serious conditions that can negatively impact on a person and their families. So, finding ways to combat these conditions is crucial in leading a happy, healthy and productive life, in the best way that we can. This is why adding a martial arts class to your weekly schedule makes sense because it doesn’t just provide you with self-defence skills; it will provide you with health benefits and positive social setting that will go a long way to boosting your overall physical and mental health.


Feel Fit & Focused 

With martial arts, you will receive a total body experience with every muscle group in your body being used. This can help to improve your stamina levels, co-ordination and muscle tone while improving your flexibility. You should also find that your energy levels are positively impacted, helping you to feel more energised and focused.

This in turn can enhance your self-esteem. If you want to feel more confident or comfortable with yourself, a martial arts class can provide the fitness and psychological benefits you may need.


Beat That Stress!

If you are the sort of person that constantly feels under stress and pressure, always in a rush with no time, then it’s important to find an outlet for these emotions, plus some time for you. Allowing stress to build up is dangerous and you need to find a safe place to release these tensions. This is why martial arts can have a great impact on your life because it provides you the opportunity to punch, kick and shout your way through class drill, yet in a structured and controlled environment.

Add in the fact that martial arts students maintain a sense of fellowship – particularly so with a non-competitive style like Choi Kwang-Do, and you should find that your troubles and stress will feel less important. They will still be there...you’ll just be better equipped to handle them!

Whether you want to lose weight, be more active, meet new people in a shared social environment or just feel more confident in life, martial arts classes can help. Focusing on the self-defence and combat element of the discipline can be a great motivation to start for some, but over time, the wider benefits of studying martial arts can help you to develop and grow in many areas of life.

Do you want to find out more about our Choi Kwang-Do martial art classes in Ealing? Interested in taking a free trial but not sure where to start? Contact us via our website so we can explain the process and put your mind at ease. 

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Jason Wright is a 6th Degree Black Belt and Master Instructor in the martial art Choi Kwang-Do. For further information on Choi Kwang-Do classes for children, teens and adults in Ealing, West London visit www.TheMartialArtForLife.com

What Are You Trying To Achieve?

It's said that discussing subjects such as religion and politics will always result in an argument. You could probably add martial arts to that list too. Martial arts training is a personal experience that practitioners take very seriously - possibly too seriously sometimes. In the past I have seen people react to a comment about their style/system/founder with the kind of anger you'd expect to see if a member of their family had just been publicly insulted.

Comparing style with style is somewhat pointless (unless you’re talking about the genre of classic kung fu films: my snake fist versus your tiger style etc. etc.) I say this because I think it depends heavily upon:

1. What you personally are trying to achieve through your training, and
2. What's most important to you as an individual

If you're training to be able to defend against anything, you're going to need to know everything, right? Therefore, if you're training to be a well rounded fighter, your selected style would need to encompass punches, blocks, kicks, grappling, throws, chokes, joint locks etc. A single martial art style may not be enough to cover each of these disciplines sufficiently, hence we have the booming mixed martial arts scene.

So what are you trying to achieve?

Do you want to be a fighter?
Do you want to be healthier?
Do you want to be stronger?
Do you want to socialise?
Do you want to be able to defend yourself?
Do you want to have fun?

More importantly, is your training helping you to achieve the things that you want?

Some martial arts serve a niche, while others strive to be all things to all people. I believe Choi Kwang-Do's niche is health, both physical and mental: utilising martial arts training to enable practitioners to lead a more happy, healthy and more productive life. This philosophy is encapsulated in one of Grandmaster Choi’s sayings:

"You may go through life without ever having to use your martial arts skills for self defence, yet good health is important to everyone".

(Similarly, but on a personal note, I enjoy teaching and working towards the personal mastery of performance and the self discipline that requires. I take self defence as a 'by-product' of all the components of the system).

Yes, the biomechanically correct techniques in Choi Kwang-Do have power and practical application. Yes, the Defence Drills and Close Range Drills create scenarios to develop self defence skills. However, the focus on health means that when placed alongside some martial arts, Choi Kwang-Do doesn’t really compare on equal terms.



Choi Kwang-Do may not cover the wide array of combat skills as some martial arts, but it's fluid Patterns and Speed Drills will help to improve your aerobic capacity enabling you to run for the bus without passing out from exhaustion should you actually reach the bus stop in time. Choi Kwang-Do may not teach you how to disarm a knife-welding attacker, but Shield Drills will help to tone your muscles enabling you to do some gardening at the weekend without having to take the rest of the week off from work.

This focus on health is important to note as it underpins a lot of what takes place - or doesn't take place - in a Choi Kwang-Do class, and also the on-going development of the martial art as a whole.

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Jason Wright is a 5th Degree Black Belt and Master Instructor in the martial art Choi Kwang-Do. For further information on Choi Kwang-Do classes in Ealing, West London visit www.TheMartialArtForLife.com

The Meaning Of Self Defence

What do you think of when you hear the term self defence?

- Practising releases from various restraining positions?
- Avoiding dimly lit streets?
- Hitting an attacker and then running away as fast as you can?

Any, if not all of these initial responses could be correct, although in Choi Kwang-Do, I believe the definition to self defence additionally follows two distinct paths:

Firstly, by employing principles of biomechanics, body movements are optimised to create powerful striking techniques while simultaneously reducing the risk of hyper extension damage in the joints.

Small adjustments to techniques can translate to greater output, even for those who are of small or medium build. These techniques are utilised within training drills designed to develop various aspects such as reactions, counter attacks, verbal skills, pre-emptive attacks and releases.

Such drills help to stimulate the central nervous system enabling it to more effectively recruit the muscle fibres required to execute the movements as well as respond with those movements faster.

This definition seems to best fall in line with the initial 'confrontation-based' responses to the definition of self defence.

Secondly, a core objective of Choi Kwang-Do is to employ martial arts training (the movements, combinations, training drills etc.) using the biomechanically designed techniques as a means of serving the well-being of the practitioner.

One example of this is the circular movement of the shoulder joint when punching creates synovial fluid which 'oils' the joint and helps maintain the active range of motion.

Think of this as defence for the self, if you like; protecting your physical and mental health now and in the future by taking moderate and regular exercise through Choi Kwang-Do training today.



I know that there may be some martial arts practitioners that may feel that such views dilute the true essence of martial arts, especially in the ever growing popularity of mixed martial arts and reality based training, but that's exactly the beauty of the martial arts world - there is more than enough choice to cater for everyone's needs and desires.

One could argue that if attacked, martial arts training would come into play to defend yourself. However, if you're never attacked for the whole of your life does that mean that the years spent refining your martial arts skills will have been a waste of your time?

Of course not.

No doubt your will have heard from various sources applauding the benefits of leading an active life, and I'm a strong advocate of martial arts as a stimulating and challenging method to fulfil this need.

If you're not already very active, could you include more activity and exercise in your life? Or to approach the same question from another angle: could you do it if your life depended upon it?

Many would argue that it does.

A few years ago the British Heart Foundation started a campaign called 30 A Day, the objective being to encourage people to take 30 minutes of moderate exercise five days a week which they say can halve the risk of heart disease.

(The good news is that if you're taking 2 Choi Kwang-Do classes per week you're already close to this).

Looking after your heart, whether through Choi Kwang-Do or any other activity, I hope you'll agree is definitely not a waste of your time.

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Jason Wright is a 5th Degree Black Belt and Master Instructor in the martial art Choi Kwang-Do. For further information on Choi Kwang-Do classes in Ealing, West London visit www.TheMartialArtForLife.com

To Spar Or Not To Spar?

Alongside health and personal development, as a martial art Choi Kwang-Do also has a focus on developing self defence skills. Having said that, the fact that learning Choi Kwang-Do does not entail sparring often raises questions (and a fair amount of criticism).

Sparring is commonplace in many martial arts and can take a number of forms. Loosely speaking, sparring defines students engaging in combat with one another for the purpose of training or competition. Some martial arts allow no contact, some light or semi contact, and some full contact. The rules and format of sparring will vary between different martial arts.

The question is: do you believe that you have to practise sparring to be able to defend yourself effectively?

In Choi Kwang-Do we believe the answer is 'no'.

Based on this premise, Choi Kwang-Do Defence Drills comprise of a series of exercises which allow students to practise and develop their self defence skills progressively with another student.

More specifically, the Defence Drills are geared towards developing the confidence and ability of both students in a safe and controlled manner. (Point to note: Choi Kwang-Do Defence Drills are often described as non contact. I prefer to use the term non impact contact: while no contact is intentionally made when striking your partner, contact is obviously made when blocking).

Working in pairs, the Defence Drills start off by introducing basic foot work and dodging (evading an attack). An attacking partner will move in with punching techniques, and a defending partner will move back, begin to read and anticipate body movement prior to an attack, and dodge accordingly.

Then, instead of merely anticipating body movement, the defending student will start to respond by applying blocks to the attacking punches.

In the next stage of Defence Drills this basic conditioning is extended to include defence against combinations of punches and kicks combined with more advanced footwork, eg. angling off.

As the student’s confidence grows during these preliminary exercises, the Defence Drills become more dynamic and move closer towards a ‘real life situation’; a sudden suprise attack.

At this stage the Defence Drills focus on conditioning the student’s reaction to an attack using both defence (blocking, dodging and footwork), and offence (combinations of punching, striking and kicking). Pre emptive striking is also practised.

Visually, certain Drills may bear some resemblance to sparring, but the explanations above hopefully give an indication of how the drills are designed to develop student ability in a structured fashion.

Attempting to develop self defence skills in a highly stressful and competitive environment such as sparring can drastically impair some student’s ability to work with their partner, and the developing student’s opportunity to learn and develop their abilities. Hence, the Defence Drills begin by being cooperative, rather than competitive. However, once foundation skills are in place students work with increased intensity and intent and less cooperation, whilst maintaining the theme of mutual respect.

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Jason Wright is a 5th Degree Black Belt and Master Instructor in the martial art Choi Kwang-Do. For further information on Choi Kwang-Do classes in Ealing, West London visit www.TheMartialArtForLife.com