SPACe closes for four weeks over the summer for College student registration. We will be moving for the period 23rd August until 16th September to St Monica’s Catholic School on the corner of Hoxton Square and Hoxton street. Times and classes will be as usual so there’ll be no change other than the venue being a hundred metres away. This should give us the chance to revisit after training drinks in Paul Daly’s Zigfrid bar. Ideal on a summer night. I’ll post a picture and small map if you need one. The entrance is in Hoxton square. As it’s the summer classes should be small so it will give me a chance to spend more time with you individually. See you there.

Welcome to our new website. We hope you like it.

This is part of an Academy reboot over the coming months with more articles, more pics, more video and more training tips.

In club we’ll be doing a curriculum reboot to make it more functional, easier to learn, and more fun for you. Plus a cooler season of hot competitions. Standup, Stick and more.

This new integrated total combat system will also be taught at the  BIG (Breen Instructor Group) seminars.

Keep looking, Keep training hard. Keep in touch, Keep up!

There will be a grading for senior grades-green belt plus on Thursday the 22nd of July. There will only be one open training class that evening. The class will be from 6.30-7.30 and the grading from 7.30 until 10.00. Apologies for any inconvenience, normal training on the other days that week. If you’re a junior grade or haven’t graded why not come along and watch.

It’s with regret that we’ve said goodbye to Jamie Hutchins one of our senior Black belts who’s off to a senior publishing job in New York . Does this mean that Jamie will forget the Academy? I doubt that, hopefully he’s an initial outpost in the U.S. Above all we wish him well.

However the tentacles of the Academy reach a long way. Jamie is training at ‘Five points fitness’ a great Thai boxing and Kali centre in Manhattan which is surprise, surprise, owned by a close friend of mine Simon Burgess, a Brit, who was also Academy trained and part of the team we took to the first World Championship in the Philippines in 1989. This was an all academy team and we bashed everyone.

Simon is a leading Thai boxing promoter so there’ll be plenty of hard training. Additionally, Barry Danelian another close friend, a real warrior and expert in Pekiti Tersia Kali, Thai boxing ( and one of the Worlds leading trumpet players ) will also be on hand to give Jamie similar treatment to that he’s received here plus he’s big so the Bear will have another Bear to play with.

I’ve asked them both to be tough but fair, but if it comes to it to forget the fair part. I’ll personally miss the Bear greatly as will the kids he’s helped teach over the years and his training partners through the years. It’s always been challenging sparring or training with him and we’ll be lesser in many ways, but maybe less bruised. We wish him well.

This coming Sunday it’s Filipino Boxing day. No, not like a special day after Christmas, rather it’s a day training in the art of Filipino Boxing. This is a form of dirty street boxing often called panantukan. An incredible art where clinch methods, punches, elbows, chops and finger jabs link in with unbalancing, tripping and throwing. It’s a total no rules approach to MMA. If you can think of it it’s probably in this devastating mix. We’ll cover the basics so it’s good for beginners but also lots there for even the most advanced instructor to mull over. As always we’ll take it one step at a time and build your capability over the course of the day. Good for any student of the martial arts no matter what style this really is a unique approach to combat and is very street/ reality based. Guaranteed to add to your martial arts toolkit it’s a fun day. I look forwards to seeing you all.

I got to go along to the Filipino Martial arts festival this Sunday. Apparently I was booked to teach but they’d neglected to tell me!. So my class was taken by old academy hand Master Pat O’Malley. This Festival is really unique. It’s rare for a group of Filipino Instructors to all come together in a spirit of harmony. Originally set up by Pat and Lucy O’Malley all the proceeds go to charity whilst everyone has a great day.

Though everyone thinks their style is the best we all get along and are old friends having fought plenty of battles along the way. It’s a great day for students as you get to see Masters of differing arts show their stuff. You get to see the similarities and also the unique differences that make Filipino Martial arts so interesting.

Many of the instructors (Pat O’Malley, Simon Wells, Shamin Meenal) to name a few were old Academy black belts or seniors and now masters of their arts showing what an impact on Filipino Martial arts we’ve had over the years. I got to meet Jay Dobrin, the person who introduced me to Eskrima and Brian Jones who was a senior in that initial group. I spent most of the day talking to Simon Wells and Pat O’Malley old academy black belts who’d fought with me in the early days of stick competition. I’d forced them to learn stick initially but they are both now masters of their art. For me it’s great to go back and learn from them and others what they’ve picked up on the journey. I had a great day where I got to see lots of old friends. We’ll be there as a club next year and I’m booked to teach. This time they’ll notify me.

Guys I’ve postponed the senior grading for a few weeks. I will be putting on special classes for seniors to practice all the grading techniques. Apologies if you’re inconvenienced. See you all in the class tomorrow.

Understanding knife fighting helps your empty handed defence as many of the techniques and concepts are similar and you get to understand the knife from an attackers viewpoint. If you want to be a great Martial artist I think the knife is an essential way for you to learn principles that would take much longer only doing empty hands.

For those who came to the knife class here’s a reminder on what we covered. We did a number of counters from a running or lunging attack at the mid section or upper chest.

First we scooped or ripped with the knife in Icepick grip against the thrust in hammer grip. This is often called Palusut. A good way to think of this and get over the language block is to think of it as pala-scoop. We did this and initially followed with a descending pick thrust to the arm then did it with both a slash to the biceps when on top and a slash to the gut if under his arm. Both of these were followed by a stab to the kidneys. Important in both of these is you have to use the other hand to stop the opponents knife coming back online or you have to use your own arm (which has the knife) to ward it off whilst you slash.

We then covered Panastas or slashing counter attack. Think of this as pana-slash and it sticks in the mind easier. We did this to the biceps, lower arm or neck depending on timing and distance. Important here is to tuck your body and post on his arm with your left arm so his arc of attack is changed.

Finally, we covered Segun where you block his attack with the blade of your knife-this we then rolled as if stuck in the bone and slashed either below or above the arm as above.

In the class we covered disarms from this flow drill afterwards and a number of key points. Knife class is every thursday. Hope to see you there next week where we’ll be covering the same thing in great depth and putting both the techniques and principles into your fight DNA.

The recent Grading went really well with students taking belts up to green. The standard was really high with a number of people passing with distinction and getting a first class pass. A couple even jumped a grade they did that well. Many thanks to all who took part for their determination and hard work. I know a few had bad nerves but it didn’t show that much on the night. In the sparring you could really see how the training is working well with lots of the students exhibiting advanced techniques and concepts. Now for the senior grades- can they do as well? Senior Grading and catch up grades on Thursday the third of June. I’ll be covering the syllabus strongly in the classes from Tuesday the 27th of April. We’ll also continue with the sparring practice that we’ve been doing so make sure you bring pads so you don’t get knocks and lumps.