Kru John Barwell

I started my life in martial arts at 6 years old. My Mum and Dad took me to a local Ju Jitsu club. I trained there for around 1 year. However my Mum decided to take me out, as I started to get into trouble at school and became some what of a bully. A few years passed and my yarning to do some kind of sport grew stronger, therefore I joined a swimming club. We used to train a couple of times a week, but there was something missing. Subsequently I joined a Tae Kwon Do class where I trained for 3 years. However my swimming took over and I gave up Tae Kwon Do. A couple of years later I was having some problems at school in the form of bullying, which lead me to join Master Sken to learn Muay Thai.

I started with Master Sken when I was 15 years old and I have never looked back. Muay Thai has helped me in many aspects of my life including self-confidence, self control and respect. I started to teach under Master Sken at the age of 16-17. This was somewhat as a challenge, because I was teaching individuals much older than me. However my natural ability shone through and I won over a lot of my elder students. I have now trained and taught under Master Sken for over 12 years.

I have had a number of fights both in the ring and on the street. Some I have won some I have lost. However every encounter I have always took something away from it and it has made me a better martial artist and person. I now teach under Master Sken at his headquarters twice a week. A few years previous I damaged the Anterior Cruciate Ligament in my knee, which caused me all kinds of problems due to mis-diagnosis from Doctors. Finally after a proper diagnosis from a doctor I had to under go surgery, which took me out for about 1 ½ years. After surgery I lost some of my ability and I had to rely more on my explanation of teaching rather than the physical demonstrations.

The reason for this article is now I would like to pass my knowledge of Muay Thai on to individuals who are interested in Muay Thai. The majority of individual s in the UK train Muay Thai for self defence and keep fit. I would say 5% of the participants are training for fighting. This leads me to focus our teaching more towards self defence and keep fit. However due to my old ways of training I still have the tendency of dipping into my fighting experience.

I would now like to take the opportunity to pass my knowledge on to you. In future articles I will explain about basic technique (mai mae) to more complicate techniques. I will endeavour to explain the theory behind the point I put forward and will incorporate examples and history to re-enforce our teachings.