Zen Do Kai Martial Arts

“The Best of Everything in Progression”

Zen Do Kai was founded by Bob Jones and Richard Norton , when they left the dojo of Japanese karate Gōjū Kai of Tino Ceberano in 1970.

It has evolved from adding the principles and techniques of many martial arts disciplines together with the strong Bob Jones fighting tradition to form a modern, effective and comprehensive self defence system.

Bob Jones describes Zen Do Kai as an ” open system “, and as such it is “open to influences and ideas from around the World “, which encompasses elements of boxing , sockets, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu , Eskrima , Judo , Karate and Muay Thai . Zen Do Kai means, “The best of everything in progression” and includes techniques of self-defense and kata .

We must always be guided by a thirst for knowledge, understanding and meaning to the things we do and those things that have been handed down to us from previous generations.

Using modern self defence principles with traditional values, we seek to improve the system, improve ourselves and to be aware of creating the opportunities for the individuals within our organisation to achieve their personal best. We are proud, not only of our system, but of the many thousands of students that have developed from it. Train in Zen Do Kai and we are sure you will find the experience fulfilling, exciting and most of all …. enjoyable

It is distinguished from many forms of traditional karate because it allows the use of various techniques used by practitioners of kickboxing Thai.

The philosophy of discipline embraces the principle “if it works, you use” and as such it contains elements of various other martial arts.

For over 45 Years, Zen Do Kai has been taught to thousands of people from all walks of life with Bob Jones Clubs (BJC) represented worldwide.

BJC Muay Thai

BJC MUAY THAI™ is one of the fastest and easiest sports to learn in the world.

With that in mind the syllabus has been structured and formatted in such a way to provide a gradual progression through the 5 colour singlets (i.e.Yellow, Orange, Blue, Green & Brown) before the student attains their Black singlet.

As well as self-defence minded students, the system will also encourage many to take on their training for the purpose of competition. The skills training has been refined emphasing the system’s unique footwork and explosive power.

Body conditioning is a major necessity for the potential competitor and the addition of the Gladiator plyometrics routine has become both a training drill and tested requirement.

Muay Thai Origins

Muay Thai which originates from Thailand, was used in warfare as a means of self defence and eventually became the national sport. Passed down orally and through demonstration from family to family, early accounts of contests date back to the 1700’s.

During the reign of King Pra Chao Sua (the Tiger King) Thai boxing gained a great impetus as he was a keen fan and Thai boxing champion in his own right. He traveled to village fairs incognito to fight local champions and no one realised who he was. In those days gloves were fashioned out of hemp rope.

In Thai boxing, unlike other martial arts, the fighters learn to kick with their shins and to aid this the shins are deliberately toughened by kicking heavy bags, or if you believe the movies, palm trees! Thai’s are devout Buddhists and naturally incorporate their beliefs and rituals into all parts of life including Muay Thai.

When entering the ring, Thai boxers carry a talisman within a cord which is tied around the arm or a crown, worn around the head. This is the property of the teacher and as such, is considered sacred.

Each year several senior BJC MUAY THAI™ instructors and students travel to Thailand for a two week training camp. By training closely with the Thai teachers our own instructors continue to develop their personal skills and experience to the benefit of all BJC MUAY THAI™ students.

Mixed Martial Arts (MMA)

Mixed martial arts (MMA) is a full-contact combat sport that allows the use of both striking and grappling techniques, both standing and on the ground, from a variety of other combat sports and martial arts.

Various mixed-style contests took place throughout Europe, Japan and the Pacific Rim during the early 1900s. In 1980 CV Productions, Inc. created the first regulated MMA league in the United States named Tough Guy Contest, later renamed Battle of the Superfighters, sanctioning ten tournaments inPennsylvania. However, in 1983 the Pennsylvania State Senate passed a bill prohibiting the sport. The combat sport of vale tudo that had developed in Brazil from the 1920s was brought to the United States by the Gracie family in 1993 with the founding of theUltimate Fighting Championship (UFC).

The first documented use of the name mixed martial arts was in a review of UFC 1 by television critic Howard Rosenberg, in 1993. The term gained popularity when the website newfullcontact.com, then one of the largest covering the sport, hosted and reprinted the article. The question of who actually coined the term is subject to debate.

Originally promoted as a competition with the intention of finding the most effective martial arts for real unarmed combat situations, competitors were pitted against one another with few rules. Later, fighters employed multiple martial arts into their style whilst promoters were pressured to adopt additional rules aimed at increasing safety for competitors, to meet compliance and regulation and to promote mainstream acceptance of the sport.

Following these changes, the sport has seen increased popularity with a pay-per-view business that rivals boxing and professional wrestling.

BJC Kidz Karate

As the name suggests, BJC Kidz Karate was developed specifically for younger children, with the intentions of not only providing kids with an outlet to learn self defence methods and gain fitness, but so they can also have some fun!

The aims & objectives of the Zen Do Kai Kidz Karate Program are to develop:

• Basic Martial Arts Based Training
• Basic Self Defence Skills
• A Healthy Attitude to Sport
• A Healthy Attitude Towards Self
• Basic Motor Skills
• Group Socialization
• Co-operation with Others
• Basic Discipline
• But most of all to have fun!

Krav Maga

Krav Maga /krɑːv məˈɡɑː/ (Hebrew: קְרַב מַגָּע [ˈkʁav maˈɡa], lit. “contact combat”) is a self-defense system developed for the military in Israel that consists of a wide combination of techniques sourced from Aikido, Judo, boxing and wrestling along with realistic fight training.

Krav Maga is known for its focus on real-world situations and its extremely efficient and brutal counter-attacks.

It was derived from street-fighting skills developed by Hungarian-Israeli martial artist Imi Lichtenfeld, who made use of his training as a boxer and wrestler as a means of defending the Jewish quarter against fascist groups in Bratislava, Czechoslovakia in the mid-to-late 1930s. In the late 1940s, following his immigration to Israel, he began to provide lessons on combat training to what was to become the IDF, who went on to develop the system that became known as Krav Maga. It has since been refined for civilian, police and military applications.

Krav Maga has a philosophy emphasising threat neutralisation, simultaneous defensive and offensive manoeuvres, and aggression. Krav Maga has been used mainly by Israeli Defense Forces, special units and reconnaissance brigades and recently by regular infantry brigades, and several closely related variations have been developed and adopted by law enforcement and intelligence organisations, Mossad and Shin Bet.

The name in Hebrew can be translated as “contact combat”. The root word krav (קרב) means “combat” and maga (מגע) means “contact”.

Krav Maga encourages students to avoid confrontation. If this is impossible or unsafe, it promotes finishing a fight as quickly as possible. Attacks are aimed at the most vulnerable parts of the body, and training is not limited to techniques that avoid severe injury; some even permanently injure or cause death to the opponent. Drills provide maximum safety to students by the use of protective equipment and the use of reasonable force.

Students learn to defend against all variety of attacks and are taught to counter in the quickest and most efficient way.

Ideas in Krav Maga include:

• Counterattacking as soon as possible (or attacking pre-emptively).
• Targeting attacks to the body’s most vulnerable points, such as: the eyes, neck or throat, face, solar plexus, groin, ribs, knee, foot, fingers, etc.
• Maximum effectiveness and efficiency in order to neutralise the opponent as quickly as possible.
• Maintaining awareness of surroundings while dealing with the threat in order to look for escape routes, further attackers, objects that could be used to defend or help attack, and so on.
• Training can also cover situational awareness to develop an understanding of one’s surroundings, learning to understand the psychology of a street confrontation, and identifying potential threats before an attack occurs.
• It may also cover ways to deal with physical and verbal methods to avoid violence whenever possible.

Stick Fighting

Stick-fighting is a generic term for martial arts which use simple long slender, blunt, hand-held, generally wooden ‘sticks’ for fighting; such as a staff, cane, walking stick, baton or similar. Some techniques can also be used with a sturdy umbrella or even a sword in its scabbard.

Thicker and/or heavier blunt weapons such as clubs or the mace are outside the scope of “stick-fighting” (since they cannot be wielded with such precision, so sheer force of impact is more important), as are more formed weapons such as the taiaha used by the Māori of New Zealand, and the macuahuitl of Aztec warfare.

Although many systems are defensive combat techniques intended for use if attacked while lightly armed, others such as kendo, modern arnis and gatka were developed as safe training methods for dangerous weapons. Whatever their history, many stick-fighting techniques lend themselves to being treated as sports.

In addition to systems specifically devoted to stick-fighting, certain other disciplines include it, either in its own right, as in the Tamil martial art silambam, or merely as part of a polyvalent training including other weapons and/or bare handed fighting, as in Kerala’s kalaripayat tradition, where these wooden weapons serve as preliminary training before practice of the more dangerous metal weapons.

Styles

Stick-fights between individuals or large gatherings between sub-tribes where men fight duels are an important part of the anthropological heritage of various cultures, especially tribes such as the Surma people of Ethiopia, where donga stick-fighting is an important cultural practice and the best means of showing off to look for a bride, nude or nearly so, and their more warlike neighbors, the Nyangatom people, who fight duels bare-chested, the aim being to inflict visible stripes on the back of the adversary, using not plain staffs but sticks with a flexible, whipping tail-end.

Traditional European systems of stick-fighting included a wide variety of methods of quarterstaff combat, which were detailed in numerous manuscripts written by masters-at-arms. Many of these methods became extinct but others adapted and survived as folk-sports and self-defence systems.

Examples include Portugal’s jogo do pau, the related juego del palo of the Canary Islands, France’s canne de combat or la canne, and Italy’s scherma di bastone. Giuseppe Cerri’s 1854 manual Trattato teorico e pratico della scherma di bastone is influenced by masters of the Italian school of swordsmanship, Achille Marozzo and perhaps Francesco Alfieri.

The French system of la canne is still practised as a competitive sport. A self-defence adaptation of la canne developed by Swiss master-at-arms Pierre Vigny in the early 1900s has been revived as part of the curriculum of bartitsu.

Nivkh people from Sakhalin used long sticks called z’ar t’ar for sacralized ritual fighting.

In the US during the early years of the 1900s, fencer and self-defence specialist A. C. Cunningham developed a unique system of stick-fighting using a walking stick or umbrella, which he recorded in his book The Cane as a Weapon.

Singlestick was developed as a method of training in the use of backswords such as the cavalry sabre and naval cutlass. It was a popular pastime in the UK from the 18th to the early 20th century, and was a fencing event at the 1904 Summer Olympics.

Although interest in the art declined, a few fencing coaches continued to train with the stick and competitions in this style of stick-fighting was reintroduced into the Royal Navy in the 1980s by commander Locker Madden.

Sticks and staves of various sizes are common weapons in Asian martial arts, in which they vary in design, size, weight, materials and methodology, and are often used interchangeably and alongside open-hand techniques. For example, eskrima, of the Philippines uses sticks traditionally crafted from rattan or from butterfruit tree and may be wielded singly or as a pair.