About Christopher Allen, Chief Instructor
Welcome to Tring Martial Arts, my name is Christopher Allen, and I am a full time professional martial arts instructor. A student recently suggested that my background in martial arts training would be a great motivator for new and existing students. So I will try to describe my journey in the martial arts so far. If you would like more detailed information about my experiences however, please feel free to discuss it with me after your next class.
The early years - I was born in Cornwall in 1975 and have been passionate about martial arts since joining my local judo club at the age of 9. Originally, my parents got me into the martial arts as a way of giving me self confidence and the ability to defend myself against bullying. Throughout my childhood, it is fair to say that I was the victim of bullies, for no other particular reason than being a tall, lanky child without much self confidence. I can honestly reassure any parent reading this that in my own personal circumstances martial arts helped me gain an incredible amount of self confidence as I knew that I could defend myself if I really needed to, but one of the most important tenets of martial arts is self control - I had the discipline to not use my skills unless it was for self defence.
My Judo sensei was an inspiration to me, and I committed myself to training in the style of Judo from 9 until the age of 17, achieving a 1st degree three days before my 17th birthday. Typically, as most teenagers do, I became interested in other activities and whilst I left the martial arts training in 1992, I still maintained my interest and passion for it. - I do not teach Judo, but some of its techniques do feature in my instruction in Kickboxing and Krav.
Kickboxing - In 1999 I left Cornwall to pursue my career in sales and marketing, and moved to Hertfordshire  where my interest in martial arts was renewed under a local sensei called Richard Farmer who taught Freestyle Kickboxing. After 6 years of training (normally between 3 to 4 classes per week) I qualified to Black Belt 1st degree in Freestyle Kickboxing, on 3rd April 2005.
On the 15th July 2005, I started Tring Martial Arts as a once a week class held at the Red Cross Hall.
Throughout the rest of 2005, 2006 and 2007 I continued to train, compete and instruct at TMA, qualifying to 2nd degree in Freestyle Kickboxing on 18th March 2007.
Shortly after this grading, I sadly left Richard's organisation and the WUMA association for professional reasons. After a short spell being affiliated to a number of other associations, I finally joined a not-for-profit association called the Guild of Independent Martial Artists, where all grades are ratified and recorded.
In September 2007, I left my full time employment to set up UK Martial Arts Ltd, as a martial arts training company. On 29th May 2010, I achieved my 3rd degree black belt at a grading panel organised by Master James Latus of Kernow Martial Arts, who is a good friend and colleague, but after 6 hours of grading and no end in sight I started to question just how much I liked this man, thankfully my grading was completed after a further 1 hour of hard work. I am excitedly waiting to take my 4th degree hopefully in 2014.
T'ai Chi Ch'uan & Oriental Martial Arts, I first met sensei Jon Alexander from the National Council for Oriental Martial Arts and Zen Shin Budo Kai in late 2003, when I organised to travel to his home in Cornwall to train with him in Tai Chi. I trained with Jon on a personal basis from 9am until 4pm daily for 7 days, after which I returned home (knackered!) to practice the Yang 24 Form which he had taught me. I continued to practice the form on my own and in several more private sessions with Jon, eventually I returned on 17th June 2005 to take my 1st degree black belt and instructor qualifications.
 Since 2005, I have been teaching the Yang 24 Form, sometimes known as the Peking or Bejing Style and have had the pleasure in transmitting the benefits of this wonderful martial art to many, many students.
Throughout the period between 2005 and 2008 I returned to train with Jon many times and each time found his teaching to be very motivational and of the highest quality. In 2009 Jon suprised me with a promotion to the rank of 5th Degree Black Belt in Tai Chi and and bestowed an honorary title of Master (6th Degree) in Oriental Martial Arts. Jon felt that my dedication to the one form and to my efforts to promote martial arts training in general needed to be recognised. I am still to this day incredibly honoured and proud to be recognised for my efforts in this way and to have met such as inspirational sensei.
 On March 28th, 2010 I travelled to Leeds to meet and train with Master Wang Xun of Zengzhou, Henan Province who was leading a seminar on the Yang Long Form and Yang Sword Form, I learnt a great deal from Master Wang who helped me to understand more about my existing knowledge and validating my own training with Jon. He was a very generous instructor, giving as much information and assistance as he could. I found the seminar to be highly motivational and I apply his advice in my daily practice of the Yang 24 Form.
Krav Maga
In 2006, I attended a training seminar with a visiting Krav Maga expert called Amnon Maor, of the Maor Self Defence Institute Israel. Like many practicing martial artists, I felt that I was lacking experience in reality based self defence and yearned for the opportunity to learn. The day long seminar was an amazing experience and something of a wake-up call, it made me realise that some of the skills I had learnt along the way weren't going to cut it on the street, so I set out to find a way to learn Krav Maga and to apply the skills in my own classes. 
On 26th October 2008, I attended a week long instructor course with Moni Aizik of Commando Krav Maga. The course was very intensive and at the end of it, I was awarded a Level 2 instructor qualification and set about running my own classes using Moni's progressive system.
 In 2009, I chose not to renew my membership to Commando Krav Maga. Instead, I decided to form an independant club utilising our own syllabus called Krav Maga Concepts™ which incorporates my existing knowledge with skills from other martial arts such as Judo, Systema, Kali and Kickboxing. Our syllabus makes no claims to have been taught to military personnel, instead it seeks to provide skills to defend against the most common forms of violence and crime that students may face on the streets.
Krav Maga Concepts™ approaches each self defence scenario with the simplest and most direct solution, only 25% of our training is within the dojo, we practice our skills in urban areas such as streets, car parks, night clubs and utilise other "greener" areas such as fields, tow paths and woodland. Krav Concepts strives to provide 100% reality based scenarios and these aren't often found in nice warm dojo's.
Christopher Allen, 26th August 2010.
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