The Kenpo Karate Years

I walked into a martial arts class in Finglas when I was thirteen years old. Like most teenagers, I was drawn by the idea of being able to handle myself. What I didn’t expect was how completely it would reshape my life. An incredible man and instructor Andy Fitzgerald set th course fo rmy life.

Martial arts gave me discipline, focus, and a sense of what I was capable of. It gave me confidence I didn’t have before. It became the thing I was most passionate about — so much so that it was a key driver in my decision to go to college. The skills I learned on the mat served me well in every area of my life.

I trained for years, grading all the way to second degree black belt. I studied different styles. I absorbed everything I could. I loved this world.

Lessons From a Real-World Dojo

While I was training in the dojo, I was also getting a very different education. I worked in a bar on Sheriff Street in Dublin. The people were great — but the bar had a reputation, and every now and again, chaos would descend.

I witnessed stabbings. Sucker punches out of nowhere. Pint glasses flying across the room. Ridiculous fights that erupted over a game of pool. Violence that was sudden, messy, and nothing like what I’d trained for.

And then I’d go back to my karate dojo.

The contrast was enormous. In the dojo, everything was controlled. You knew what was coming. You had time to prepare. On Sheriff Street, nothing worked like that. The violence was ambush-based, chaotic, fuelled by drink and emotion. The people involved weren’t martial artists — they were unpredictable, and that made them dangerous in ways the dojo never prepared you for.

It taught me a huge lesson: there was a gap between what I was learning in the dojo and what actually happened when things went wrong in the real world. That realisation never left me.

And once I saw that gap, I started seeing another one.

The gap in what was being taught was one problem. But there was a bigger problem: who was being taught at all.

The People Who Were Missing

I’d watch people come into a self-defence class, train for a few weeks or a couple of months, and then leave. They’d come in motivated, wanting to learn to protect themselves. And they’d leave with almost nothing — because the systems we were teaching were designed for people willing to commit years.

The people who arguably needed self-defence most — people without confidence, without physical backgrounds, people who couldn’t or wouldn’t train for years — were falling through the cracks. The long-term students got extraordinary value. Everyone else got a taster that didn’t stick.

What about those people?

Not a criticism of martial arts — I owe them everything. They are designed to be studied over a lifetime, and that long journey is their beauty. But I couldn’t shake the question: if people were taught the right skills, in the right sequence, in a way they could practise and develop — could we massively improve their chances of staying safe, even on a short timeline?

That question would eventually consume my career. But first, life had other plans.