Personal Safety Advisor John Titchen
I specialise in delivering personal safety training and writing about self protection and martial arts.
I began my martial arts training in Shotokan Karate. Early cross-training in Steelwire Mantis and years of Aikido training whet my appetite for personal study. I wanted to explore personal safety, self defence and karate in greater depth. I was awarded my first black belt in Shotokan Karate in 1995 by Shihan Roger Hall. I’m lucky to have had the opportunity to cross-train with many great teachers. I have been influenced by a wide range of great subject matter specialists in diverse fields in different countries.
My teaching draws together personal and professional experience of aggressive and violent situations alongside concepts drawn from the written works of some of the other leading authorities in the field. I use insights from law enforcement alongside research of the regular reports produced by agencies like the UK Home Office, the VSRG, and the FBI.
With over twenty five years of experience of teaching in the field of martial arts and self protection I’ve had the privilege of teaching in the UK, the USA, Canada and Europe.
Books and Blog
I have been humbled by the popularity of my books across North and South America, the UK, Europe, India and Japan. I am a former regular columnist for Traditional Karate Magazine (2005-8) and the ezine Jissen. I’ve also featured in interviews with Combat Magazine (2005) and Martial Arts Planet. I now write personal safety and karate articles on my own blog.
Written in 2004, I published my first book Heian Flow System: effective karate kata bunkai in 2007. Between 2014 and 2015 I published my best-selling four-book series Pinan Flow System: karate kata application for beginner to black belt. I then published Karate and Self Defence – Selected Articles in 2016. I am one of the guest writers in The Problem of Practical Karate (2018). In 2020 I published Karate Beyond Kata – melting ice into water and I also contributed to the ebook Rules for Success in Karate. I currently have further books under development and will be focusing more on personal safety advice.
Seminars
I used to focus on using my experience and decades of research on personal safety to deliver courses for older teenagers. They are one of the most affected groups in society. In 2008 I began running Scenario Training for martial artists, medical and security professionals, law enforcement and military personnel. I continue to travel internationally to deliver seminars on personal safety and practical karate for self defence.
My emphasis is on providing safe and effective training that enables people to avoid, deter, negate and escape aggressive and violent situations. In addition to practical experience I hold a broad range of professional qualifications which underpin my approach to teaching.
Classes
In my regular classes in High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, I teach two different training approaches. These are Kyohan Shotokan and DART (Defence Attack and Resolution Tactics).
DART a personal safety system that is continuously developing. It applies research into violent crime, psychology, the law, and sports science to pressure tested karate.
The Shotokan I teach is a hybrid of my interpretation of founder Gichin Funakoshi’s teaching and my own training perspectives. In my Kyohan Shotokan Karate curriculum I mainly focus on teaching my Pinan Flow System alongside approaches to Tekki.
I see my approaches to Shotokan and DART as different criss-crossing routes up the same mountain. I’m a strong believer in developing people through alive training and I am happy to teach anyone looking to improve.
Discover your limits. Then change them.