Master Davies and the development of Creative Fighting System

My first introduction into martial arts was around the age of 13 where I signed up to a local judo club, I trained there for approximately 2 years and entered a few local tournaments, together at this time I joined a local boxing club to try and gain more skills and to toughen myself up. My grandfather was the main committee person so I could train for free which meant I trained number of nights a week.

One night walking home from my judo class I was attacked by 3 older boys who kindly helped me achieve an overnight stay in hospital. I started to question my ability to defend myself, and so began my search for “real self-defence”.

I started to question my ability to defend myself, and so began my search for “real self-defence”.

I was introduced by a close friend at the time to Shotokan Karate, I loved it and fought in a number of competitions and worked my way up the belt system for 8 years. I had a close bond with the main instructor who after a few years would invite certain students to extra training which was freestyle “free for all” it was awesome, but I always had something nagging at the back of my mind that I was missing something I couldn’t put my finger on it but found to many rules to many different styles and which one suited me.  I then had a few years training spell under a wado- kai karate instructor who had a fearsome reputation, classes consisted of sparring, sparring and more sparring, this instructor is now well into his seventies and still takes a small junior black belt class at my Dojo.

My close friend from Shotokan and wado kai karate would meet at every opportunity we got in my parents garage and train all sorts of stuff (attributes – I now know the term) using bike helmet’s to throw head butts knees and elbows, we would take it to the floor not knowing really what to do (ground game) street defence technique’s (very crude based on experience ) and lots of sparring, the garage was situated behind some local shops on the estate and very often people would bang the garage door and offer us to fight them, we accepted all offers in order to improve our fighting ability, we could try out moves and techniques under pressure, this went on whilst training with any one from any style, we were both hungry to gather as much info as possible.

I also continued to gather as much information on different styles from magazines bought from Cardiff we had nothing locally only books from libraries, there was of course no internet then. I tried to enrol in to a number of schools ie wing chun, aki jitsu, akido but always same answer “years of training before you get to the good stuff as I called it” It was also frowned upon if you trained at other disciplines! this seems bizarre now as cross training is the preferred method.

I came across a local Instructor with a traditional background but had broke off to research his own path, I joined the small class and immediately I felt reborn in the Martial Arts, there was no real base but I was introduced to Filipino styles, such as stick training, different forms of boxing functional kicks, Thai boxing technique’s to name a few, the instructor also talked about Jeet kune do and its attributes within training, I started to research deeper and found Martial Artists such as Paul Vunak, Bob Breen, Geoff Thompson, Rick Young, Pat O’Malley and loads more, these artists seem to have a complete art but one that worked for the individual if you put in the time and work the research seemed endless, finally my direction was becoming clearer and I began to see where I wanted to take my own path in Martial Arts.

 A selected few from the club started saving money and traveling to train full weekends with some of the above teachers. I started to have the self-belief that I could develop my own system so I started to put it down on paper, training with any one from any style in order to pressure and test my techniques and see which ones were useful and developed theses more.

 So was born a crude version of “creative fighting system “

Personal circumstances ended up with me working the doors, not a decision I wanted to take, but it proved to be invaluable in pressure testing my techniques and the close friendships I made still exist today. Over the next number of years I continued to develop a complete system and realised that if I wanted to teach this new system It would need recognition from an established organisation, so the search was on for an organisation that would give me a chance to prove my system was a serious Martial Art.

 I tried a few organisations who understandable were dubious, one such organisation which fitted my system closely were very accepting but at the time did not feel trapping and sensitivity were valid fighting elements, as this was a large part of my system I continued my research, then one organisation took an interest and invited me to their headquarters in Sheffield, The British Freestyle Karate Kickboxing Organisation (BFKKO).

From the first day I felt I was not judged on who was my instructor, his instructor and so on, I done a number of demos and courses and meetings over the next few years, then I was invited to do a black belt grading in my system to which I wrote and presented it to the panel and then graded me in my own Martial Art which I successfully passed. I have been with this organisation for 30 years gaining my 7th Dan and masters under chief instructor and founder Cris Janson Piers. We remain close friends today and I will always have total respect for him giving me the opportunity.

I have taught large classes in kickboxing for 30 years plus and had a number of British champions under Creative kickboxing, both junior and senior, but my passion and research for teaching Creative Fighting System remain top of the list today. The system teaches punching, kicking , grappling and weapons from a number of martial arts, research is made so much easier today with internet but to be truthful I no longer need to acquire more new technique’s as I feel I am at the stage where developing all the attributes within CFS will keep me busy the rest of my life.

 A couple of years ago I finally forwarded on responsibility of all kickboxing classes to a former student, who runs a successful martial arts gym.

Today I have a small well equipped Dojo which I teach full contact kickboxing on a one to one basis but my lessons mainly are one to ones and are in Creative Fighting System.    

I have taught large classes in kickboxing for 30 years and had a number of British champions under Creative kickboxing.