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“Martial arts has always been Tahir’s passion. At the age of 11, he started his martial arts journey like most people did back then with Karate and quickly became to be known in his school as the ‘Karate Kid’. After achieving his Brown Belt in Karate and at the age of 17, he moved back to the UK to live in Aldershot, also known as the Home of the British Army, where one weekend he found himself up against a 6 foot tall soldier in a real street fight.

“Although Tahir was able to hold his ground and the fight was eventually broken off, he quickly came to the realisation that his Karate skills were simply ineffective in a real life street fight. This was a bit of a wakeup call for Tahir and it put him in a bit of a dilemma because he was only a year away from achieving his Black Belt in Karate but he could not ignore the blatant truth that the real purpose of learning a martial art was not for a belt or some ego trip but rather to learn how to ‘effectively’ defend oneself and one’s loved ones. Sure achieving his Black Belt would be another achievement to add to his CV but Tahir just could not find any sense in spending more time in learning something which would not help him for real street defence.

“So without any hesitation he left Karate in search for something more street effective and found Muay Thai (Thai-boxing). He trained for over 11 years with a British Champion at the time and started to even get into a little ground fighting and MMA towards the end. But he then found himself once again questioning the effectiveness of these new skills for real combat. Yes this was all great for the ring or in a competition setting, but it still lacked real effectiveness where it truly mattered i.e. on the street and in real life scenarios. And so began again his search for even more realistic fighting methods.

“Looking into and trying various other styles, his search eventually led him to ‘Defence Lab’ and being so impressed by its teachings, he knew that he had finally found what he was after for all these years. So much was his belief in this new and ever evolving fighting method that he even decided to leave his consultancy business to become a full-time Lead Instructor for ‘Defence Lab’.

Tahir is now part of Defence Lab’s elite Team Storm . . .“

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