Curtis Harvey

My interest in martial arts and particularly Bruce Lee started at a young age. I was lucky enough to be born during a time when martial arts were at their hayday with the immergance of Bruce Lee and the Hong Kong/American cinema partnerships. From 5 or 6 years old I enjoyed watching pirated Bruce Lee films such as Big Boss and Way of the Dragon that my grandparents bought back from various holidays abroad.

My interest continued through my teenage years along with a keen interest for kung fu films and cinema. I ammassed a huge collection of films and regularly visited festivals across the UK to further expnad my collection.

This interest in kung fu cinema spurred me on to begin training in martial arts, inparticular Shaolin Style Gung Fu. I sought out my local club in that style. I joined Alfreton Gung Fu Club in 2000 under the tutorage of Mic Clark. Advertised as Shaolin Style Gung Fu the class was based around the Lau Gar style and encorporated traditional drills, sets and weapons training. My traditional training continued and I expanded it to two classes a week, one at Alfreton and one at Selston, a total of 4 hours training a week. In 2001 I achieved my first grade and continued training until, almost 5 years to the day, in December 2005 I was awarded my Black Sash with Merit.

Alongside my traditional training i also undertook various self protection and reality training including seminars with Peter Consterdine, Geoff Thompson, Mo Teague, Vince McMann, Dennis MArtin, Bob Breen, Trevor Roberts and Ian Abernathy.

I continued my self protection training under Mic Clark and Mo Teague, attaining instructor level under the World Combat Arts Functional JKD group in 2007. This led to running the Midlands World Combat Arts school for 2 years before developing my own class structure and forming the martial arts fitness group JKD Gym in 2009.

My training has taken me all over europe and to America including Florida and LA where i trained at the IMB Instructors conferance. I planned and organised the innaugral European estival of Martial Arts at Disneyland Resort Paris in 2008 which had over 1000 competitiors and work closely with Disney, Fighters Inc, SENI and O2 in the development of martial arts events and marketing.

I now train four times a week and run a weekly class under the flag of JKD Gym teaching my own syllabus, and a traditional Jun Fan JKD class alongside my good friend Mic Clark under the IMB Academy (LA) syllabus.