Athos' Principles of American Kenpo
(IRISH FIGHTER January 1999)

ATHOS ANTONIADES is chief instructor of the National Kenpo Karate Association (NKKA), and is - surprisingly as it may seem - the only American Kenpo instructor in London. "I find it incredible that my art is one of the most popular in the United States, and is also huge in Ireland, but its very thin on the ground here in England," Antoniades told me. "I suppose you could say that I'm on a mission to spread Kenpo in England and thankfully I'm having tremendous success in London where I have three very successful clubs."

Antoniades was sent a copy of Irish Fighter by a friend who lives in Dublin and he couldn't believe the amount of kenpo covarage in it. "Yes, I was amazed when I'd seen your magazine which featured so many different kenpo bodies. Its a very different situation here in London," the 3rd dan black belt said.

Antoniades also gets his fair share of publicity in the British martial arts magazines. "The fact that I'm the only Kenpo teacher in london has aroused the interest of English publications," he said.

It was through one such feature that he was recently approached by a British film maker, Red Moon Productions, to appear in their movie, 'Ashes to Ashes'. As well as appearingin the film Antoniades ended up choreographing most of the fight scenes which he credits to Kenpo's 'flashy' but effective techniques. "I was sitting one day waiting to go on set when the director asked my opinion on a particular fight scene," he said. " demonstrated the techniques 'Evading the Storm' and 'Flashing Mace' and that was it. It worked so well that amazingly I was promoted to fight co-ordinator as well," Antoniades said.

He enjoyed working on the film so much that when it was finnished he wrong his own story line and produced his own 'short' Kenpo action packed film called 'The Chase'. "It's loosely based on an experience I once had involving a group of thugs attempting to abduct a group of young girls," he explained.

It had always been his intention to produce a series of Kenpo training tapes, so he uniquely combined 'The Chase' with his first video production, 'Principles of American Kenpo'. "My Principles' tape covers power, speed, distance, 'no mind', peripheral vision etc.!, Antoniades said. "Kenpo is refered to as the scientific art of self defence which is based, not only on tradition, but on the laws of physics and geometry. This makes it one of the most practical self defence arts around."