ATHOS ANTONIADES: A FORMIDABLE FORCE
(Limited Edition - May 2003)

As a martial arts enthusiast, I've watched many a movie wishing I could emulate the style, grace and prowess of such stars as Bruce Lee, Jet Li, Jackie Chan, Sammo, Steven Segal and female heroines such as Michelle Yeoh and Zhang Ziyi from the film Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. But making that dream a reality takes many years of hard work and dedication, not to mention finding a martial arts system that's right for you.
Athos Antoniades of Ballards Lane, North Finchley, had been searching for the perfect martial arts system for 20 years, trying various forms, until he finally came up with his own: American Kenpo Taiji - a fusion of American Kenpo and Tai Chi - which has led to him being inducted into the Martial Arts Hall of Fame.

"I got started during the Bruce Lee era when I saw a film and thought, 'I want to be like that'," he said. At this time he decided to enrol in a class and that was it - he was hooked. But his enthusiasm for the martial arts system he chose soon waned when he had this nagging feeling that something was missing. "I remember thinking, 'This isn't what Bruce Lee does in his films'. I was looking for a very effective street fighting system. "Real fighting hs to be based on natural reaction. Most styles are good, but they don't really work on the streets."
So he continued to search trying manymore well known systems, for a couple of years at a time or doing some simultaneously, but that voice of doubt continued to haunt him.

Finally, he decided to go back to the original system he started with and found his old master had completely changed his style to one called Mugendo Kick Boxing. "I loved it," he said. But after a while, a serious knee injury prevented him from being able to continue. So after 16 years of non-stop training, Athos was at a complete loss. It seems, however, that destiny had other intentions for him. A friend suggested he should go and see someone about building up his internal energy. "At the time I didn't know what he was talking about," he admits. But he soon found out.

Unfortunately, after three years that all too familiar feeling of there being something missing returned. He began his search again, delving into theories, practical applications, feeding his thirst for the missing link in his training.

At this time he came across a style called American Kenpo: a very fast fighting style based on a rapid succession of strikes. Once committed, the practitioner sees it through until the opponent is subdued. "I visited the states a few times and trained with the msters, it was a good style but at the same time I continued to study Chi-Kung, my internal martial arts. American Kenpo was excellent but there was still something missing."

Around that time he also discovered Yang Style Tai Chi and this is when the puzzle began to fit together. "So there I was, doing Kenpo and Tai Chi and I suddenly came up with the idea of combining the two."

And this is what he has been concentrating on ever since. "For a fighting system to be effective it has to be based on natural reflex action. Fighting is a subconscious reaction not a logical thing. Maths is logical, one plus one is two, but you never know what's going to happen in a fight."

American Kenpo Taiji uses pressure point (Dim Mak) fighting, which disrupts the person's flow of internal energy (chi). This can have devastating effects on the opponent. It also focuses on the student on learning to switch to what Athos calls the reptilian brain, which is our primal survival instinct. One we share with creatures such as snakes and crocodiles. "In an attack situation I teach people to transform themselves from victim to attacker in an instant, by entering their reptilian brain."

Another focus on his style is what he calls Eagle Vision: a method of locking your energy into that of your attacker so that you can effectively coutner attack. This is unlearning the habit of using focal vision, as we do in everyday life, and learning to switch to a more internal, instinctual mode.

The last major factor of his system is the use of Fa-jing (short range power). "Real fighting is always at close range. I teach my students how to use their internal energy to gain enormous close range power."