Welcome to the Tora Black Belt Academy
Martial Arts & Kickboxing Website

Sensei Simon Hengle Chief Instructor & Founder of Tora Black Belt Academy

8th Dan KickBoxing Trainer of Champions

Martial Art Acheivements:

• ++ WKA gold bar Instructor
• ++ Master Toddy recognised Thai Boxing instructor
• ++ 1999 World Championship Kickboxing Squad Coach
• ++ 3rd Dan in Karate
• ++ 1st Degree in Taekwondo
  
  Simon's full bio:

Simon started his Martial Arts training in 1968 when he was just 10 years old and attended boarding school in West Sussex.
Part of Simons boarding school education included basic military training. Many of Simon teachers were ex-British Army officers who had seen action in the Second World War and Malaya etc. Most of them had also served in various regiments, such as the South African rifles, Royal Marines and the Gurkhas to name but a few. Even the housekeeper had served in the then little known SAS!

At school, Simon was lucky to have the opportunity to study Boxing, Judo and Fencing, as well as training in Japanese Swordsmanship and developing his skills with the Gurkhas Kukri. Simon was also able to train with other foreign students who brought with them various grades in different Martial Art Styles such as Shotokan, Taekwondo, Pak Mai and Judo. They would often all get together to work out, compare techniques and spar with each other. In 1972/3, Simon saw the World Series of Martial Arts on TV and tried to emulate the full contact fighting style into his sparring. By this time, Simon was totally captivated by what Martial Arts and Martial History had to offer.

After leaving boarding school, Simon moved to Cornwall, but continued his Martial Arts studies wherever and whenever he could. Whilst at college, Simon studied Full Contact Martial Art fighting under an extremely talented and inspirational Chinese Martial Artist named Richard Neo. Richard had Dan grades in TKD and Gojo Ryu Karate and at that time was studying Shaolin in Singapore. Richard knew that he wouldn’t be in the UK for long, so he set up a very western orientated style which he called "Combat Karate" and which was basically a fighting school. It was here that Simon first started competing against other martial artists in the area and also where he developed his favoured side kick!! At the same time, Simon also studied Judo and Japanese Swordsmanship with another school which used the same hall.

After College, Simon and Richard went their separate ways, Richard returning to Singapore and Simon to Plymouth. Once in Plymouth, Simon set up his own school for a while, and then he joined the Fighting Fit gym where he trained and fought under John Smith who was one of the innovators of Full Contact Karate in the UK. Simon trained with John’s karate students for extra training, but was hopeless at the traditional Point Stop style of fighting! By the time Simon had finished training with John, he had amassed a 20 win & 0 losses fight record, all by way of KO or TKO and had established a very good reputation as a fighter and in particular a noted kicker.

After training with John, Simon then began teaching for the Kempo Instructor Bob Rose, but when this turned out to be a waste of time, Simon began teaching for himself. He concentrated on Full Contact Karate (which later became known as Full Contact Kickboxing), Japanese Swordsmanship, Kukri and Knife Fighting and it stayed this way for sometime.

Simon then met a guy called Stuart Taylor who was a Taekwondo Instructor and they ended up as business partners in Ki Co. During this period, Simon had his last kickboxing bouts. Simons final bout was against a heavyweight who was 4 stone heavier then himself. Simon knocked him out in the third round with a midsection roundhouse. After retiring from Kickboxing in 1991 (and ranked no.10 in the world), Simon also competed in a couple of WTF Taekwondo contact fights. In 1992, Simon was persuaded to compete in the WTF Taekwondo National Championships. Despite having had a good night out the night before (!!), no preparation training and a badly pulled hamstring, Simon settled for second place after being too tired to fight in the final. Simon also fought for the British Taekwondo team and came third in the German Championships. He finally retired from Taekwondo fighting in 1993 and was very fortunate never to sustain any injuries during his fighting career. By the time Simon had finished his fighting career, he had amassed a 20 win & 0 losses fight record, all by way of KO or TKO and had established a very good reputation as a fighter and in particular a noted kicker.

After retiring from contact fighting, Simon began teaching in earnest and initially decided to concentrate on teaching Kick and Thai Boxing fighters. Over the years, Simon has produced many fine students and champion fighters such as Mark Lauther (highly rated Thai boxer), Shaun Tasker (Area Champion), Tony Tasker (British and Commonwealth Champion and World No.1 contender), Carl Drake (English Champion), “Bruno” (highly rated Thai boxer) and Lee Perkins (British Amateur Champion and World Championship British squad member 1999).

After becoming a little disillusioned with fighter training, Simon wanted to incorporate many of the aspects he had previously learnt into his own martial art style which is now known as Combat Kickboxing (for Adults only). This basically incorporates the sport that Simon loves (Kick & Thai boxing), Unarmed Combat, Gurkha Kukri training, Japanese Swordsmanship and Fairbairn Sykes Fighting Knife. (Please note only adults are permitted to train with blades).

After recently leaving his job as a Salesman to pursue his dream of running a full-time martial arts dojo, Simon is now working on Tora Black Belt Academy full time and is offering adults the choice of either a pure Kick and Thai Boxing programme or the Combat Kickboxing syllabus. For children Simon has devised a martial art syllabus based around Kick and Thai Boxing but which also incorporates anti-bullying, street awareness, self-defence, Judo and Ju-Jutsu techniques. Since being able to work on his martial arts business full time, Simon has also began to teach professional and amateur fighters again as well as providing private tuition. He has recently been training Tom Barlow (an up and coming MMA Fighter), who recently got third place in the European Submission Wrestling Championships, and Sevda Arif (World Amateur ISKA Champion and Female Fighter of the year ISKA 2008).

Simon is a family man, lives in Plymouth, and is married to Leanne. He is a Dad to 3 boys, Nigel (16yrs), David (14yrs) and Samuel (8mths). To contact Simon - you can email him simon@torablackbeltacademy.com