Name: Ibrahem Shamlakh
Age: 15
My name is Ibrahem Shamlakh, I am 15 years old and I’m from Palestine but I was born in London. Ever since I was young I would participate in some sort of Martial Arts this includes boxing and karate. It started turning into a regular hobby and I slowly became more interested to learn more defensive and fighting skills / techniques. After I lived here for 6 years my family decided to go to Palestine for 3 years and there I learnt karate. However I always used to think if this would really help me if it comes to the worst and I end up in a street fight.
3 years after we moved back to London I started researching very good and useful types of martial arts. I came across Muay Thai, Brazilian jiu jitsu and krav maga. I liked the idea of all of them but all of the locations were far from where I lived. As I kept on researching I also came across Defence Lab and I was very curious of what it was because I’d never heard of it before. So I decided to go to a taster session and get a brief idea of what it is about.
Honestly, I was amazed by how simple techniques could protect all the places of knockout around the face and neck and this was one of the reasons I decided to join. Another reason was to not only learn useful and new techniques but also to improve my fitness, as fitness is a very important factor in a person’s lifestyle.
At the start I thought that the things I was learning were very simple and I did not know if there was more to it. However everything started to add up and simple dangerous movements can easily turn into complex very useful techniques, which were not hard to perform. At this point co-ordination was important because Defence Lab doesn’t only teach you to protect yourself they also teach you to attack and defend.
The students at Defence Lab are very friendly and as a group it feels like its one big family. Our instructors are very helpful, patient and kind and they try their best to make sure that every individual at Defence Lab understands what they have been taught. Defence Lab improved my life in many ways – it boosted my confidence, improved my fitness, it prepared me for when things go bad and it motivated me to become more active.
In my opinion I highly recommend that you go for a taster session and then from there you can decide if you would like to continue as I’m sure you will enjoy it.
