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My name is David Close and I’m the head instructor at Close Combat Martial Arts. I have been practising martial arts for many years and decided to pursue a career as an instructor, to help people learn how to defend themselves, get fit, build self-esteem, overcome fears and develop skills.

I attended Freestyle Combat Karate as a child into my teens and competing at the national level, later on in life in 2014 I trained and developed skills in close quarters combat at KAPAP & Krav Maga where I started to help to teach the class and at that point was considering becoming an instructor. More recently I took up Kickboxing to keep my fitness level high and joined a family Taekwondo club with my own children, where I help the instructors teach, I joined the Gracie University and studied the basics of Brazillian Jujitsu to add to my ground game. I then went on to train with the National Federation for Personal Safety (NFPS) where I completed a BTEC level 3 Advanced Award in Self Defence Instruction in October 2016.

Close Combat Martial Arts club was founded and opened its doors for the first time in February 2017. Since then I have developed my own unique, graded syllabus based on my knowledge of striking from different systems and defensive and submission grappling for self-defence and fitness purposes. A few of my students are keen to compete and I have successfully helped people train for amateur competitions and we are moving towards that more in the fuiture. Since opening we have been working towards joining the British Martial Arts and Boxing Association, which we finally achieved in 2020, since joining I have completed the BMABA level 1 instructor qualification, had our syllabus licensed and approved and joined the national grading integrity scheme.