Darren Langston
Senior Committee Member & Senior Technical Officer
Darren has been training in the Martial Arts for over thirty years and teaching for fifteen.
His training started with boxing at a young age before moving onto Wado Ryu Karate, Lau Gar Kung Fu and Kickboxing.
From these beginnings his journey led him to the study of Jeet Kune Do and the Filipino Martial Arts. He has received Instructor grade/Black Belt in many systems as well as forming his own style (FMA Combat) with the full backing of BMABA.
Sifu Langston currently teaches one on one private and group classes from his base in the West Midlands. Darren also runs a Jeet Kune Do Kickboxing Instructors course that is open to all BMABA coaches.
Darren’s Story…
“I first began training in the Martial Arts with Boxing in 1982 after watching Rocky 3 at the cinema. Several months later my brother (who had been training for a while) asked me to go along with him to check out a near-by Karate class as he was looking to change clubs. I started training the following week and was instantly hooked.
These days you have a Martial Arts club on every corner but back then you only had one or two in your local town. We had Wado Ryu (under K Sakagami and his team of Instructors) and Lau Gar Kung Fu (under Ken Holt) so I trained in both of these classes until the late 80s.
Heading into the 90s and there were far more schools and systems to train in, so for the next few years I went from club to club trying to find a style and Instructor to carry on my training.
Again my brother suggested that I check out the Wado Ryu club where he had been studying for a number of years under Steve Prior. Steve was a great Instructor and had a good club, he was also Dan graded in both Kempo and Jiu Jitsu so we would practice these systems as well. It was also at this club where I started to develop my Kickboxing.
Throughout the 90s members of the club would travel up and down the UK training with many different Instructors of other systems to broaden our knowledge base.
I stayed with Sensei Prior up until my 3rd Dan and it is at this point that I began to change my Karate training from Do to Jutsu, focusing more on applications and self defence.
Going into 2000 and after teaching for and alongside others for many years I finally opened my own club teaching Kickboxng. I Decided to teach Kickboxing as striking was (and still is) my strongest area and I felt more confident in teaching this.
Over the years I had attended a numer of Jeet Kune Do and Filipino Martial Art classes as my interest in these systems grew. One of the Instructors that I came across in JKD and FMA was Marcie Harding.
Marcie is an amazing coach and quickly became my mentor (and still is today). Under her I have gained Instructor qualifications in Jeet Kune Do, Kali, Dacayana Eskrima, Alicaway Combat Knife and gained great knowledge in Filipino Martial Arts. My love for teaching and training is with these systems today.
Currently I am teaching private sessions in Jeet Kune Do, Kali, Kickboxing and FMA Combat (my own system) with the full backing and support of the British Martial Arts & Boxing Association.
For more information please visit. www.langstonmartialarts.co.uk
I also have a facebook page www.facebook.com/langstonmartialartsacademy