Sensei Brendan Gray
4th Degree Black Belt – Chief Instructor
I started my martial arts training in 1991 playing with Judo.
My Kempo career started in March 1993 at the age of twenty. I trained under the tutelage of Shihan John Hamilton (5th degree black belt) in Brisbane and reached my black belt in 1997 while training at a Kempo seminar in New Zealand. This was bestowed upon me by Kancho Robert Gemmell, 10th degree [KBR]. I then went under the second part of the grading once back in Australia.
I left in 1999 as a 2nd degree in Kempo, a 3rd black tab in Tai Chi Chuan, & founding black belt member of Kempo Australia.
I started back at Shaolin Kempo in 2003 under Sensei John Taynton, a 4th degree, after studying Aikido. I was graded to 3rd degree in 2008 by a senior panel of black belts from a number of schools reaching the title of Sensei twelve months later. My 4th degree grading was conducted in Brisbane starting in November 2011 by Kyoshi Paul Bryant, an 8th degree black belt & Sifu Scott Forrest, a 6th degree. Sifu Taynton finished off the grading in early 2012.
I have also trained in Machado BJJ & Shooto wrestling since June 2012. In 2019 I received my blue belt. Due to my ruptured achilles and torn calf, I left that school after 10 years. This has pushed back my next grading.
In October 2019 I was given the ownership of the Shaolin Kempo school as Sifu Taynton retired. I held the school through COVID/Zoom training and now have continuously grown the school. I have finished the manuals to 5th degree black belt. I have started extra training/styles and have had professional fighters train with the students. I graded my first student to black belt in 2020.
I have my St Johns first aid & CPR certificates.
I believe that Kempo as a whole is a way of life and that hard, soft, and external & internal work efficiently in the most realistic martial arts on earth. We do not conform to traditionalism, but merely adapt, maneuver, and think outside the box. The world is constantly changing. Our thought patterns are always changing. Our development is always improving. So we need to train smarter and improve technique that flows and creates superior body mechanics.
Everyone has something to teach anyone. Train hard my friends and keep smiling for the best is yet to come.