Foundation of the Warriors Martial Arts Team

Michael Kann spent more than eight years (till 1988) training his more than 20 students in his basement. Thanks to everybody who supported him – Alexander Stolz, Thomas Cont, Thomas Helmer and his parents Juanita and Jürgen Kann. The logical consequence of the increase in demand for his kind of training was the search for a club that would support him. After nine months of negotiations he decided to start a self-defence department in the part of Forchheim called Kersbach.

So on 13.03.1988 the DJK Kersbach e.V. opened its doors to athletes who had been training self-defence in a purely street fighting way till that time. Michael Kann founded his own department, the Warriors Martial Arts Team. The location was called WARRIORS GYM.

Interview with Michael Kann – April 2001

When did you start training martial arts?

My first „contact“ with martial arts was in 1974 when I was beaten up in school. I decided to do something so that this wouldn’t happen again. But my parents were not pleased with my new idea. But at that age: who listens to what their parents say.

I was lucky and found a wrestling club in Erlangen. I somehow managed to do nearly four years of wrestling (TV Erlangen 1848), Judo (ATSV Erlangen), Karate (Shotokan Karate Club Forchheim) and Taekwon Do (BBC Erlangen) without paying anything till my parents officially gave me permission to join a club.

I never had the money to travel to far away countries so I visited and organised seminars with masters like Ferdinand Mack, Ernesto and Remy Presas, Josef Art, Amante Marinas, Dan Inosanto, Richard Bustillo, Jeff Espinous, Francis Fong, Bob Breen, Peter Lutzny, Heinz Klupp, Hubert Numrich, Prof. Yamaue, Peter Nehls, Mike Inay, Kwon Jae Hwa, D. W. Delvin, Richard Hopkins, Dieter Knüttel, Wolfgang Schnur, Prof. Hodge, Daniel Blanchet, Hideo Ochi, Georg Streif, Bill Wallace, Toni Dietl, Thom Harinck, Emin Botzepe, Fumio Demura, Chan Ming San, Alfred Plath and many more.

How come you started training others?

In 1981 I started training with a few friends in my parents’ cellar. We also practiced in rooms belonging to other friends and students like Alexander Stolz, Thomas Cont and Thomas Helmer.

After my military service in 1986 I started up the group again and after a short time there were ten to twenty people training in my parents’ basement every day! As you can imagine my parents weren’t satisfied with this situation. The door bell never stopped ringing and my parents had to keep answering. And don’t forget all that noise seven days a week till about 10p.m.

Why did you go to Kersbach?

While looking for a suitable club I got a lot of negative answers and comments. Some said: “Martial arts aren’t sports because it isn’t a team sport like football!“ I then always asked: “So what is running, swimming, javelin throwing, jumping, etc. then?“

Kersnach was the only club around that wanted to have anything to do with martial arts. On the first day there were 50 people ther to see what we had to offer. Our first demo team being Gerd Gößwein, Rainer Lang, Alexander Stolz, Thomas Helmer and myself did a little show. It seems we were convincing because 40 people applied within the next two weeks.

Why did you start doing kickboxing competitions?

Because more and more club members wanted to compete with others. I had a look around the national and international martial arts market and chose the WAKO as our partner. This was quite difficult because there were lots of organisations offering tournaments but most of them were only looking for money. By the way this hasn’t changed till today.

After lots of problems, negotiations, very mysterious happenings in the WAKO management and two years of time we managed to get the acknowledgement of being an official WAKO training center.

Where did you get the name „Warriors Martial Arts Team“ from?

After we became part of the WAKO „self-defence“ somehow didn’t really fit any more. I asked about ideas for a new name but nobody hab any. I was thinking about Hornets, Sidekicks or Warriors. After a three hour discussion we decided to take „WARRIORS“. I am still convinced that this is the only correct name for us because I feel bound to the tradition of warriors.

Why warriors and martial arts?

People don’t like these words but everybody doing this sport should know where its roots are. Armed and unarmed techniques of combat were developed and used for wars or self-defence. Warfare is one of the oldest arts of mankind. This is easy to prove when looking at old sculptures, pictures and writings (i.e. the bible).

So there was nothing more obvious for me than to somehow combine „WARRIORS“ and „MARTIAL ARTS“, especially because the whole training programme was changing rapidly. People simply want to progress and develop. That is why I started teaching Jiu-Jitsu, Muay Thai and Escrima-Arnis-Kali, too.

Kersbach is also the first German club to enter the World Association of Nunchaku Organisations (WANO) (although hardly anybody knows this). We even did Nunchaku full contact fights with special equipment.

So this is how we came to the name WARRIORS Martial Arts Team and this fits exactly to what we are and what we do.

Don’t you do too little tournament training if you do so many different self-defence arts?

I’ve heard this often before, but people do what they want to do. So if somebody wants to go to competitions he will be supported as much as possible by me and other coaches, no matter whether he wants to go to kickboxing, Muay Thai, Jujitsu, boxing or other tournaments. Doing one thing doesn’t mean you can’t do another!

I can see this best with my own students. Our members have achieved over 60 titles and placements in the top three at national and international kickboxing, Sport-Karate, Jujitsu, Show-Team, etc. events since 1990. A lot of these awards were won by our coaches but still their results at student grade examinations were not worse than before. On the contrary, for them it was a logical thing to do both. I’m also very proud to say that all my trainers passed their tests with excellent marks.

One shouldn’t forget the fact that the attitude of people also changes. Ten years ago there were up to 600 participants at semi contact tournaments, today organisers are glad if 300-400 fighters take part. The full contact scene is even worse. Sport is often dominated by trends!

My kickboxing colleagues often say clever things like: „Your students are better at self-defence, mine are better fighters!“ or „We only fight, only kickboxing, nothing else“. That’s fine with me! But you can’t complain if your students then don’t pass an exam because they have no idea of what’s going on. Self-defence is a compulsory part of every examination not only in kickboxing but also in Judo, Taekwon Do, Karate, Ju-Jutsu, Muay-Thai, etc. This counts for people who are German, European or World champions too, or does it not???? I know of some organisations that only stopped giving the first DAN to everyone who wins a German championship a few years ago.

Why do I go on about this so much?

Because I’d like to know whether it is fair that a student who has been training since he was twelve years old gets his first DAN after 6 years of hard work and then he sees a guy, who had only one opponent on state level, win the German championship in a weight class that has only three fighters in it using only two techniques and then getting his first DAN after only having trained for one year. Can this be fair? Is this legal?

What are your plans for the future?

I’m not concerned about the future, I think things will turn out the way they should. The important thing is that you are healthy, that you have friends you can rely on and that you have the will to go forwards!

Michael Kann interviewed by Sandra Gügel – April 2001