Meiji Podcast - Eytan Alexander

North London’s newest, leading martial arts centre – Meiji Kickboxing – has welcomed two new disciplines and two new world-leading instructors to the team. Sensei Denise is the co-founder of the progressive Meiji Kickboxing, which has Dojos at Temple Fortune and St John’s Wood. Denise began her martial arts career 35 years ago through a desire to protect herself. Now she has been joined by two new instructors – both experts in their disciplines, who will be bringing Meiji Jiu Jitsu and Meiji Krav Maga to the growing range of classes. Jiu Jitsu Instructor Abel Martinez is a national and international instructor in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, which he describes as the “gentle art”, and will be teaching it at Meiji. Abel has been an instructor for more than twenty years, and has experience in several styles of martial arts, including kickboxing. He describes Jiu Jitsu as similar to Judo – teaching key principles of self-defence, and giving his pupils new skills to gain an advantage. Abel is a BJJ British Champion and a black belt (third degree). Mark is a full-time Master Instructor in two different Krav Maga systems, Urban and Israeli, and a black belt in five martial arts. He has been training extensively with Sensei Matteo - who already had previous Krav experience - over the past few months, and together they have developed a great new curriculum. He said: "Krav Maga is not really about medals or points or trophies, it is a very pure and no-nonsense martial art. It’s about learning strategies to protect yourself – it takes from lots of different martial arts but is very stripped back and simple in its approach."

Meiji student and Kickboxing enthusiast Eytan Alexander speaks with Sensei Stefano about his early career on the City, setting up one of the UK’s leading rehabilitation companies for addiction and his love affair with Martial Arts. After graduating with a first class honours degree in Maths from Leeds University, Eytan found himself working at GFI Partners in the early 1990’s. At the time is was a small league player in the Global Equities Market. After a 20 year stint he became a Director managing a team of 500 people and growing turnover into the millions, in the process GFI became a top tier finance house. A combination of very long hours with a hedonistic life style led to a calling to do something radically different. Deciding he wanted to give something back in 2013, with business partners, Eytan set up UK Addiction Treatment Group. Today there are 7 centres treating patients with a number of addictions throughout the UK and are regarded as leaders in the field of rehabilitation.