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Michael Yorke or Yorkey is one of our instructors from Ashford.

 

Yorkey joined the club in 2008 and after intense training and dedications was awarded his Black Belt 1st Dan in 2015.

 

Like many of us Yorkey joined TKO to work on his fitness and to prove to a couple of work friends that he could train in Kickboxing. He went one better than just training for fitness and went on to compete in 13 light continuous and 2 full contact Kickboxing fight, so he achieved his goal of getting fit! Training for fights meant long hours in the gym and on the road running but is well justified when his hand was raised in victory.

 

Kickboxing wasn’t his first martial arts, he training in shotakan karate and reached the adult brown belt at the age of 13yrs and then went into wada rue as a teenager.

 

Yorkeys love for kickboxing comes from being able to combine fitness and martial arts in one discipline, something he feels wasn’t there in karate. In Yorkeys words there is no sport like kickboxing where you can have a good sparring punch up on a Friday night in the ring and then share a beer straight after…#ultimate respect!

 

Yorkey does find some time to work for Land Rover and raise his new family.