Mr. Chris Collins

Chris Collins began his martial arts training at the age of ten. He studied Goju-Ryu Karate under Jay Trombley. Chris earned his junior black belt at age 16. Normally, in order to have the right to test for an adult black belt, one had to be eighteen. This is because of the rigorous training and full-contact style fighting that the adult black belts participated in. However, Chris was allowed to test a year early, at age seventeen, when he earned his 1st degree black belt. During this same time period, Chris was also getting his introduction to wrestling, by being on his high school wrestling team and participating in several meets and tournaments. Over the next few years, Chris went on to earn up to the rank of 3rd degree black belt. Mr. Trombley's black belts are few and far between, and are expected to have the highest level of ability in sparring, katas, weapons, and also in teaching the other students. The fighting at Mr. Trombley's school was not generally the point-style fighting you see at Tae Kwon Do schools or tournaments; it was done more like full contact Karate, or what most of us know as just Kickboxing. Between black belts and other advanced adult students, full contact strikes to the body, groin, head and face were allowed, and it was not uncommon to have a fight end with a knockout or sometimes other injury due to the level of contact.

At the age of twenty-one, Chris began training in Mixed Martial Arts. At twenty-five, he left the Karate school and began Mixed Martial Arts training full-time at Mohler's Jiu-Jitsu and Kickboxing, giving him a chance to train with many top-level Jiu-Jitsu practitioners and fighters, including several Jiu-Jitsu black belts, Olympic wrestlers and Judokan, and current top W.E.C. contender Marcus Hicks, as well as many other professional M.M.A. fighters. This training included Western Boxing and Thai Boxing, giving him things to add to the stand-up fighting background he already had. It also included training extensively in wrestling and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. Similar somewhat to the wrestling he'd done in high school, he found this to be very interesting and useful, as it involves being able to win the fight standing, or on the ground, whether you are on top or put on your back. Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu is like wrestling, but instead of pinning your opponent, the object is to 'submit' them, or make them 'tap out'. This is done by successfully applying a joint lock or choke hold that causes your opponent to give up, because if they do not they will have a joint dislocated or be choked unconscious. Many people also refer to this as Submission Wrestling. The marriage of all of these many disciplines is known as Mixed Martial Arts, or M.M.A. M.M.A. is most famous in the United States for the U.F.C. - or Ulitimate Fighting Championship. However, there are many organizations around the world that hold such fighting events. Chris has fought in several of these fights, in and around the Texas area. Chris still studies M.M.A. today, and his knowledge of Martial Arts, totalling over twenty years, is ever expanding, as should be the knowledge of any serious martial artist. More about the schools Chris has trained at in the past and present can be found on the Links page of this site.

Mr. Jeff Beach

Jeff Beach began training under Mr. Collins in 2004. Instead of the average few times per week training schedule that most students have, however, for the first year of his training, Jeff trained with Chris 5 days a week, adding up to several hours per week. In September of 2008, Jeff tested for and received his Red Belt ranking in the Goju-Jitsu system, becoming the first and so far the only student to reach that rank under Mr. Collins.

Jeff is the head instructor for the "Lil' Dragons" (young kids' class) and the regular kids' class. He is also the assistant instructor for the adult Kickboxing and Mixed Martial Arts classes.