Philippa Scannell's Journey

I am not sure where to start so I am just going to dive straight in! For various reasons, by the time I was 21 years old I was a very angry young woman and I did not know where to direct my anger so I used to get in to fights quite regularly and I know that I was not always a very nice person. I was at at De Montfort University in Leicester and we got offered the opportunity to go and study abroad for six months; I thought it would be a great idea to get away and be in a completely different environment so I signed up. Living and studying in Holland was a fantastic experience which I will never forget, I met amazing people from all over the world and I also took up kickboxing. Wow! I loved it, I was allowed to punch and kick those pads as hard as I wanted to and I learnt to save up any frustrations during the week to take out on the pads in the kickboxing sessions.

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To cut a long story short, I moved around a lot after university but continued to kickbox wherever I went; Leicester, northern Spain, Sussex, southern Spain and then back to Sussex. There came a point when I couldn't find a local kickboxing class and that is when I discovered Muay Thai; elbows, knees, clinches and lots more! At one point I helped to coach the gym's Amateur Boxing Association (ABA) junior classes which was great fun and ended up with me qualifying as a coach. Over the years I have also tried Wing Chun, Karate and Aikido.

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I love martial arts but due to personal history, there was a part of me that never felt safe and confident despite training so much. Everybody always thought I was super confident but deep down I knew that I wasn't and I couldn't quite figure out what to do about it. It was only when I really analysed it that I came to the conclusion I wasn't confident about defending myself in a real-life situation. Having experienced pure fear that causes you to freeze, I knew that all the martial arts training in the world would not help against that. When you spar or fight in a martial art, you are generally pitched against someone of a similar weight and experience and you have a referee to ensure it is all done safely and kept within the rules. That is not how it happens in the real world and I realised I wanted to train in a system that was based on reality.

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I found Combat Academy and after one session, I was hooked. I immediately signed up to qualify as an instructor. Completing the training was tough and I had to face up to some serious demons from my past but I did it and I qualified after many tears and lots of hard work. I ran various self defence sessions in schools and universities, all of which I loved.

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Then, purely by chance, I discovered CROSS (Combat Ready Offensive Survival System) Krav Maga and after a trial session, knew that I wanted to add the skills taught within their system to what I teach because it is gritty, sometimes harsh but always based in reality. You can never train your body not to freeze but you can give yourself a much stronger chance of reacting with something rather than doing nothing.

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A quote I found summarised why it was so important for me to learn self defence and feel safe in my own skin:

 

"feeling confident in your ability to protect yourself empowers you to live with less fear and more freedom."

 

I understand, first hand, that our physical and mental health are connected and that if one is suffering then the other will suffer too. When I teach somebody, no matter what I am teaching them, I try and understand what makes them tick and why they are there in the first place.

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In March 2021 I set up Physical Empowerment CIC (Community Interest Company) which is aimed at helping people work through past physical trauma through focusing on all the aspects of self-defence; emotional, physical and mental. 

 

In the words of Winnie the Pooh, "You're braver than you believe, stronger than you seem and smarter than you think."