Frank Murphy Biography

Author, Martial Arts consultant, and former Taekwondo international, Frank Murphy has enjoyed a colourful and varied career since he began training in 1974. As a fighter and coach for numerous Taekwondo teams in both Ireland and the UK, he is one of the privileged few to have been promoted to Black Belt by the founder of Taekwondo General Choi in 1977.

While these exploits earned him coverage in German, English and American Martial Arts magazines, his real gift has been a sharp wit and flair for public speaking. These past few years has seen him emerge as speaker, consultant and mentor to many instructors and school owners.

During a career spanning 37 years he has won nine national and three international Taekwondo titles, opened one of the first full time martial arts centres in the UK, chaired the British GTI Taekwondo Association, produced the student “Grapevine” magazine, was a former columnist for Martial Arts Illustrated, Black belt UK, and Martial Arts Success, trade and wholesale magazines.

He produced a series of Traditional Taekwondo Videos in 1999, and in 2000 became one of the first Europeans to graduate from the American Council of Martial Arts, Instructors Training Course in Florida. He was a speaker at most major martial art business seminars in the UK from 2001 to 2005, and was invited as guest speaker to the World Martial Arts Industry Association Conference in Las Vegas, Nevada in 2003. He was voted Instructor of the year by MAI in 2004, and received a lifetime achievement award for over thirty years of training and development for his many contributions by the combined UK and US, College of Martial Arts in Birmingham in 2005.

His trademark dynamic teaching style has gained testimonies from martial art instructors worldwide and as a Black Belt grading Examiner he specializes in higher Dan degree promotions. With his wife Catarina, he has pioneered and modernized martial arts industry standards of professionalism with various Instructors courses.

Throughout his career he has suffered from a recurring back injury and this prompted him to develop a system of martial arts and fitness training that is specifically geared for the more mature martial artist. Since 2003, both he and Catarina, who has a Master’s degree in Physical Education from Loughborough University, have been working and testing an exercise programme that they have called Kaizendo Fitness, a system that he feels passionate about that has been trialled and tested just over a period of 10 years and launched officially in the Republic of Ireland in April 2011. For more information about Kaizendo Fitness visit www.kaizendofitness.com.

Today Master Frank Murphy continues his Taekwondo training and specializes in seminars and gradings, particularly for more senior grades. He offers the Kaizendo Fitness programme on its own or as an add-on, particularly to Taekwondo schools, as it has shown to be extremely popular with adults. It is proving to be a valuable programme for instructors who want to attract adults ages 30 – 40+ into their schools. All the techniques and drills in Kaizendo have been tried and tested during the last ten years by ordinary adults of all shapes and sizes in Ireland and the UK. Outside the standard martial arts training he offers specialist Seminars, workshops and courses. 

For more details, contact 003532240884 or 00353872704478, alternatively complete the contact form.  

Details of any Masterclass events can be found in Noticeboard of this website or will be announced in the Frank Murphy’s Masterclass Newsletter. To receive this Newsletter click here to subscribe (this is FREE).