Members of a martial arts school in Gravesend have achieved global success in the world of stick fighting this year - twice!

Some of those at Family Martial Arts only picked up the sport two years ago but have rapidly become among the best in the country.

Stick fighting is a form of martial arts which uses slender, wooden sticks.

It usually involves one-to-one combat with competitors wearing some form of protective headgear, face shields, padded armour and gloves.

Rounds last two minutes and fighters are scored on where they make contact with another fighter such as arm, leg, torso or head and by disarming them.

School chief instructor Louis Tandoh represented Team GB in the Global Stick and Blade Alliance’s World Championship, held in Poland in early August, where he was joined by students Tarran Photay, Coby Blackstock, Dante Chapman, Kenzie Standen and Vinder Briah. Briah picked up gold in the women’s team event.

The team won 12 medals in Poland before Tandoh led the way at a World Sports Arnis tournament in Luton, Photay also coming out on top as 10 medals were won at last month’s event.

Tandoh said: “We’re a reasonably new school for stick fighting.

“We have been doing martial arts in Gravesend for more than 20 years but we started properly competing [in stick fighting] about two years ago.

“A little while ago, we got a couple of emails from a few different organisations because there’s a few organisations that do stick fighting.

“They asked some of the boys, me and Vinder to join the national squad. They were for two World Championships that have happened this year.

“The first one was in Poland, then the second one was in Luton. It was originally meant to be in Italy but the organisers in Italy couldn’t do it.

“We went to Poland where we weren’t necessarily expecting to do major things. But we came away with 12 medals, including one gold.

“Then, we had a gap of about a month between the two.

"All the stuff that we realised wasn’t quite working in Poland, we sort of worked on and changed things around a bit and used it in Luton.”

Tandoh claimed two golds in Luton to become a double live stick world champion.

He admitted: “I was well chuffed!

"As an instructor and someone who has been around martial arts for a very long time, I have always wanted world titles.

"It’s been on a tick sheet of things that I want to achieve.”

Tandoh hopes the success of the school on Brewhouse Yard will inspire others as the man who has learnt from different masters across the world revealed how close he had come to giving up competing.

He explained: “Most martial arts schools do compete in something.

"We used to compete in kickboxing and then the 2008 financial crisis happened where a lot of the tournaments stopped. They started coming back again, but some bad decisions kind of put my boss off it. We just focused on teaching people.

“About three or four years ago, something came up on Facebook about a tournament and I thought ‘I wouldn’t mind giving it a go’ because I competed in the Philippines about 10 years ago. I went with another instructor and it was all right.

“This was the first tournament after lockdown and some of the people that we were talking to felt like it was a dying art. I just thought martial arts gave me an awful lot when I was growing up, so I couldn’t have it die out.

“I asked some of the students ‘We’re going to do another one so do you want to give it a go?’. Six of them said they’d give it a go and, that tournament, they came away with some golds, silvers and bronzes.

“I nearly quit at one point. I just thought ‘I’ve had enough of it’ because you have to drive to and from, and I was just thinking that I’d support the team, train them up for it and then send them off.

“My last one that I was going to do was a British Nationals one - but I did really well. I got a gold and thought, ‘Okay, maybe I’d give it another go’.

"The one after that, I did well again and, three weeks later, I got an email saying about joining the national squad.

“But I was more happy that the students got them.”

On how those at Family Martial Arts had ended up competing in the sport, Tandoh noted: “The core syllabus is taekwondo but my background is Jeet Kune Do, which is like Bruce Lee’s martial art.

“The syllabus that I teach is mainly around the taekwondo bit but then, if someone’s good at something, I’d say ‘You should do this bit’.

“Ultimately, no fighter is uniform and everybody is different so we try to tailor the martial art around them.”

Call 01474 326967 or email fmaaf@aol.com if you are interested in joining Family Martial Arts.