DAN HOLLOWAY – CHIEF INSTRUCTOR/OWNER
Dan started martial arts when he was 7 years old beginning with Karate which he did for a couple of years before seeing a poster for Aikido at the local RAF camp.
He did Aikido for around 15 years achieving the rank of 3rd Degree black belt in Yoshinkan Aikido and being lucky enough to have trained with some of the best teachers in the world including Joe Thambu in Melbourne, Australia where he trained and lived as a full time student for a month.
During his time at University, Dan started boxing and MMA where he became a vice-president of the MMA club and was taught by then UK Welterweight 10th legion championship Louis Chapman for 3 years.
After graduating Dan looked more into the self defence side of martial arts having trained in the traditional and sports side and found Keysi Fighting Method (KFM) which was when he first met Defence Lab founder Andy Norman who was then co-founder of KFM. He fell in love with the efficiency and no nonsense approach and trained for 2 years in KFM before it split up.
During this time Dan was also applying to join the Lincolnshire police force as a police constable after studying a degree in criminology and psychology and a Masters in Civilisation and Terrorism and realised what he really wanted to do was teach martial arts for a living.
When Defence Lab provided the opportunity to do this, Dan turned down a job in the police in order to pursue his dream of running a full time academy.
In 2015 Dan was lucky enough to be inducted into the Martial Arts Illustrated Hall of Fame and in 2017 co-published his first book ‘Martial Masters Volume 1’ which involved a number of interviews with high ranking martial artists in the UK. He also won the ‘Rising Star’ of the year award at the British Martial Arts awards the same year.
Dan continues training in a variety of martial arts and building on his skills, including Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and Balintawak. He is an associate instructor with the Minnesota Kali Group teaching Jeet Kune Do, Silat, Kali and Muay Thai and recently returned from America where he spent time learning from Guro Dan Inosanto – Bruce Lee’s friend and training partner.
Dan is now committed to running a professional full time academy and training future instructors in order to serve the local community and provide a good (and fun) life! He is the designated safeguarding officer for the academy, as well as head coach and owner and can be contacted at d.holloway@empowermartialartslincoln.co.uk or by calling 07792 866296.