Master James Malik

Hello, my name is Mr. James Malik. I am one of your Tae Kwon Do instructors at Mudokwan Tae Kwon Do Academy. I am here to assist in your training and progression to achieve your future goals with a positive attitude to bring mind, body and soul together so you can develop your skills in the Martial Arts.

On that note I would like to tell you a bit about myself, for starters, as like most of you I started an interest in Martial Arts when I was younger, watching action movies was my favorite, all the kicking, punching and high flying moves and all I could think was "WOW!". It did not take much for me to find out that what you see in the movies are not like real life situations, before I started training I found myself in a situation where I had to defend myself. I remember what I saw on TV ... and that is about all I remember…

What I saw on TV did not work the way it did in the movies. I learned a BIG lesson, Real Life situations are not like the movies, it is not all about the kicking, and punching and high flying moves you see. If you do not have the proper Training, Discipline, Respect for the Martial Arts, you would not be able to protect yourself, family or friends.

Soon after the BIG lesson, I enrolled in Martial Arts "September 1988". I did not join Martial Arts to learn to fight, I joined to be better, to be able to protect myself and the ones around me. I went to all the classes I could. I also listened to the instructor's every word, also watching every move because I did not want to miss a thing. It did not take me long to catch on, the moves were coming together. I also started learning what the moves were for, how they worked. But I was not finished there, because just knowing the moves was not enough, now I had to perfect them. You never stop learning. Martial Arts are a lifetime dedication that you have to put your heart into.

When I turned 19 years old I thought about helping other people, so I joined a group that was very well known "THE GUARDIAN ANGELS" this was a group that patrolled the streets offering protection when there was no other around. This group was based in Toronto, ONTARIO. While I was with "THE GUARDIAN ANGELS" we did some more training in Martial Arts, "Jeet Koon Do" but our crime fighting days were over, for unknown reasons after a while this program had to be shout down.

For the first part of my life in Martial Arts I studied Karate, which training went on for many years, I was addicted to training, I had to give 110% in all my training. I had to learn more, so I did. I fell in love with Martial Arts but now I had a new problem, which one? I had seen and heard about so many different ones, so then I tried Hapkido, an Art that was a lot of fun. In all the years of training I went to many competitions, taking home many gold medals and trophies.

Then one day in 1999 I was invited to compete in the "WORLD GAMES". I went, and it was one of the greatest things I got to do and one the hardest. It was "THE WORLD GAMES SUPER GRANDS X". Being held in Niagara Falls, CANADA, I came in 4th place in the world in the men's Black Belt Heavyweight Continuous Sparring Division.

After I took 4th place in the world, I had to take some time to myself and family. Soon it was back to training. Then I found where my true calling was, can you guess it? Yep! Tae Kwon Do, I have been doing it for years now. I am not limiting myself to just one art. I am still training in Hapkido, I do not want to stop, for me it is the best and I will always continue my training in it.

I am a well educated gentleman and I feel that I truly have a lot offer you all, I am very good at what I do and how I do it. Being a Black Belt in Martial Arts has a lot of responsibility and you can only learn from experience, I have it and I hope you all as students will enjoy my teaching you what I know so one day you may pass it down and share the knowledge of what you have learned.

Also thank you for reading this brief introductory note about myself.