Welcome to Black Tiger Kickboxing
Discover the ultimate martial arts experience with Black Tiger Kickboxing, where we blend the best of American Kickboxing, Western Boxing, Taekwondo, Tang Soo Do, and other disciplines to create a dynamic and empowering hybrid training experience.
About Instructor MJ
Instructor MJ holds a 3rd degree black belt with World Taekwondo Federation, MMA Conditioning Specialist Certification with National Academy of Sports Medicine (NASM), an apprentice black belt with Cheezic Tang Soo Do Federation, a blue belt in Brazilian Jiujitsu with KORE BJJ organization, with over 30 years of kickboxing experience.
Origin of BTK
Taekwondo Grandmaster Kiye Cho offered Instructor MJ an opportunity to teach his hybrid style of kickboxing at one of Cho’s earlier Taekwondo schools in around 2008.
This was at a time when mixing striking styles, especially under one roof of a traditional martial arts school, was extremely rare and even shunned by many purists. Instructor MJ felt empowered and encouraged to do what he felt passionate about, developing a comprehensive curriculum that borrows strengths from multiple martial arts striking styles and blends them. And that was the birth of Black Tiger Kickboxing. As Grandmaster Cho moved North, opened his new school in Hartford County and started a new Taekwondo organization, Olympic Taekwondo Academy, Instructor MJ continued to study Taekwondo under Grandmaster Cho, earning his 3rd degree blackbelt in 2014, and Instructor MJ continued teaching Kickboxing & Taekwondo in various locations within New Haven County.
American Style Continuous Kickboxing
American Kickboxing is a competitive sport which typically takes place in a ring with boxing gloves just like Western Boxing. It can be practiced for competition, for self-defense, for fitness or even just for fun. Derived from a combination of western boxing and karate in 1970, the rule-set typically does not allow the clinch, grappling, knees and leg kicks, however the black tiger style practices them occasionally. The American kickboxing style heavily favors boxing style hands and karate style kicks above the belt.
As a child in the early 80s Instructor MJ loved watching martial arts flicks with his older siblings and acting them out much to the amusement of his brother and sisters. His parents signed him up for Taekwondo lessons, but at the time he was young and wanted to do what he saw in the movies as opposed to what was being taught. Around the age of 13 he switched to Kempo Karate. While there, he did what was highly forbidden at the time, joined an additional school in town. Though he loved Shaolin Kempo and revered his instructor, he hungered to learn various arts. The new school taught Tang Soo Do, but took the same cross training approach he loved to martial arts, offering boxing, kickboxing, Muay Thai, Aikido, Japanese Jujitsu, Gracie Jiujitsu, and even out of town trips to learn the unarmed ninja art of Taijutsu! He became a junior assistant instructor of Tang Soo Do, and competed frequently, undefeated and ranked in the top 5 competitors in teen intermediate open karate point sparring at that time.
He continued to hunger to learn as many martial arts as possible, and jumped from style to style and school to school experiencing many different martial arts under many different instructors and masters. He spent time training with Larry Rogers Top Ten and competing in open karate tournaments. When he moved away for college and attended University of Maryland-Baltimore County in Maryland, he joined every martial arts club they had on campus; Aikido, Jujitsu, Boxing, and this is where he returned to WTF Taekwondo, advancing to apprentice black (Poom) belt.
There was a cardio kickboxing aerobics craze that hit gyms and fitness centers in the early 2000s, which looked way different than the competitive kickboxing of the martial arts world, and Instructor MJ loved it. He also attended cardio kickboxing aerobic classes at UMBC.
Instructor MJ moved back to Connecticut to complete his college education at Southern Connecticut State University, joining the SCSU Karate Club which is part of the Cheezic Tang Soo Do Federation and competed in Intercollegiate tournaments. The head instructor and owner of the school where he first studied kickboxing as a teen also taught a kickboxing padwork class at SCSU and Instructor MJ would train in that class frequently.
While training in Tang Soo Do with SCSU Karate Club he returned to WTF Taekwondo, and became a certified cardio kickboxing instructor and certified personal trainer. He used competitive kickboxing training, padwork and drills as his mode of personal training, and taught cardio kickboxing group fitness classes at about a dozen or so fitness centers and gymnasiums. Most classes were packed wall-to-wall! One of those gyms was Quinnipiac University Fitness Center. After graduating from SCSU, he met the Fundamentals of Kickboxing Adjunct Professor Robert Mickey at Q.U. Robert Mickey formerly taught at Benny “The Jet” Urquidez’ The Jet Center, before moving from CA to CT. He began training in kickboxing again with Mickey and another student, Rob Shrage.
Eventually, Instructor MJ became the Adjunct Professor to teach the Fundamentals of Kickboxing course at Quinnipiac University after Robert Mickey moved away and Rob Shrage graduated. He studied Modern Arnis with Professor Ball for some time at Quinnipiac University. He also earned his red belt from Harold Lindo & Todd Deutsch in Cheezic Tang Soo Do and his first-degree black belt from Sang Pil Kim in Taekwondo around this time. He would still cross train, visit many schools and dabble in many different martial arts styles.
After graduation and starting his career of marketing, Instructor MJ also taught classes of Taekwondo under a local organization. As times became hard in the recession of 2008, Instructor MJ spent a couple years teaching Taekwondo full-time. This is when he met Master Cho before he opened Olympic Taekwondo Academy and Black Tiger American Kickboxing was ultimately born.
He presently teaches credited courses of Fundamentals of Kickboxing, Taekwondo & Fitness Training and Nutrition Strategy at Quinnipiac University. He was Head Instructor and Faculty Advisor of The Quinnipiac University MMA Club before the pandemic. He still serves as their Faculty Advisor. He also teaches fitness kickboxing, studies BJJ, and taught striking training at CT Krav Maga & MMA in North Branford, Connecticut. In 2023 he returned to Cheezic Tang Soo Do at Institute of Martial Arts and earned his apprentice black belt.