About Us
CO-Founder - CHIEF INSTRUCTOR
Simple Street Defence was founded January 13th 2008 by me Phil Whitehead and Lee Jones.
There’s a few reasons SSD exists;
- Because I had become completely disillusioned by what was being taught and on offer in the world of self defence, so decided it was about time something realistic was taught.
- I was also severely bullied at high school and because of that I have a huge passion to stop it happening to other people.
ABOUT PHIL
I learned Ju-Jutsu, graded to Green belt, came second in the British championships (despite only being a Yellow belt) and came 3rd the following year in the Midland championships, then tore my calf muscle and that was the end of martial arts for me.
In my 20’s my best friend Lee got me back into martial arts and I studied Aiki-Ju-Jitsu under Spirit Combat and graded all the way to Brown belt, this taught me Aikido elements and blended nicely with my background prior to that, but I became completely disillusioned by what was Black belt, so decided that i’ll leave and start my own club with Lee. By some miracle I got insured despite only holding a Brown belt.
One evening while me and Lee were planning how we were going to do this we started thinking of names and I randomly just come out with “Simple Street Defence” because “Simple” means easy, “Street” shows reality and “Defence” is practicality, it just fitted perfectly.
The first EVER lesson taught was Sunday January 13th 2008 at 3pm and despite me and Lee delivering hundreds of flyers ONE student turned up called Mark and that was it SSD was born, over the next year we moved from a small room to a leisure centre and then started teaching just children.
I then joined another martial arts club with Sensei Nigel and eventually did my self defence Black belt followed by my 2nd Dan and the club grew to 2 lessons a week and then eventually 3
Unfortunately in 2012 Lee moved to Wales and SSD was left for me to continue, and he opened his own club “Hoshi Martial Arts”, I developed the syllabus to become the “F-8 System” and in 2018 I was honoured to join the ASMAA-SDF (All Stars Martial Arts Association, Self Defence Federation) and in July 2023 I was awarded my 3rd Dan by the head of the ASMAA-SDF for contributions of teaching “sensible self defence” a moment that will remain with me forever because it meant that I was recognised and that meant so much.
my Vision
To teach the most effective self defence system around that is;
- Especially suited to children
- 100% “reasonable force”
- Constantly “pressure tested” so that the only things taught can be done at actual speed
- To keep developing the syllabus and scrapping methods that don’t suit most who do it (ie. too many students keep messing up the move on gradings, then it’s time to be changed)
MY Mission
To make sure that students who train with me;
- Get the best self defence training possible
- Learn life and physical skills
- Gain a new found confidence in a matter of lessons
- Have the most fun they can, while learning
- Make new friends while training with me
- Always feel welcome and part of something
- Learn that winning isn’t what matters
- The value of achievement isn’t just belts or awards
- To continue being a completely inclusive club, all children are welcome
If this sounds like something that your child or children might want to do?
then why not book your FREE taster session