Darren Currah is the Deputy Editor of Martial News, Co-Chief Instructor of DFM Martial Arts and a Director with the company which owns both, DFM Self-protection Ltd.

He is a fourth Dan in Directional Fighting Method and holds Dan grades in Kickboxing and Wado Ryu Karate and has trained many others arts including MMA and Ju-jitsu.

He recently moved to Bulgaria after bbuying property there and in A Stranger in a Strange Land he is going to chronicle his journey into Balkan country's martial arts scene...  

Martial Arts in Bulgaria

DARREN CURRAH: My Girlfriend and I bought a old house in Bulgaria in December 2007 to do up as a holiday home when the prices were reasonably cheap. 

Nothing flash, just a 2 up 2 down with a bit of land and a big old barn (that the roof has nearly fallen down on) for which I have plans to make into a training area, and a dilapidated old bungalow next door which basically needs knocked down and re-built. This we hope to rent out in the future when all the other projects here are finished.

After spending a few weeks at a time here over the next 18 months to do some renovation work on the house (which I plan to do most of myself) and get it into a reasonable state so it was comfortable to stay in. We decided to move here full time in June 2009. Quite a decision as I had my own landscaping business and my girlfriend has a shop.

Three nights a week I was out teaching martial arts and kickboxing and helped my brother out with the MMA class, I knew that this is what I would miss the most. My friends and I had built up our club over the years and it was ticking over nicely with lots of plans to progress and move with the times.

We packed the old transit van up with our essentials (and my martial arts kit) to get us started in our new home and off we went. It took us five days with a steady drive over Europe, taking in some of the sights. The old transit never missed a beat the whole 2000+ miles and has done the trip a few times since.

Once we got to Bulgaria I cracked on straight away with the house renovation and kept in regular contact with the lads back home to keep up with how the clubs were going. Needless to say I had to find myself a club here, I was driving the missus (and myself) mad when we were in the house every night together, I mean we had to talk and everything. I needed to get back to some sort of training so we decide to take a day out to wander around the beautiful city of Stara Zagora which is a 20 minute drive from our place.

My Girlfriend and I walked all around the beautiful city looking for some sort of martial arts club. As we did not speak the lingo it was difficult to explain to them what we were looking for.

Coming from a modern street based martial art in the form of Directional Fighting Method (DFM), it was difficult to find something similar. There were the usual suspects of akido, karate, kickboxing and even tai chi. As well as the traditional Bulgarian wrestling clubs, now this one did catch my interest.

So anyway, on our wander around the city we came across a tourist information center where one of the staff spoke some English. Great, I thought. But all she could help me with was a new gym that had opened around the corner. We took a walk around to see as it was just around the corner, but we struck out as there was only boxing that was starting in a few weeks.

As luck would have it the receptionist at the gym spoke very good English so we managed to get her to understand roughly what we were looking for so she sent us away looking for a wrestling and MMA club. After looking for these places for about 20 minutes with not to much luck we came across a school, so wondering if they ran one of the clubs here we had a wander in. The language proving to be a problem again, the receptionist got up and took us towards a classroom where we found there was an English lesson going on, great.

As the teacher was coming to speak with us some students noticed we were English and started to speak to us in pretty good English, bonus. They knew of the wrestling club and it was just around the corner and an MMA club just a couple more streets away. The receptionist actually walked us to the wrestling club which was very nice of her. It’s fair to say that most of the people we have met here in Bulgaria are very friendly and will help you as much as they can.

The wrestling club was closed, bummer. I could have fancied giving this a go as its one of the few combat sports I have never done before, but we can call back another time I suppose. So we went looking for the MMA club which was supposed to be just a couple of streets away, it was, and we found it.

On the top floor of an old sports centre with an almost fully matted room and some free weights.

An MMA club in Stara Zagora has taken me under their wing whilst I’m spending time in Bulgaria.

A friendly bunch of lads who base there MMA around the traditional Sambo and Judo.

Evasive Self-Defence Combat System

John Barrass
Founder/Chief instructor
U.K.E.S.D.C.S





ESDCS was founded by John Barrass, and launched on June 2006 after three years of research into self defence and combat systems effectiveness in stressful street combat situations

John holds high grades in Aikido, Wado Ryu Karate and Kenjutsu (Japanese swordsmanship)

John is also a highly experienced practitioner of the Goshinjutsu and unarmed combat systems

The system was created for instantaneous response to physical assault

Kong Sai Martial Arts



Traditional Kung Fu
And Kickboxing

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Jarrow,
Tyne and Wear

0191 4249977

www.kongsaimartialarts.co.uk

DFM Self-protection Ltd First Aid Courses
and
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for Martial Artists 

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Ninjutsu
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Zanshin Aikido
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