Intro

As I am writing this, the night already fell in Bangtao, Phuket, Thailand. My dog Taco sits beside my chair, and in front of me, I have a board with monthly goals and training notes. Tomorrow is another training day. I am a full-time MMA athlete, working hard to make my professional debut this year. I am a kung fu practitioner and coach. And I am an academic researcher of martial arts — hence Kung Fu Academic.

Born in the Czech Republic, I fell in love with martial arts in 1999. My journey has taken me from Shotokan Karate to Hung Kuen Kung Fu and now Mixed Martial Arts (MMA). I am a seasoned amateur MMA fighter, a World Champion in Kung Fu, and a proud holder of a black belt in Karate. My love for martial arts brought me across the globe to Hong Kong first, and then to Thailand where I live now.

I started training in martial arts in 1999. I spent my childhood in a dojo, training in traditional karate. After I reached the 1st-degree black belt, I also added Chinese kung fu which then took over my life. In 2015 I board a plane to Hong Kong with my backpack, scared to death. In the years before I visited Hong Kong, the center of Southern Chinese martial arts to compete. But now I decided to move here to study directly from one of the best practitioners of the Hung Kuen style, Wong Chung Man Sifu. I saw the depth of the knowledge kung fu has in Hong Kong and since my love for martial arts drew all my main life decisions, I thought: either I stop training, or I move over there. And so I did.

The first years were pure survival. I started working at learning centers because even though I had two degrees in Education, I could not land a job at a school. Those were terrible jobs and I knew they would be, but they were my ticket to Hong Kong. So I worked in a tiny overcrowded room without windows. My first few flats were small too: I could easily touch opposite walls at the same time. My first flat: no kitchen, so my flatmates used to cook in the bathroom. Cocraches loved that.

As time was passing by, I kept applying to the Doctoral program and eventually got it. I got to research martial arts from a psychological point of view. All those years I was training daily, competing and winning the Hong Kong national titles, vice European titles, and a World Championship title. My gyms were a public park and my sifu’s school, filled with lion heads and weapons.

Around that time I started to spar at boxing gyms, sanda gyms, and eventually MMA gyms. Thanks to a crazy idea, I flew to Thailand to spend a week training there and I met George and Frank Hickman, who changed my opinion on MMA. I kept coming back as often as I could, and from a crosstraining opportunity, it became a full-time career dream.

When Covid hit, gyms in Hong Kong were often closed and so I kept training in the parks like I used to. Finally, in 2022 stars aligned and I had a short window opportunity to move from Hong Kong to Thailand. Within a month I left my kung fu home, packed my things and my dog, and I flew to Phuket.

Please join me on my journey through my events and thoughts about fighting, coaching, MMA, traditional martial arts, sports psychology, and life in Hong Kong and Thailand.