Future of Our World: Empowering the Powerless

Written by Qin Yunquan.

As a social entrepreneur committed to the vision of helping ordinary people, especially women and children keep safe, one of my key dreams is to make our realistic self defense and personal protection system, Modern Street Combatives, the default reality martial arts in Singapore. We were recently honored by Yahoo! Sports as one of the Top 5 Real Martial Arts Schools in Singapore for 2014. More important than being conferred such recognition however, is garnering the largest market share in Singapore for realistic personal protection skills, with about 2,000 students a year. But I believe we can do much better. We still have a fair way to go, as our goal is to train about 8,000 a year. The more people we can reach out to and train, the more lives we can keep safe.

Another one of my key dreams is to educate and empower as many Asians as I can with realistic self defense skills. To make this dream come true, we aspire to build a network of training centers in selected cities in this region. 

Apart from Singapore, Kuala Lumpur and Johannesburg where we now have a presence in, we hope to set up training centers in Johor, Penang, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Taipei.  If we can do this within the next 10 years, we would become the top self-defense/personal protection system in Asia. More importantly, it would mean that more lives are being kept safe.

Though many meaningful projects exist around the world to help people stay safe, I still feel that not enough is being done.  Ladies often make excuses that it will either not happen to them or that their husbands or boyfriends will keep them safe. This is foolish and wishful thinking. Crime can happen to anyone of us – anytime and anywhere. The price we pay for being a victim is too high or painful to overlook, thus we need to prepare ourselves so that we do not become unsuspecting victims. In the course of our work, we have met many ladies who have been raped or sexually assaulted. Many of them sadly uttered the same regret to us – 'I'd never thought it would happen to me'.  And when the unthinkable happens, the price is too high to pay. So ladies, don't take your own safety for granted. Spend some time to prepare for such acts of brutality and you won't live to regret your complacency.

George Bernard Shaw, the famous playwright and Nobel Prize winner for Literature (1925) once said with his usual tongue in cheek humor, "Youth is wasted on the young".  While there is some truth to his words, I believe that it need not be so. We have choices and the ability to decide how we want to live our lives – to waste our youth on frivolous pursuits of vanities or to be an agent of change in this world. I believe in the positive impact that youthful exuberance and idealism can bring if we are willing to work hard to make things happen. Young people should look at the things that are wrong around their lives and ask themselves, 'How can I make this world a better place?'

Take responsibility and ownership of a problem and do something about it, whether the problems we see around us are ecological destruction, animal abuse, sexual exploitation of women and children, or poor kids without the money to go to school. No problem is too small or big for us to address. Take ownership of a problem and do something to correct the wrong. And of course, stay focused because things don't change for the better because of hopeful thinking.

Are there limitations to youth? We are limited only by our lack of imagination and willingness to work hard. Conversely, if we dare to dream and work diligently, it can become our strength too. The same playwright has another quote that inspired me, "You see things; and you say, 'Why? But I dream things that never were; and I say, 'Why not?"

I am honoured to be one of the founders of Modern Street Combatives  - a simple to learn yet effective personal protection system that combines some of the best in class combative martial arts (e.g. Kapap, Gracie and Catch Wrestling) with psychology (e.g. understanding violence and predator behaviour) and bodyguarding principles. I hope to continue improving on our system so that it serves as a legacy for ordinary people, especially women and children to keep safe. People often mistake combative sports such as Muay Thai, MMA, TKD, Aikido, and Karate as a personal protection or self defense system. This is only partially correct as keeping safe on the streets is not just about physical engagements, but how to avoid danger, de-escalation, mental preparation for violence and identifying predatory behaviour.

Kapap Academy Singapore adopts a holistic approach to helping ordinary people prepare for worst-case scenarios. For example, we have our own in-house psychologist to research and develop scientifically sound principles to help people prepare to face violence and identify predatory behaviour.  We do not focus on preparing our students for competitions, but more importantly, to stay safe while traveling or studying abroad, and keeping oneself or loved ones safe against robberies, kidnapping, sexual assault, senseless street violence, etc.  Our programs have served to train the staff of MNCs, Government-Linked Companies (GLCs), statutory boards, and governmental agencies. Examples include Shell, ExxonMobil, the Economic Development Board, the Ministry of Education, Government Investment Corporation (GIC), etc.

One of the projects that we are working on is developing and publishing easy to read photo books that give bite-sized information and tactics on how to keep safe. This is applicable to different groups of people such as executives working or living abroad, young people studying abroad, and high net worth individuals who are concerned about their own and family safety.  We hope to launch these photo books through WikiGives shortly, and look forward to your support.