About the Instructors
John Borter and Trish Chiovari are both certified instructors and direct students of Bernie Leddy, "Chieftain" and the legitmate inheritor of the Doyle system as appointed by Glen Doyle. He is the head instructor of the system and the first person in history outside the Doyle lineage to be appointed to lead the system. They are members of the Fighting Hares faction, the heads of the Whiskey Stick faction, and were among the first instructors certified by Bernie in the U.S.
John currently teaches more than 100 Irish stick students and teaches via live study groups and Zoom sessions. He has students throughout the US, Canada, Mexico, Hawaii, Australia, The Netherlands, Norway, Germany, Sweden, Lithuania, Croatia, Hong Kong, and more. He is highly sought for his fun and popular Irish stick seminars.
John has been training in the martial arts for more than 35 years and holds blackbelt ranks in 5 different martial arts systems, the high rank of 6th degree blackbelt, and is the founder of Modern Self-Defense Concepts. He teaches martials arts, self-defense, knife, tomahawk, Kubotan, and Irish stick classes and seminars to hundreds of people a year. He is also the creator of the ABC Women's Self-Defense program, a renowned program taught in 12 countries and has worked as a training consultant for law enforcement.
Trish Chiovari has been training in the martial arts for more than a decade. She is an instructor in Modern Self-Defense Concepts and the co-instructor of the ABC Women's Self-Defense program. She effectively utilizes both her experience in the martial arts as well as her training as a certified social worker to bring her unique and highly valuable insight to teaching women's self-defense and personal safety.
Trish teaches Irish stick in partnership with John, is a memeber of the Fighting Hares faction, co-lead of the Whiskey Stick faction, and has been featured in podcasts and a BBC article on Irish stick fighting as the only active female Doyle Irish stick fighting coach in the world (as of the writing of this bio dated 4/26).
They teach seminars in and around the Northeast as well as oversee a number of Irish stick study groups. They are also the creators and administrators the Facebook group "The Irish Stick", the predominant Irish stick resource on social media.
Doyle Irish Stick Fighting
Doyle Irish Stick Fighting is a devastatingly effective two-handed combative system developed by the Doyle family in Ireland. This system was brought to Canada via a Doyle who settled in the rough and tumble landscape of the Atlantic’s Newfoundland coast.
While most Irish styles used the one-handed methods (much like fencing), the Doyle style evolved from a one-handed longer range style to a much more ‘close-quarter’ two-handed style when a family member fused the principles of pugilism into the motions of the stick.
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