AMOK! is a worldwide enterprise delivering superior personal
defense training to individuals, businesses, military, and other
government agencies.
The company was founded by Tom Sotis in 1992 in Easton,
Massachusetts. Initially organized as the International Blade Fighters
Guild (IBFG), and comprised mainly of several knife arts, by 1998 we
suspended practicing and teaching all previously learned methods and
developed an ultra-functional methodology called AMOK! Combatives.
In 1998, Tom Sotis, Mark Human and Kelee Arrowsmith introduced AMOK!
in South Africa. SA is Mark & Kelee’s country of national origin,
(they were teaching and training for several years in the USA), and
they decided to remain to service their country.
AMOK! ceased operating as a martial arts organization, reorganized
as a professional company, established our tactical HQ in South Africa
(World HQ in USA), and in the last decade have established one the
world’s most respected combat training companies.
Our mission is educating and training persons of
good character to protect themselves and their loved ones with ethical,
legal, and tactically responsible solutions to violent assaults.
Our methodology aims to develop one’s entire sphere
of readiness across the entire force continuum; imparting functional
skill in the shortest interval with realistic and safe training.
Our technology serves the dual purposes of defending
against violent attacks with empty hands or with weapons; and uses only
one set of blade-based actions to apply your empty hands, an edged
weapon, or any improvised instrument.
We offer superior content because we and our clients fight nearly every day
in South Africa and in other dangerous countries so we have a
real-world laboratory to improve and evolve our technology. We admit
this gives us somewhat of an unfair advantage over our competition, and
we invite them to move to South Africa (as we did for this very
reason) and risk their lives for this knowledge too.
We offer a superior methodology that offers the highest return
of development for one’s time invested. Our ultra-functional
methodology is highly sought out by hundreds of instructors of other
fighting systems as a means to improve the quality of their activities.
