1987
Julien was born in the suburbs of Paris then moved to the suburbs of the city of Lyon, Venissieux which was a rather perilous neighbourhood where crime and stabbings were commonplace. He had to experience violence first hand from a young age as he was being bullied at school, and outside, so he quickly had to learn to adapt to his environment in order to be able to survive
A few years later in his teenage years leading to his early adolescence he got involved with gangs and hooliganism, this is when he started to get in trouble with the authorities, at that point he was faced with a choice that would determine the rest of his life; he could have well ended up choosing a path of gratuitous violence and self destruction. This lifestyle was very difficult.
Too difficult and not just for Julien but also for the people trying to help him - his immediate family members. Things could have ended really bad if he continued this course of action; however, just before the point of no return occurred, something good happened. It was the pivotal point that put Julien onto the path that made him who he is today: a benevolent soul on a mission with a righteous purpose.
That purpose is to help as many people as possible, especially people that have been and continue to be victims of violence. Violence is a very ugly and nasty thing but it certainly has a way to mould our character. Violence doesn't care about who we are, what our background is or what state of mind we find ourselves in at the moment it decides to prey on us. It just comes to devour our illusions and at that point we have only two choices available: capitulating or fighting back.
The truth is that the only way to deal with violence coming from anyone, if any attempt to avoid it or to defuse it has failed, is to train ourselves to access a level of aggression that will totally eclipse theirs. Julien went from one extreme and to the other and needed some adjusting as the time went. It is very important not to learn the limits and not to cross the line but then again one must make mistakes in order to learn - that's what free will is about.
1991
It is at the age of 4 years old that Julien started his lifelong journey into the martial arts and combat sports and he decided to start with a Japanese traditional martial art called Judo. This is where he learned the basics of throwing and grappling.
He stuck with it for 4 years but really wanted to gravitate towards a more impactive form of martial art which he eventually did by going to a Shotokan Karate school next to where he lived in Feyzin. This Karate form was full of horse stances and kata applications, something he found quite boring to be honest. Julien quickly moved on to another Karate style called Kyokushin, a much more combative form in nature as the training involved a lot of hard punches to the body, kicks to the legs, and a lot of conditioning. It was definitely his first introduction to heavy impact martial arts.
He stayed with it for a good while and enjoyed it a lot but due to his hyperactivity disorder. It always proved to be challenging to stay with one discipline for a long time, it really depended on whether or not he got along with the instructor. He wanted to explore the whole world of martial arts and it is needless to say that this world is very vast, it was an obsession for him and it has been for years and years. Julien eventually started to train in Taekwondo for a while; it truly was these three arts that initially built his attribute base in terms of striking, grappling, and conditioning.
1997
It is quite clear that martial arts and combat sports are and have always been in Julien's veins since several members of his family were also involved in martial arts. Julien's mother was a Savate practitioner for several years, his grandfather was a heavyweight amateur boxer, and in addition to that several men in his family were some of the soldiers during the second world war to make it back alive and in one piece. His father was also involved in the martial arts from a young age and as part of his career became an instructor in Crisis Management, CQB Tactics, and Hand to Hand Combat in the French Police Anti-Riot and Anti-Terror Unit of the CRS. It is needless to say that his old man was getting real life experience on a daily basis and that his professional experience was a great influence on Julien's training as he was getting quality tuition from a teacher with first hand real life experience with Violence. It really was his father that first influenced him to gravitate towards a more pragmatic approach to combat by introducing to him to the various combative tactics used by the military and the police forces all over the world and on the top of that his father also introduced him to the use of weaponry.
Julien had his first experience on the shooting range at the age of 8. One of the first weapons that he was taught by his father was the Tonfa (the side handle baton), a weapon that has its roots into the Okinawan Kobudo style. The Tonfa has since then been and continues to be used by police forces all over the world.
All this training widening Julien's horizons. It is also around that time that he started to research as many different types of martial arts as he could find, spending hours and hours online researching and taking notes. Julien had a particular and keen interest in the Indonesian style of Penchak Silat, Chinese Wing Chun, and of course he had an immense admiration for Bruce Lee and his Martial Art: Jeet Kune Do.
He first started to explore the lineage that was the most available to the masses and that is the JKD Concepts lineage that comes from Danny Inosanto. The JKD Concepts taught Julien a lot about martial arts in general; it taught him about the different ranges and also about how to utilise each style in order to suit various situations and environments whilst also learning about Bruce Lee's philosophy. Julien researched the big names in France, names such as Robert Paturel who was an instructor and negotiator at the RAID French Anti-Terror Police Unit, a multiple European Savate champion, a JKD Concept instructor, and the creator of the police Tonfa method (the Tonfa method taught to Julien by his father).
There are other big names in the French martial arts scene, such as Charles Joussot who adapted Penchak Silat for security professionals and law enforcement officers. And of course if we are talking about the influential French martial arts instructors, we cannot miss Franck Ropers who is probably one of the most explosive Penchak Silat warriors out there with other elements of self-protection incorporated in his martial method, Ropers has been a massive influence on Julien's training too alongside a few others.
2001
Julien eventually ended up moving to Eastern Europe in 2001 to live with his father where he continued his martial arts training and research. Julien was delighted to find out that the eastern europeans have got a quite combative mindset and it was around that time that he started to explore the Russian combative arts such as military Sambo and Aleksei Kadochnikov's Systema; both were very interesting arts that gave Julien a different outlook on combat training.
He was fortunate enough to be involved with teaching as he was given the opportunity to assist his father providing Crisis Management, CQB Tactics, and hand to hand combat to various governmental units across the Baltic countries.
Bodies such as AIG (Apsaugos ir Intervencijos Grupas) the Special Intervention Unit of the second regiment of internal forces of Lithuania, the Lukiskes Penitentiary Personal Rapid Reaction Team, the Latvian Police Undercover Unit, and also various security companies within the private sector. The training involved intervention tactics, crowd control tactics and strategies, anti-riot tactics, handcuffing, control and restraints, hand to hand combat, weapon handling, firearm training and much more.
It was an amazing opportunity for him to go through the training program designed for the trainees, he managed to learn a lot of new things that belonged to Combatives rather than martial arts and got exposed to all the various teaching methodologies out there.
Julien met with Vincent Roca and Rodolphe Jung from Rapide Defense System, a martial method that was very street fighting oriented and that influenced Julien a lot in his combative approach and training. In addition to that it is also during that time that Julien started to train in Bushido with Jordonas Poskaitis at the 2nd Regiment of Internal Forces of Lithuania, Jordonas was teaching a Bushido approach which was very mixed martial arts oriented since he was competing in the K1 Championships.
2009
Julien spent a solid 8 years living in eastern Europe mainly between Lithuania and Latvia where he was training with various instructors in various disciplines; meticulously gathering as much knowledge as he could in parallel to assisting his father teaching for the military units, police forces, prison staff and security professionals.
During that time, Julien also started his career within the security industry as a mobile patrol response team operative intervening in various venues dealing with thieves or intoxicated individuals. It is also during that time that Julien did his debut as a nightclub doorman in Lithuania where he was fortunate enough to be around some very experienced doormen (mostly ex parachute regiment soldiers) that were kind enough to show him the ins and outs of the industry.
Julien learned more in these 8 years of his life than in all the rest combined. He then eventually decided to move to the United Kingdom to pursue his career in the security industry and further his research in martial arts and combat sports. He first arrived in London and was sleeping rough in the streets of Westminster, it was quite a severe start as it was around the recession when the world bankers once again decided to make fun of the rest of the world. Julien literally had to learn to survive in the streets of London until the Irish travellers found him and offered him a job. He found himself living in a caravan in the middle of a traveller site called Toddbury Farm in Leighton Buzzard. He was working hard as a labourer and hod carrier doing block paving, tarmac driveways and bits of roofing for them where he was also shortly involved with a bit of bare knuckle boxing.
Julien lived with travellers for about a year then moved back to London where he started his journey into boxing at a gym in Stepney Green. Boxing truly opened his eyes in many different aspects, it was a combat sport that is very efficient due to its simplicity and a rather small technical tool box compared to many other martial arts. Just a select few tools such as the jab, cross, hook, uppercut, shovel, corkscrew, and overhand mixed with various bits of footwork, evasive and offensive, and then some head movements.
Ultimately a discipline where he spent more time thinking about tactics and strategies than he did thinking about accumulating more techniques. Julien found that boxing was all about cutting things away rather than constantly adding things to the mix.
2011
Julien ended up moving to the Ukraine where he stayed for about a year. Ukraine is a beautiful country full of amazing people that Julien quickly fell in love with. He was living in the city of Ternopil where he continued his training in boxing and kickboxing and of course his research in other Martial arts never stopped - it was like an obsession that didn't seem to have any end. Through his wife's family, he was fortunate enough to be given the opportunity to teach a seminar for Berkut, the Ukrainian Police Special Intervention Unit in the city of Ternopil. This was an amazing experience to share ideas and combative training methodologies with very like minded people, it definitely allowed him to develop his teaching abilities further as the time went. Ukrainians are some of the toughest and nicest people Julien has ever met and it was a great honour for him to learn their culture.
It is also around that time that Julien came across Lee Morrison's material online and started to study his DVD's with a lot of dedication. Julien noticed straight away that Lee's Urban Combatives is one of the most realistic approaches as a method of counter violence. At that point Julien always wanted to meet the man and to learn from him in person. Little he knew back then that Lee Morrison was going to become a close friend, a father figure, and a mentor. For Julien, it was impossible to stick to only one method so around the same time he decided to explore another Jeet Kune Do approach - the Ted Wong JKD lineage.
This is when he started to exchange messages with Tommy Carruthers in Scotland, one of the best JKD instructors out there. Julien came across Tommy's videos on Youtube already years ago when he was living in Lithuania, he started exploring the original Jeet Kune Do and realised that this lineage was very different from the JKD concepts; it was much more emphasis on simplicity and directness.
Julien started working on his lead punch, he continued developing his side kicks, his groin kicks, his back fists, and his boxing combinations - but in a way that was more adapted to Fencing. It wasn't long until Tommy proposed to him to come to Glasgow to learn the original art.
2012
After back and forth conversations with Tommy Carruthers, Julien decided to move to Scotland so he could pursue his training in martial arts and learn Bruce Lee's amazing art from the best of the best.
Training at the basement school in Glasgow changed him as a martial artist as he had to learn to truly empty his cup in order to learn to get rid of the unessential and focus on what truly matters. It is there that his combative training approach underwent a massive shift, all of a sudden it was no longer about accumulating technique! Instead it was about letting go in order to cut away the unessential.
The best analogy in order to explain what happened further is the analogy of the toolbox: A very full and heavy toolbox because of all the various tools it contained (all the tools accumulated from Julien's 21 years of martial arts at the time).
When Tommy saw him arriving with this overfilled toolbox, he flipped it upside down and said:
“Your toolbox is way too heavy! It has got way too many tools in there! You must remember that you have to carry that box everywhere you go, you won't be able to carry it up and down the stairs easily for example! You don't need this, it's not simple enough. Throw this away, it takes too long! And this! And that! You'll never have enough time to work on this and that! It's not about adding stuff, it's all about cutting things away in order to stay with a light and simple toolbox! All you need is to stay with a select few tools and drill them in as many different ways as possible! It's better to practise one skill 100000 times than to practise 100000 techniques once as Bruce Lee used to say!”
Training with Tommy Carruthers truly revolutionised the way Julien viewed combat and the way he used to train. As a result of this he ended up throwing away about 90% of what he used to do in terms of techniques because most of it was way too complicated to work, if things were not simple enough they had to be discarded and they ultimately were. The other very important thing about training for realistic combat is that it has to be concept and principle based rather than technique based. Once we understand that every technique follows a certain principle and that by understanding the underlying principle we can create our own techniques following this very principle then we gain more combative maturity and as a result of that our whole combative approach changes.
It is also then that Julien met with Paul Mitchell who was one of Tommy's apprentice instructors, Mitch and Julien became good friends as the time went.
“Man, the living creature, the creating individual, is always more important than any established style or system.” (Bruce Lee).
2014
Julien spent a good few years in Glasgow, in parallel to the training he was doing in original Jeet Kune Do, he continued exploring his own martial path, incorporating what he was learning at the basement school into his armed skill set (knife, machete, sword, baton, tonfa, bo stick etc.). In parallel to that Julien was going through a very intense spiritual awakening, a very transformative period of his life to say the very least and it led to amazing changes. Eventually Julien decided to move to the north west of England in the city of Manchester where he started to get more and more involved in his training in Muay Thai.
He used to train at a family Muay Thai club called "The G Camp" with Mike Embrack, Horace, Abs and Tony that gave him the chance to take his skill set to the ring. It is while fighting in interclass that Julien first met with Bilal Remassy Omoboye, a pro Muay Thai fighter who at the time was number 2 in the UK. After seeing a few of Julien's Muay Thai interclubs, Bilal proposed to Julien to come to train at All Powers Gym in Stockport, a Muay Thai gym that has a great reputation.
In Julien's humble opinion All Powers is one of the best Muay Thai gyms in Europe, the home of many pro fighters during the years. Julien started to train in that gym consistently, the training was quite difficult but worth it. It is then that Julien met with Panicos Yusuf (the owner and chief instructor at All Powers Gym), a 3 times world champion and multiple times European and British champion that is still active on the biggest platforms such as One Championships.
Panicos is a very rare breed of human being, he really helped Julien feel at home at the gym. He gave Julien the opportunity to compete in Muay Thai and this was a massive growth to say the very least. Panicos later became one of Julien's best friends as he not only helped him improve his skill set in the art of the 8 limbs but also helped him on a personal level to improve in life as a human being.
2017
Due to his personality and his deep love for the martial arts, Julien was never the type of person to stick with just one art so he continued to train Muay Thai at All Powers Gym in parallel to other things such as Jeet Kune Do, knife fighting, stick fighting, grappling and much more.
His approach to combat kept evolving further and further, then on a beautiful day, Julien received an email from Lee Morrison that had noticed him through some videos on Facebook. In this email Lee left Julien his phone number and asked him to give him a ring. For Julien it was like a dream come true! When he rang him, they had a good chat and Lee invited him to teach at a “New Blood'' seminar alongside Tom Flint from “Kinetic Combatives” who is a full UC instructor under Lee and a full Kembativz instructor under Kelly McCann and alongside Jamie Miller who is Lee's number one instructor and who became one of Julien's best friends.
The seminar was absolutely awesome and Julien had his first stress test a la UC! Brutal to say the least but a great way to find out what works and what doesn't. Julien fell in love with the UC training methodology straight away (interesting enough how we can develop friendship by trying to knock each other out in a controlled environment!). Lee proposed to him to start studying the Urban Combatives curriculum in order to become an UC instructor, this definitely was one the most amazing opportunities that ever took place in Julien life!
Following this experience, a deep dive into the world of Combatives took place. What attracted Julien was the no nonsense and realistic approach to street brawling, the scenario based training, and the full contact simulation pressure testing that goes with it. He already followed Lee Morrison's work for years before he met him in person but after experiencing this high level Combatives training, Julien was hooked for good.
Combatives not only encompasses all the physical elements (hard skills): armed and unarmed skill set but also all the non-physical elements (soft skills). It compiles all the tactical and strategic elements relating to self-protection and counter violence by equipping the student with a vast knowledge containing elements of psychology and behavioural study, criminology, conflict management and resolution, environmental and situational awareness, tactical emergency first aid, counter custody, escapology and much more. This is an actual soldier skill set!
2022
After 5 years of solid studying and training, Julien underwent the solid “Urban Combatives Instructor Development Program '' under Lee Morrison. After 6 months of hard work and one of the most challenging stress tests, he made it to "full instructor" level.
He met a lot of like minded people and made a good few good friends on the way, people like Adam Lee Stratta, Nick Adams, Dave Wilkinson, Phil Webbley Parry, Tom Fryer and many more, all amazing human beings and UC instructors that Julien is fortunate enough to be able to call friends and brothers innards. Urban Combatives is so much more than a self-protection school, it is a brotherhood where everyone has got each other's back.
Julien founded his own Combatives self-protection school back in 2008 called Adrenaline Combatives and he broke onto the international seminar circuit in 2018 teaching seminars in Latvia, Lithuania, Ukraine, France and Portugal whilst still to this day growing and expanding getting a very positive feedback from the four corners of the world.
Julien continues to draw inspiration from some of the best self-protection instructors in the world, people like Richard Dimitri, Bill Kipp, Graig Douglas, Tony Blauer, Kelly McCann, Dom Raso, Baret Fawbush, and Scott Babb; all people that contributed a great deal to Julien's growth as a self-protection instructor and as a human being. Julien continues to evolve and to live his passion: Helping as many people as he can through the vehicle of "combative therapy".
