Jonathan was born in South Africa and became very interested in martial arts at an early age after watching Bruce Lee’s “Enter the Dragon”.

At age 12 Jon studied Judo for a couple of years under the instruction of Sensei Ronnie Kerr, and thereafter moved on to studying Shotokan Karate under Sensei Dick Carroll,  attaining purple belt.

After leaving high school and joining the military for 2 years, it was not until the early 1990’s that Jon was bitten by the Aikido bug after watching Steven Seagal’s movies. Jon joined the Wits Aikido Federation Club in Johannesburg, and trained there for 2 years under Sensei Adolfo Braga. Unfortunately Sensei Braga immigrated back to Italy and the club closed down.

In the late 1990’s, being both a martial arts and Bruce Lee fanatic, Jon started to train in Bruce Lee’s Jeet Kune Do (JKD) style under Sifu Morne Swanepoel, and Chief Instructor Sifu Burton Richardson from Hawaii (you can see Burton as one of the cops in Steven Seagal’s movie ‘Fire Down Below’).

After 3 years of training Jon gained the rank of Assistant Instructor, however due to a severe back injury sustained whilst training (which resulted in surgery), he had to stop training for 18 months. On his return to JKD, Morne had decided to relocate his gym and family elsewhere.

In September 2005 Jon immigrated to New Zealand with his family. Jon joined the Institute of Aikido Auckland in November 2007 and finally settled into a stable organisation where he could hone his skills.  Jon was awarded my Shodan (1^st Dan) in March 2012.   Jon’s teaching draws upon his broad martial arts background but focuses upon functional and basics and core principles such as posture, balance and correct  body movement.