About
The Founder Brian Cowell
Meet FOUNDER Brian Cowell
Brian Cowell, SwiftKick’s founder and Master Instructor, has over 35 years of martial arts training experience; Over 25 years of professional martial arts coaching; 5th Degree Black Belt in Tae Kwon Do; 1st Degree Black Belt in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu under Sam Kressin; Certified Scientific Wrestling Catch Wrestling Coach; Certified Red Zone Threat Management Knife Defense Trainer; Mental Performance Coach; BS Psychology from SDSU; MBA from SDSU. Training in several martial arts styles for over 25 years, he has blended the best of mixed martial arts and combat self-defense to create the Applied Martial Arts system found at Swiftkick Martial Arts.
Brian Cowell has received tremendous benefits from his personal martial arts training. He has taken this training and applied it to all his life endeavors. Brian attributes his ability to complete an MBA at San Diego State University and start his own corporation at age 22 to the discipline, tenacity, and life lessons he attained through martial arts. He is experiencing great success with martial arts instruction, personal fitness, and life coaching.
SWIFTKICK MARTIAL ARTS & FOUNDER HISTORY
BY BRIAN COWELL
I started training in martial arts at three. My mom sought out martial arts training for me for three reasons: I was painfully shy and majorly lacked self-confidence. I had great difficulty focusing on organized academics. I was delayed in my physical development and coordination.
I always remember loving martial arts. I enjoyed the physical challenge, the intellectual challenge, and the constant push to be a better version of myself. I did not realize when I was young just how much my martial arts training would impact me. Martial arts changed my life and changed who I am. I went from being a shy kid to confidently speaking in front of large groups of people and teaching classes to kids and adults at the age of 15. I became one of the youngest Nationally Certified Instructors ate age 17 and started SwiftKick Martial Arts at 22. I went from lacking focus in school to graduating Summa Cum Laude with a B.S. in Psychology with Honors from San Diego State University and obtaining a Master’s in Business Administration. I went from having delayed physical development to breaking and setting records in physical fitness examinations in high school and becoming a First Degree Black Belt at 16 and Second Degree Black Belt by 18. While I can say I am proud of these accomplishments, it is the journey that reveals where my genuine pride lies.
Martial arts helped me unlock the secrets of accessing my potential. It taught me to be honest with myself and embrace my strengths and weaknesses to improve on them. It taught me the value of commitment to developing skills and achieving goals. It taught me to confront and face the fears that held me back. Undergoing this process was challenging. The result was incredible, but the journey was incredibly hard. As a teenager, when I first started teaching, I remember being paralyzed by fear before and after teaching almost every class. I was terrified of what students thought, what parents believed, and what my instructors thought. I just wanted to hide. I could barely manage the anxiety I felt getting in front of a group of people to lead them through a class.
In high school and college, I remember how hard it was to truly focus during lectures or while reading complex academic material. I had to put in more hours of study in school for what seemed to come easy to others. I remember it took years of commitment to building my physical strength and stamina in middle and high school just to be on par with where most athletes start. It was those times and those moments that were life-changing experiences. My actual development was during the tribulation, not because of the outcome, and it was my training and lessons in the martial arts helped me survive those tough times. However, many years later, I would recognize this impact on my life.
As a psychology major at San Diego State University, I become intensely involved in researching and studying self-esteem and its impact on the individual and society. With my professors, we pondered the following: how is it that our current generation has some of the highest self-esteem reported yet also the highest rates of drug abuse, suicide, anxiety, aggression, and depression? I completed an Undergraduate Honors Thesis that had compiled research at the time and served as a foundation to pursue my research in a Ph.D. program. In summary, the findings pointed toward the fact that high self-esteem that is built through developing solid social relationships and competent skills seemed to develop a much more stable identity of self that was resilient when facing challenges.
Self-esteem built through unearned praise and accolades seemed to develop inflated self-worth with a weak foundation and engendered tendencies towards narcissism (such as aggression and antisocial behaviors). I was so fortunate to work with the leading professors in the field and had been accepted into my dream programs for continuing my research in a Ph.D. program. I was passionate about exploring ways we, as a society, can perhaps utilize these findings to impact people positively. Right before graduating, I suffered an injury that resulted in major surgery on my shoulder. Doctors informed me that my time as a participant in martial arts was over; in fact, I would be lucky if post-surgery, I would be able to conduct everyday tasks like one day picking up my child or playing catch. I was 21 and my world shattered. In many ways, I had taken my martial arts training for granted. i had pretty much participated in it my entire life. However, once it was gone, it hit me like a wave: the solution to the problem I had been researching in school was right in front of me. Then, I decided that instead of conducting further research, i wanted to start a business teaching martial arts and imparting the same valuable life lessons I learned to others. I wanted others to experience the same transformations I had.
My martial arts training helped me have the discipline, positivity, and work ethic to rehabilitate my shoulder to complete recovery despite the prognosis of doctors. It was my martial arts training that best prepared me to face my anxieties and fears about starting a business with no financing and no experience. It was my martial arts training that helped me develop the resilience and tenacity to grow a small class of students with classes at parks, community centers, and churches into a successful business operation that empowers and employs 18 outstanding men and women, has two locations and has impacted thousands of student lives over the last 16 years. This is why I started SwiftKick Martial Arts: to transform lives through the power of martial arts and to help others unlock the secret of accessing their potential.Â