SEAMA
Academy has evolved from a club, which originally studied a
single martial art into an academy that offers a wide spectrum
of martial arts, self-protection and fitness classes and courses.
Chief Instructor, Dave Joyce has been part of the club
since its inception on the opening night in late January
1981 in the old O’Neills Hotel, which
was across from the Marks and Spencer’s store in Eyre Street. Six months
later the club moved to Halla Pharaig in Forster Street. The system studied by
the association (which was one of the biggest associations at the time in Ireland
with clubs in Dublin, Dundalk, Naas, Longford, Limerick, Abbeyfeale, Newcastlewest,
Tralee, Kilorglin and of course Galway) was Pai Lum Kung Fu, a Chinese American
system run by Daniel K Pai and one of its most well-known practitioners was movie
star Don “The Dragon” Wilson. Dave Joyce was given sole charge
of the club in 1985, by which stage he was also studying Muaythai, but
along with
prominent members of the Association was unhappy with the direction the
organisation was taking and decided to look to further fields to advance
their respective
training.
Joyce attended various seminars at home and abroad, eventually moving to London
in 1989 in order to train with Nino Bernardo in Filipino Martial Arts and Wing
Chun and also took the opportunity to train with Guru Richard Crabbe De Bords
in Pencak Silat. After eight months of training, on average six classes a week
while working full-time in construction, Joyce returned to his native city and
resumed teaching Kung Fu, Muaythai, and introduced classes in FMA and Silat.
The club had continued to run under the direction of his seniors including his
sister Darina concentrating their training on Kung Fu. To reflect the new direction
in which the club was training the name was changed to Galway Fire Dragon but
this also had to be changed later to GFD Martial Arts to avoid confusion with
a kickboxing club with a very similar name which had begun training in Galway
a number of years later. Also at this time Joyce was given the opportunity, by
friend and colleague Carol Stephenson, to train with the renowned Chinese martial
artist Master Yang, Jwing Ming of Boston Mass. The Galway and Dublin clubs became
of YMAA International and trained in Shaolin Long Fist, White Crane and Taiji
Quan.
With the advent of the UFC, Joyce wished to test his skills in this type
of arena, and also looked to address his shortcomings in the area of ground
fighting by
training with Josie Murray of Letterkenny. The club hosted a number of
seminars with Josie’s help and trained with a number of prominent
people including Lee Hasdell, Carley Gracie, Carlson Gracie, Ralph Gracie
and Royce Gracie. A
number of students from the club including Joyce himself competed in the
first Vale Tudo events held in Ireland and Joyce was the first from the
club to compete
in a cage-fighting event held in Randalstown Co Antrim. He stopped his
opponent from Graham Keyes BJJ club in Belfast by punches from the mount.
The Galway club
along with running a series of their events Extreme Fighting Ireland which
featured Muaythai and full rules Vale Tudo bouts also ran the first event
held in a cage
in the south of Ireland.
However, after a lot of soul-searching, Joyce decided
to concentrate all of his training on Thai and
Filipino martial arts forsaking all of the others
which
has lead to the formation of SEAMA (South East Asian Martial Arts) Academy
and the acquisition of a full-time, fully equipped
training facility in the Lisoban
Industrial Estate on the Tuam Road in Galway city.
