Background
Building Human Capabilities

Five Rings Training Founder Kirsty Henderson's personal experience in building her own human capabilities has led her to several high-level Coaching, Advising and Leadership positions. It is here at Five Rings Training that her full core knowledge is available in its entirety.

Here, she merges 3 decades of seemingly unrelated academic study and elite performance-training together to clearly articulate one unifying philosophy for life, helping people to live aligned, well-balanced, fulfilled and healthy lives.

Understanding that the human system is capable of far more than we settle for, Kirsty Henderson and her carefully selected expert teams at Five Rings Training live what they teach. With 20 years of Coaching and Leadership experience, and 16 years of authoring pioneering programmes built from hard-won first-hand experiential knowledge, Five Rings Training has empowered tens of thousands of people worldwide and goes into 2025 with Henderson's new era mission of distributing their education wider. 

Studies, Training & Building

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Kirsty Henderson commenced her academic studies with the 7 years required to become a fully Chartered Architect and embarked upon a successful career in the construction industry to Director level working on construction portfolios of up to £400 million. In her studies she focused on Defensive Architecture and Sacred Architecture and the psychological principles of human development and settlement, themes which would continue throughout all of her work.

During her Architecture career in London, Kirsty undertook intensive training in martial arts and physical self defense systems. She trained intensively with international military and training organisations studying their fighting and defence systems which would later lead her to become a specialist fight technician, ran security operations and studied ancient eastern mind-body training and healing systems to further her own performance and recovery capabilities. As she physically trained in each of her martial arts, she academically studied the philosophies and theologies associated with them, leading her on an anthropological and theological journey through the eastern religions of ancient China, Japan and then into Israel where she combined her Krav Maga training (Israeli Military Self Defence) with 12 years of study in Judaism, Biblical Hebrew and further into the study of the encompassing full Tanach and new covenant Scripture, which she jointly still studies today.

In her martial arts training (currently of 25 years) she gained several Black Belts and is one of the few martial artists to have been the student of both of Mas Oyama's legends; Grandmaster Kanchi Yoshiji Soeno (Head of World Shidokan) and Hanshi Steve Arneil (Head of Kyokushinkai).

She became the 1st woman in Britain to attain the gruelling Shidokan (Japanese bare knuckle knockdown MMA) Black Belt, undertook 64 endurance fights by the time she was Nidan, fought for the British Team, travelled to Japan where she lectured in Sustainability in Architecture and undertook two of her Black Belts and fought 14 of the masters to become ranked top female Shidokan fighter in the world. On returning from Japan she became GB Squad Coach to the British Men's Team training them to successful World Championship win and became the 1st woman to train a men's team for the All Japan World Championships.

In her professional life she was offered Directorship of one of Europe's leading multi-discipline construction firms plus received an offer of Directorship by two of London's principle architectural practices. She accepted one of the Directorships, continued her role as GB Squad Coach to the men's team and later opened up her competitive training for both men and women in the launch of her international fight organisation Five Rings Training Fight Association which has provided world class fight and defence skills for 15 years, training over a thousand fighters.

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Highly involved in construction in the UK & Europe building hospitals, cultural and educational buildings, and urban masterplanning and regeneration, Kirsty became involved in curriculum development and began to establish her thinking in curriculum and building as two interwoven necessities for human development, founding Five Rings Training and Personal Safety London.

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In her private studies she continued on to gain a number of further instructorships and teaching qualifications across the fields of Risk & Prevention, Health & Wellbeing and Elite Performance becoming an award winning Coach and Fellow of The Association for Coaching, Life Coach (FAC), Executive Coach (FAC), a Certified Yoga Teacher (CYT RYT Reps3), a Krav Maga Instructor (Israeli Military Defence), a Specialist Defence Instructor, a KEWAP (Knife and Edged Weapons) Instructor, a Weapons Disarment specialist, a Chief Martial Arts Instructor and Honorary UKMAA Senior Instructor, SIA (Security Industry Authority), a fully insured Wellness Consultant, Qi Gong Teacher, a qualified Reiki practitioner (albeit she chooses not to practice Reiki as it was taught to her), and a TED and global Speaker. Her work at Personal Safety London quickly expanded with tens of thousands of corporate staff worldwide being trained in prevention training with PSL growing into a multi-award winning globally operating Educational and Operational security organisation now expanded into PSG Security. 

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It is this wealth of knowledge and 20 years of Leadership and Coaching which Kirsty Henderson brings together to lead programmes at Five Rings Training.

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