E d Ricciuti has had a lifetime interest in combat sports and self-defense. He fought his first catch-as-catch-can wrestling match at a backroom smoker when he was age 15. He was a boxing champion and later a trainer at the University of Notre Dame. After that, he trained amateur and professional fighters and was a licensed second for professional boxing in Massachusetts and Connecticut.  In addition to his training in  combat hapkido  and  JKD , he has studied shorin ryu karate and judo. During the 1980s, he fought in tournaments that allowed no-pads, full contact, with no weight classes and open to all styles. He is currently studying Black Dragon kung fu under  Stephen Watson  and studied Jung Ki Hapkido under  Chris LaCava .

  In his other life, Ricciuti is an author of books for adults and children and a journalist with international reporting experience. Among his books is How to Box (Crowell 1982). He was also a curator for the New York Zoological Society, with offices at the Bronx Zoo. He appeared as The 

Animal Man on the Patchwork Family program for children, WCBS-TV, New York. He has taught and lectured to audiences from graduate school to elementary school levels.

Ricciuti is a graduate of the University of Notre Dame and was a Sloan-Rockefeller Science Writing Fellow at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. He served in the United States Army Reserve and United States Marine Corps Reserve.  He was a chief hunter education/firearms safety instructor for the Connecticut DEP.

He belongs to the Overseas Press Club of America, the National Association of Science Writers & Outdoor Writers Association of America. 

He has a website  here.

 It’s not just kicking, hitting, grappling, and throwing. In our youth program, we take a full view of what makes a confident, well-rounded child. Each student receives individual attention, focusing on their strengths and weakness. It is our goal to improve upon those strengths and chip away at those weaknesses.

Ed receiving his 3rd Dan certificate from Senior Instructor Arthur Blair.