Qin Yunquan was not born to fight. 

If her parents had her way, she would probably be doing something else, maybe something safe in an office. In fact, the 31-year-old put herself on a path towards the relatively harmless field of medicine.

“Being a doctor was my first choice,” she recalls. “Unfortunately, I’m not a great academic person so I couldn’t qualify for medical school.”

But perhaps she chose medicine subconsciously because it feels like the only concrete profession where she could express what she really wanted to do: Yunquan wanted to save lives.

“I thought by being a doctor I could save lives… I guess saving lives was something I just wanted to do,” she says.

Yunquan is the CEO and co-founder of Kapap Academy
and recipient of the Queen’s Young Leaders Award.

This episode contains topics which may be sensitive to some readers.

When she was 19, she chanced upon an article about self-defense. As a petite university freshman, in many ways Qin was quite vulnerable. “I thought that given my size, any man could just take me down,” she says.

“I wanted to learn something to keep myself safe, but I also wanted to be very practical and realistic.”

She attended her first lesson at Kapap Academy where she met her teacher and eventual mentor. Yunquan was amazed at how the techniques of the Israeli defense system allowed her to floor people who were much bigger and stronger. “That convinced me that that was the training I wanted to go for. And then from then on I signed up to be a student. That was the start of my journey.” 

As it turned out, the first life she would save is her own. Around that time, she had been struggling with anorexia for a few years. But her Kapap coach Master Teo Yew Chye had shown her a much higher purpose to help others.

Now, Yunquan is the CEO and co-founder of Kapap Academy — a position she’s held since 2015 — where she and Master Teo developed their own defensive discipline called Modern Street Combatives.

The Science of Defense

It’s easy to believe that Yunquan likes to pick a fight. She is, after all, trained in wushu and Brazilian Jiu Jitsu; she is also a decorated wrestler. But fighting isn’t the same as fighting back. Based on the tenets of self-defense, the mild-mannered Yunquan does her best to avoid physical confrontation. And she advises others to do the same.

In fact, she makes it clear that martial arts, where you fight for sport in a controlled setting where an opponent is chosen for you based on competencies, is an entirely different field.

“More likely than not, in the area of self-defense, you probably have your odds stacked against you. And despite that, you have to fight your way out of that situation. For one, there are no rules, right? In my area of self-defense, there are no rules to respect.”

In university, Yunquan decided to study bioengineering — a safe compromise that could lead her back to medicine eventually. However, her knowledge proved to be beneficial to self-defense instead.

“When I teach, it’s not about technique, it’s about understanding the human anatomy. But if you’re thinking about poking someone’s eye or kicking someone’s groin, that’s not it either.”

“One important thing I want people to understand is that it’s not just about the physical aspect of it,” she emphasizes. In Modern Street Combatives, they’ve come up with three rings of defense: understanding predatory behavior (such as assessing the context), de-escalating the situation (such as walking away), and protecting oneself (where fighting is the last resort).

She talks about drugs and date rape as an example. If you can’t really tell whether this person is good or bad, you take a sip of the drink, and you’ve been drugged, it doesn’t matter what kind of self-defense or martial art you know, she explains.

“It’s better to be street smart. You need to know this little bit of psychology before you get into a fight. If you’re not mentally ready to handle the dangers ahead of you or in front of you, you may not be able to tell your body to do what it’s supposed to do”.

Saving the Vulnerable

Being a woman in a male-dominated arena, Yunquan has had more than her fair share of raised eyebrows: male students who come into the Academy only to realise that a diminutive woman was going to teach them how to kick ass.

But it’s a familiar story for most women, even in the 21st century. Despite some breakthroughs, we continue to live in a world where men feel they are largely in control — whether it’s as simple as doubting a female instructor or something much more grim.

Yunquan’s goal is to inspire other women to take charge of their own lives, the way self-defense helped her manage her own personal issues. Self-defense, according to her, is very empowering.

In Singapore, Yunquan spends much of her time in shelters for women and children who have been in abusive relationships. “I think self defense is very important for them because some of them are single mothers. They have left a very abusive husband, but they're still fearful for their life because they never know whether the husbands might come back to get them or not.”

Many of her other students are women who travel frequently.

“They've seen things and it was just a matter of luck that they didn't get into more trouble than they did. The harrowing experience is what drives them to learn, just in case they encounter something like that again.”

When the pandemic ravaged the world, including Singapore, Yunquan’s practical teaching methods had to be put on hold. And as everyone turned to technology to endure, Yunquan set her energies on developing a personal safety app called Angel Wings.

The app, she explains, comes with a companion device that may be attached to one’s person. In case of an attack and the device is hit, whether by the offender or the victim herself, an alert is sent to family, friends, or even the authorities. 

“So, at the very least somebody knows they're in trouble, they can come to the victim ASAP while the victim, on their own accord, is going to use physical defense to survive the street attack or the attack by their partners,” she says.

“I think not every domestic or abuse victim has this network of people they can reach out to, so they can reach out, for example, to a shelter for abuse victims.” 

Yunquan’s aim is to create more support for victims to leave their partners.

Speaking Out

In 2017, Yunquan was selected to receive the Queen’s Young Leaders Award, the first recipient from the field of martial arts and self-defense. Since 2014, this honour has been given to exceptional young people between the ages of 18 and 29 from every Commonwealth nation “who are leading the way in transforming their own lives and the lives of those around them.” 

She spent nine days in London, attending leadership and youth seminars that would help her pursue her work. On the 10th day, she met Queen Elizabeth herself. The experience, she recalls, was a blur of excitement and incorrect curtsying but she managed to recall what the monarch said to her.

“I think she said something like, ‘Good job, well done…and keep doing what you’re doing because I think the world needs more people like you.”

It was never the soft-spoken Yunquan’s intention to shift the spotlight on her achievements, but attention is inevitable to those who do well.

“I’ve always been a very low profile person. I chose to be one. But I do realise that there’s an important mission for me and therefore, it’s my duty to make this mission known to people.”

She says this with breathtaking humility. “And if that means being in the spotlight, if that means I’m the spokesperson, then so be it.”

What is that mission exactly? Saving lives. It’s what she was born to do.

Follow Yunquan on LinkedIn:
Qin Yunquan

Watch this space for news and updates on Yunquan’s
upcoming app Angel Wings.

Watch the full video interview with Yunquan
on my @iamginaromero Facebook page.