Founder and Headmaster
Chris Santillo is the founder and Headmaster of Potomac Kempo, with five studios across Northern Virginia, and of Integrity Martial Arts in Dungarvan, Ireland. He has trained and taught the martial arts for nearly thirty years, and has built his life and his livelihood around them.
First, Chris is a working teacher. He runs classes, develops instructors, builds curriculum, and shows up in the dojo — the daily work of leading a school. That practice rests on a long path through several traditions: a 6th Degree Black Belt and Shihan teaching certification in Kempo under Hanshi Dave Kovar; a 5th Degree Black Belt in Shaolin Chu’an Fa under Grandmaster Steve Demasco; a 3rd Degree Black Belt in Shaolin Kempo under Professor Charles Materra; a 2nd Degree Black Belt in Kosho Ryu under Kyoshi Jeff Driscoll; a 2nd Degree Black Belt in American Kempo under Professor Barry Barker; and the rank of Mataas na Guro in Pekiti Tirsia Kali under Mandala Apolo Ladra. Each of these teachers shaped a part of how he trains, teaches, and thinks about the art.
For the Santillos, the martial arts are a family practice. Chris’s wife Holly is a 4th Degree Black Belt and Renshi who teaches at both Potomac Kempo and Integrity Martial Arts. Their eldest son is a Black Belt and Assistant Instructor; their two younger sons are Brown Belts and Adjunct Instructors. All three boys actively teach, and together with Chris and Holly they run Integrity Martial Arts — a school run, in the truest sense, by a single family of instructors.
Beyond his own students, Chris also writes and works with other school owners. He is the author of The Art of Shaolin Kempo, a book-length effort to capture the multidimensional nature of the art in words, and the co-author, with Holly, of Resilience Parenting: Raising Resilient Children in an Era of Detachment and Dependence — a parenting methodology built directly out of martial arts principles. He and Holly also wrote The Road Less Traveled, chronicling the three years they spent traveling the world with their three sons. He teaches seminars and speaks at martial arts conferences, and much of his work outside the studio is spent helping other school owners run their dojos with integrity and lead lives that match the values they teach.
Chris holds a degree in Computer Science from Harvey Mudd College and an MBA from Georgetown University. He continues to teach at Potomac Kempo and to lead the organization he founded.
