Esau McKnight

Esau McKnight was born and raised in Houston, Texas. He graduated from high school in 1977 and started training in Korean Tae Kwon Do and Okinawa karate under the direction and leadership of Grandmaster Kim Soo. He developed the love for martial arts early on and competed and won 1st place as a white belt in a local karate tournament. He along with his brother Don McKnight also a master in kung-fu created and developed a performance team entitled the McKnight Brothers / Brothers of the Martial Arts. They performed as an opening act for local venues, parades, talent shows, festivals and tournaments all over the United States In 1982 he received his 1st degree black belt. Esau served as an assistant instructor to Grandmaster Kim Soo at the University of Houston and Rice University for 4 years. Master McKnight’s credits include winning the US Martial Arts Championship twice, the Grand National Karate Championship and the Galveston Karate Championships just to name a few. He was undefeated in 4 years of national competition. In the year of 1984 Master McKnight developed a karate based aerobic fitness exercise entitled Kaerobics the best described as basic karate fundamentals performed rhythmically to music. Esau has worked as a background actor, stand-in actor and principle actor on several sit-coms, drama and feature films such as Spy Hard with Leslie Nielsen, Blade with Wesley Snipes, Batman Returns and Nutty Professor just to name a few. Master McKnight has been featured on TO TV as host of the TV show “Self-Defense for Kids”, KADY TV talk show “IN THE SPOTLIGHT” and KEYT TV show “KIDS FIRST”.