Punong Guro Joe Habis

Pioneer of Kali and Pencak Silat in Lebanon since 1993, Guro Joe Habis is a master martial arts instructor with over 45 years of experience at the highest level, and the creator of the Kali Circle Combat System — a highly effective, reality-based combat system developed and refined over decades of training and teaching.

An 8th-degree Master Instructor in both Filipino Kali and Pencak Silat under Dakilang Guro Jeff Espinous, he also holds certified instructor ranks in several other martial arts, including Thai Boxing, Kickboxing, Boxe Française – Savate, and Jiu-Jitsu.

Guro Joe was the first to introduce Kali and Silat to the Middle East, establishing the Lebanese National Kali Committee and organizing the region’s first public Kali Silat seminar with Jeff Espinous in 1995 — a tradition that continued for over 30 years.
He also played a key role in promoting Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu in Lebanon, co-founding the Lebanese Jiu-Jitsu Federation and hosting Royce Gracie in 2012, as well as the Atos Jiu-Jitsu Team — the first to teach BJJ in Lebanon — training with them himself for several years.

He is the founder of The Dojo – School of Martial Arts in Beirut, where legendary teachers such as Masanori Fukami, Royce Gracie, Felix Valencia, Fred Evrard, Joakim Engberg, Jean-Jacques Aoun, and Jouhaïna Dib have taught and shared treasures of knowledge.

In this dedicated space, and through a lifetime of practice, Guro Joe developed his own integrated vision of combat: the Kali Circle Combat System, rooted in Filipino and Indonesian martial arts. His system extends to specialized programs in children’s martial arts, women’s self-defence, a university-level psychomotricity curriculum, and a Military & Law Enforcement Tactical Program integrated into Lebanese Special Forces training since 2010.

As a former philosophy teacher, Guro Joe published the Kali Circle Combat Philosophy in 2018, emphasizing the ethical, conceptual, and strategic foundations of his art.

Over the years, his teachings have produced a vast number of highly skilled students and instructors — some who have gone on to become World Champions, others achieving Master ranks and teaching worldwide. They all started with him at The Dojo.

Today, the Kali Circle Combat System is recognized by the International Kali Arnis Eskrima Federation (IKAEF), and has certified instructors in over 10 countries, including France, England, Germany, Spain, Greece, Belgium, Switzerland, Dubai, and Canada.

Ranks

Guro Joe began martial arts with Judo at the age of 5. Since then, he has trained across a wide range of martial arts from Japan, Korea, Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines, China, Russia, France, the United-States, and Brazil — earning ranks in over a dozen martial arts systems.