Although advancing at other sports, Craig started martial arts influenced by television, movies, and his Black Belt babysitter. Constantly mimicking moves off of Bruce Lee and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, sparked him to join Sharkey's Karate in October 1994. Craig knew instantly from his first lesson, taught by yellow belt Matt Mullins, that martial arts was his new sport. He dropped traveling league soccer, and pouring six days per week training in class.

Craig's first tournament was an inner school competition, where he won first place in forms as a white belt. Soon enough, he traveled the Midwest region competing the AKA (American Karate Association) circuit, one of the oldest in North America. Craig's talent grew drastically, when Matt Mullins introduced open forms, a creative karate routine with acrobatics, which opened new avenues to his training.

While balancing teaching children's classes and school work, he trained late hours at the dojo preparing to travel the national circuit. Even though a purple belt, strapping a black belt on Craig challenged him to reach further in the tournaments and won his first black belt championship later that year.

Craig teaches private lessons to competitive martial artists and hosts seminars across the country. For more information, please contact him at craighenningsen1@aol.com