Special guests

One of the joys of running your own club is the feeling of spirit and community. Not only with one’s fellow members, but with the martial arts community in general. If you attend another style or totally different MA and mention that you already run a club, you get treated differently. It is only a small and subtle difference in tone of voice of mannerism but generally, my other instructors seem happy that another instructor has chosen to learn from them. I too fall into that category since one or two of my club students also do another MA at a very high level but still find it beneficial to learn from me. It is a humbling experience.
Going back to the community spirit thought – one of the things I love doing is making friends with other instructors and asking if they would give us a seminar. I like the idea of opening doors and opening minds so that our members get to experience and practice stuff outside the immediate circle. Last year, we had a very successful and much praised Systema seminar. Over the next couple of months, I am hosting seminars from: my BJJ instructor, our head of association, our friends at Mill Hill and hopefully, my old sensei from Kent. You cannot fail to learn something valuable at seminars. The benefit of having one in the club environment is intimacy – in a big sports hall with hundreds of jitsuka it can be very hard to follow everything.
So, our little club looks forward to the arrival of our esteemed guests and Meerkat will report on how each one goes here on this weblog.