February Newsletter

Leadership News

February 2009.

Forthcoming Events

Kata class, Sunday 8^th 10 – 11.30am

Sparring Seminar- Saturday 21^st 1pm Points then 2-30pm Kickboxing.

Saturday 7^th March 09 1pm at Bull Close, The Black Belt Academy Points Sparring Championships.

Saturday 14^th Feb – first Junior Black Belt prep class, Bull Close 8am.

Bring Your Friends To Train At The Academy For Two Weeks FREE

Between March 2^nd and 16^th we are offering NEW STUDENTS the chance to train free of charge. All they need to do is call us on the free phone number 0800 1691328 to book a 1-2-1 introductory lesson so that we can show them around and tell them about our protocol and procedures. After this free 1-2-1 session they can train for 2 weeks completely free of charge.

Tell all your friends.

Black Belt Academy Championships.

If you would like to be known as the BBA 2009 Champion and have your picture on the notice board for a whole year, you need to train hard on your sparring techniques.

On Saturday 7^th March from 1pm we are holding the BBA Championships 09. It is £5 to enter if you do it before 1^st March and £7 if you wait till the day. There are sparring and Kata sections that will both be run on an elimination basis (winner goes through to next round)

The categories are;

Juniors;

1. Black belt and Junior Black Belts (divided by height).

2. Second Blue belt and above (divided into height groups)

3. First Blue belt to Orange belt (divided into height groups)

4. White, red/white, red/black/ yellow belt (divided by height).

Men (over 16yrs);

1. Black belts over 70kg

2. Black belts under 70kg

3. 2^nd Blue and above

4. 1^st Blue and below

Women (over 16 yrs);

1. Black belts

2. 2^nd Blue and above

3. 1^st Blue and below

Kata;

1. Black belt men, women & Juniors (Including JBB)

2. Adult & Juniors 2^nd Blue and above

3. Adults & Juniors 1^st Blue to Orange belt.

4. Adults and Juniors white belt to yellow belt.

Mixed Martial Arts Classes

This class began last week with a very promising number of participants. If you would like to be involved you may try two classes free and if you like it upgrade your membership (an extra £10/month) to include it on a regular basis.

We will teach the basics of; kicking, punching, grabbing/grappling, throwing, pinning, joint locking etc.

The class will be approximately 50% body conditioning/fitness as this is vitally important in MMA. The other 50% will be spent on the technical aspects. .

If you know of anyone who may be interested in starting MMA ask them to get in touch with us please.

MACT Team.

Mr Fitch and myself have re-organised the Martial Arts Career Training schedule this year to have fewer training sessions that each last for half a day. The reason we have done this is to cut into fewer of your weekend days and also to supply you with greater levels of information on each of the sessions. We do appreciate that sometimes it is easier to learn in smaller chunks but sometimes it is more convenient to set aside half a day once every 3 months than 2 hours each month.

The dates for the sessions at present are 28^th Feb, 25^th April, 30^th May and 24^th October. We will do our best to keep to these dates but please be understanding if other, subsequently booked or discovered, events require them to be changed (ie tournaments or seminars).

For those of you who do not know what MACT training is, I will explain.

Because we are a ‘professional’ martial arts school with professionally trained coaches (all of them), we need to constantly be on the lookout for potential new instructors. We need a trickle of new instructors coming through because; occasionally, one of the team will leave, we like to be able to expand when the opportunity is right and sometimes changes in the timetable mean that a student is unable to continue teaching a certain class. Training a martial arts coach fully takes approximately three years so we like to have a steady flow of people coming through. This is why we will sometimes approach a student who may currently be quite young or a low grade. By the time they are fully trained they will be considerably older and of higher rank.

The MACT programme is a great system, it not only teaches martial arts coaching but has a VERY strong business ethic too. All of our qualified instructors have been well coached on how to run a business as well as teaching physical skills.

So, when you see a reference to MACT, you will know what it means.

Save Money

With all the talk of recession and credit crunch, you may be thinking of ways to save money? There is a great way to cut down on your grading fees.

We offer ‘Grading Vouchers’ these are pre payment vouchers that cover all of your gradings up to a certain grade. If you purchase a voucher for 5 Kyu gradings or more the cost will be just £15 per grading, (plus £80 to take the voucher to Junior Black Belt). A voucher to cover ALL kyu grades and chosho grades up to 1^st Dan is just £275.

A voucher for ALL kyu and Chosho grades to 2^nd Dan is £350 and ALL grades to 3^rd Dan is £450.

Remember though that grading vouchers are not transferrable and not refundable.

Another great way to save money is by helping us with our cash flow. Anyone who runs a business understands that cash flow is usually the biggest challenge and we are no exception. If you would like to help us by pre paying your membership for 12, 24 or 36 months, we will offer you a discount of 15%, 20% or 25% respectively.

Thinking Part.

Thinking For Yourself.

I remember clearly the first time someone explained to me that I was allowed to think for myself and I didn’t HAVE to agree with anyone. I felt really excited and immediately I went around looking for things that I could make up my own mind about rather than believing what I was being ‘encouraged’ to believe by my parents, my teachers, the TV, radio, newspapers and other influential people.

I was a bit disappointed to discover that, when I thought about most things for a while, my opinion didn’t change much. But there were a few areas of my life where I could really enjoy thinking for myself.

My parents made me go to Sunday School when I was little and I soon began to question the things I was told there.

As I got older I remember having a school teacher believed Russia and the USA were absolutely certain to have a nuclear war in the 1970s. Thank goodness he was wrong.

About 10 years ago I decided to stop thinking of newspapers as having NEWS. Instead I look at them as businesses that want to try to influence people to think a certain way, usually for their own benefit.

TV and Radio news too I question, it seems to me their goal is to be sensational and to make everything into a drama. They even try to turn EVERY kind of weather into a news event.

I suppose I just understand that most people attempt to influence other people to think like themselves, probably because they are not very sure of their own beliefs and they will feel more sure if lots of other people think the same.

You may have heard me mention this type of thinking before, its called ‘tribe’ thinking. Its not ALWAYS bad, tribes were often more likely to survive, than individuals, in harsh conditions in the distant past. But sometimes the tribe leader just wants everyone to agree with her.

Sometimes thinking like everyone else saves us the trouble of working something out.

I would like to encourage each of you to THINK on important subjects before you believe everything you hear and see, you may not be seeing/hearing the whole story or both sides of the story.

Please remember I NEVER want to tell you what to think, just encourage you TO think.

Joke;

Juniors; George: Our dog is just like one of our family.
Fred: Which one?

Grown ups; Have you ever noticed that when the doorbell rings, the dog's the first one to the door, but it's never for him?

New Satellite Starting at Wymondham

(Spooner Row)

Beginning on Wednesday 11^th Feb at Spooner Row Village Hall (Near Wymondham) Mr Ward (jnr) will be teaching a beginner’s group. The class begins at 6pm and everyone is welcome. If you would like more details please call Mr Fitch on 01603 760022.