Ninjutsu Uncovered

Nev loves chasing leaves, catching, and tearing them apart as we go for a walk; this is his best season, he loves leaves. I was thinking about the life journey of a leaf as I look at an overly excited King Charles Cavalier run around in a sea of leaves like a kid in a ball pit, then coming out shattered and panting; and that is just the kids. When you see the buds just coming out on the branches they look so fragile but with so much potential just as we see a little baby born with everything waiting for it and a whole life ahead. As the bud grows you see it grow into a little leaf perfectly formed and making the tree seem that it has just put its clothes on after the winter months cold and barren, looking unloved and isolated. As the leaf grows bigger in late spring and early summer it is like watching children grow in size and character in equal measure, and the personality comes out. The leaf’s colour is vibrant, strong, and full of life. So as the leaf goes into full summer it blo...

In every part of your life you feel different levels of frustration, from when you are a baby to adulthood the level goes up and down, but it is always there in the background. Watching a baby cry for everything it needs, parents then develop a 6 th sense of what the cry means, like decoding the Morse code. As the baby begins to turn over it firstly brings its knee up and flicks it out to create enough momentum to turn over then promptly cries; funny little things. Then once it has learned how to turn over, it starts to work out the mechanics of crawling and is often seen face down in the carpet, sobbing with a face full of snot and tears getting very frustrated with the lack of forward progress. Once crawling has been mastered clinging on to things, like a drunk leaving the pub, the little one makes it to an upright position only to fall over, and then repeat the process several hundred times; quite a work out. When you see your child walk for the first time, it is an amazing exper...

How far does £5 go these days; I will answer for you, not far. So, when this comes in an enquiry, both myself and my lovely wife and head of admin Kerry we both point out what you are getting in the children’s clubs. Firstly, we recommend you pay as you go for the first four weeks to see if your little one enjoys it, if they do not join in at first and just watch then you get your money back until they join in the fun. We know children get excited about training and want to buy everything from a t-shirt to gloves in the first few classes, but we try to curb that enthusiasm so that the parents don’t buy everything only for the child to decide after four weeks they don’t want to train anymore; so, the cupboard in your house will be filled with lots of fail sporting endeavours. This might sound mad losing sales and making money off excited children, but we do this to help the parents to make it easier for the children to stay.  If they enjoy the class, we ask them to get an Gi and...

                                           A DATE WITH “THE DARK DESTROYER” When you get a text “Do you want Nigel Benn to teach at the gym? What do you text back? This was the text I got in July and it sent me into a spiral, thoughts of the ex-world boxing champion standing in the ring at the AFC, teaching how he became one of the most exciting fighters in the world was just too good to pass up so I said yes. The Day was to be split into 2 parts; 1.         A masterclass; teaching all the little details of movement of this skilful, powerhouse of a boxer. 2.         A question and answer session; answering all the questions you care to ask about his life and the fights he has had. After discussing the pros and cons of getting an event like this organised, along with the head of admin (my lovely wi...

Nobody puts John in the corner? This statement is so true. Life as a cornerman is a massive learning curve just as learning to be a fighter is, but it is a massively underrated part of the martial arts sports scene. I never even thought of being a cornerman because when I was younger I was fighting.   As part of my ninjutsu training we regularly sparred both upright and on the ground so I never thought anything of it. In the olden days because there was not the abundance of interclub or fight shows where people could try out their skill against one another we fought on courses or special weekends and kicked the living shit out of each other thinking it was normal. It was just part of the training; with no gloves, sometimes no gumshield and no cornering help apart from the odd shout of “kill him” from well-meaning bystanders. Back in the day, you could only fight in sport by going to an aba approved boxing club, Thai- boxing club or judo to fight and they never would mix th...

In this high-tech world of the internet, twitter, Facebook, among other leading ways for the world to communicate things can and do get taken out of context. As I have mentioned before in past blogs, that I do Movember, were this started as a negative and the Atkin family have changed it into a positive. I grow a beard in the month of November in memory of my father that died of cancer when I was 20 so to give back to Macmillan I started to do this. Every day I posted a photo of myself and my growing beard but then I started to get negative comments or remark. So, with the help of Kerry (project manager) Molly (makeup) and Erin (Props) we decided to take these negative comments and give them something to talk about and over by dressing up using famous people films and downright disturbing images to promote movember. Since then we have raised thousands of pounds for charity made people laugh cry or have scarred them for life and turned that negative energy to a positive outcome. ...