In 2007, when I was working as a PE teacher at a Sports College, I took the bold step of opening a club 80 miles from home as I wanted to bring our martial art to an area where it was completely unknown.
I ran the weekly classes primarily to increase my motivation to train; the school grew much faster than expected.
Following inspirational conversations with my family, girlfriend Vix (now wife) and fellow instructor and friend Kim Francis, I decided to leave my career and follow my dream.
The untimely passing of Kim in February 2008 motivated me even more so; the last thing she ever said to me was to make sure that I followed my dream.
And now, still under 5 years from the first class, we have over 180 students with a 70 year age range. Many students have achieved National and International Titles in the UK, USA, Holland and Spain, including 11 Grand Champions in 2011. We placed 4th and 3rd in the 2010 and 2011 European Championships respectively and 4th in the UK Championships 2011. We have over 20 actively training Black Belts who are all taking on more leadership responsibilities during their regular training.
Now Vix and I work in partnership to provide an extensive service that would not have been possible on my own. Following on from our Undergraduate Sports Leadership Degree, we now offer courses in Junior Leadership for 9-16 year olds. Many of the teenagers in the club have benefited hugely from taking on roles of responsibility. We also run kids’ camps during the holidays and have secured links with other local sports clubs to offer multi-activity sessions including running and acrobatics.
This summer we are running our first residential ‘Away Days’ Camp exclusively for teenagers.
Special themed classes are planned such as ‘pancake pandemonium’, where our students can be seen flipping and kicking pancakes, together with special ‘Christmas’ classes and ‘Bring your mum/dad to class’ weeks, which all help to increase the motivation of our students and subsequently secure member retention.
Our Stars Scheme programme for juniors is now an integral part of our assessment procedure. Students work towards skills patches every month and focus on a ‘word of the month’ which helps to develop them into citizens with good morals and values. These life skills and patches help us to monitor individual progress from both a physical and social perspective. Students are also assessed through regular quarterly gradings where they undergo a physical/psychological test to earn stripes towards their next belt.
As a growing club, we are able to offer a more specialised service for our students. They attend classes appropriate to their age and belt level but can also take part in extra-curricular activities suitable for their ability. We have recently developed ‘Team Mantis’ a new elite demonstration team. Our offshoots of the martial arts classes are often what helps bring different groups of the community together and add substance and meaning to our club.
We also visit local primary schools and help children to develop their grammatical skills and punctuation using a variety of martial arts movements. Many teachers have agreed that it helps to promote the importance of an active lifestyle, not to mention exploring the benefits of kinesthetic learning.
We aim to provide high quality martial arts instruction and believe that our background in education founds the basis of this. We believe our club is unique; striving to develop skillful martial artists with honourable characters. We are now seeking a full time location. We could not have developed over the past five years without the fantastic support of our students and parents. Thank you.
About James
I attended my first Kuk Sool WonTM class in April 1992 and have been enthralled ever since. I still remember practicing after my first class to see if I could remember what I had been taught. I started training under the instruction and leadership of Master Steve Whiting and Master Mike Gooderham and owe them everything; I would not be who I am or where I am without the outstanding foundations they laid down for me.
I wasn’t very successful in my first few tournaments but have since practiced hard and represented the UK six times at the World Championships. My first title was 1st Dahn Youth UK Grand Champion 1999 and I won the Overall 1st Dahn Grand Champion at the World Championships later that year, a division reserved only for Grand Champions from that year from each practicing country. More recently, I won 3rd Dahn European Grand Champion 2009 and 4th Dahn UK Grand Champion 2010 and 2011. I am very proud of my tournament success over the past 20 years but I feel much greater pride when I hear my students’ names being called out over the PA system when they win medals.
I love teaching martial arts and seeing my students progress and develop is the most fulfilling and satisfying feeling imaginable.
I travel around the country (and world) to receive instruction from as many Masters as possible, including Senior Masters Sung Jin Suh, Alex Suh and John Ives and Masters Darren Brown and Nick Reeve. I am now training towards 5th Dahn Master but I have to await my invitation from the Grandmaster before I can start testing.
I believe that my zest for life is attributed to the choices I have made to follow my dream, namely running a martial arts business with my wife; I would advise everybody to do the same and follow your dream too!
Why NEST?
After less than a year of running once weekly classes I decided to go full time and every professional instructor said that I would have to use a billing company. I was apprehensive at first because of the fees involved, but the process had been tried and tested and I thought I should not waste any time weighing up the pro’s and con’s. I would be crazy not to use one.
NEST were recommended to me many times, even from instructors who were not with NEST at the time and have since seen the light. Louisa from NEST put my mind at ease over numerous telephone calls and I thought it was nonsensical not to at least go ahead with a meeting with Gerard. Gerard went through the whole process with me and created a projection for where our club could go; this resolved any anxious feelings I had, considering we had a mortgage etc… to cover and I would be giving up my teaching career.
There are many benefits we receive from NEST, the main one being fee collection. I could not imagine trying to collect cash every class and then chasing unpaid fees every day; the flexibility to suspend/increase/decrease payments by email is also fantastic. I have used the budget and marketing planners and had many of the promotional materials printed; having the tools available to decrease time spent on these tasks is vital as I am a martial arts instructor after all! I also intend to make use of other NEST services very soon, such as the online grading and attendance systems as well as communication and new prospect tools.
On a personal level, Gerard has offered lots of advice as we have developed as a club, providing imperative taxation and VAT information and support in our search for our first fulltime premises. NEST have been instrumental in helping our club achieve such great success in under 5 years and we are very excited about how NEST can help us develop in the future.
