Dear Member
We hope that you’ve had a nice summer with some holiday time thrown in as well. It’s been good to get outside and enjoy the sunshine, visiting beaches, country houses, parks and new towns alongside meeting up with friends and family.
As we’re getting ready to reopen after our summer holidays on Tuesday 31st of August, we have a few updates for you about our Timetable, launch of our App, Safety equipment and dedicated sparring classes.
Thank you
I’d like to Thank everyone who came to the MMB Fundraising event on 7th August for Parkinson’s UK. Through your generosity we raised £360 for them. Coupled with our last event on 26th June, which raised £603 for St Michael’s hospice, it’s been a successful summer for raising money for good causes. The Martial Arts Community Trust continues it’s work supporting individuals and groups in their practice of Martial Arts, thank you for your support with this. Did you know that we have a Facebook page for selling the masses of pre-read books we MACT has. check out https://facebook.com/MACTBOOKS for more information and some good reads.
We’ve had some great changes take place over the summer months with a new Shin Gi Tai App to provide a better service to you with greater levels of information. In the dojo we have invested in more big bags to allow more of us to train simultaneously plus three Spar Bars, which are great for practicing bobbing and weaving. We’ve also added a wall between the mats and waiting area to make it more secure for little children who will be watching classes with their parents when spectators come back inside.
Standby for more good things between now and Christmas.
Timetable
The new timetable can be found on our website here Timetable
We have finalised our timetable and with a couple of minor changes will be sticking with the timetable that we’ve been trying over the summer period.
To summarise the changes in the timetable.
- Urban Warriors on a Monday will be at 17:30. All Monday members have been transferred to this class. Please let us know if you would like to change to a different day.
- Seated Tai Chi on Friday will carry on at 12:00pm moving forward.
- The feedback on the two sparring classes (Monday and Tuesday) has been positive so we intend to continue these for the time being. These classes are suitable for Young Legends and Urban Warriors members, all participants will need their respective mandatory safety equipment to participate in these classes.
- Judo classes are now re-commencing from Thursday 2nd of August. there are two judo classes one for children and the other for adults. Judo focuses on groundwork and throwing, we already include these within our general syllabi, however the judo class we practice these skills in greater depth.
- From Thursday the 16th of September we are adding additional Rising Hero, Young Legends and Urban Warriors classes. If you’d like to add an additional class to help you improve quicker, consolidate your skills and deepen your knowledge please let us know. if you’d like to switch your class to a Thursday again, please let us know.
| Monday
Time Class 16:00 – 16:40 Young Legends 16:45 – 17:25 Sparring Class 17:30 – 18:15 Urban Warriors 19:00 – 20:00 Tai Chi
|
Tuesday
Time Class 13:00 – 14:00 Seated Karate 16:00 – 16:40 Rising Heroes 16:45 – 17:25 Young Legends 17:30 – 18:10 Sparring Class 18:15 – 19:00 Urban Warriors 19:05 – 20:05 Ladies only Kickboxing 20:10 – 21:10 Ladies only Karate |
| Wednesday
Time Class 14:15 – 15:45 Seated Martial Arts classes 16:00 – 16:40 Young Legends 16:55 – 17:40 Urban Warriors 18:00 – 19:00 MMB 19:10 – 20:10 Tai Chi 20:15 – 21:15 Adults Class |
Thursday
Time Class 16:00 – 16:40 Rising Heroes 16:45 – 17:25 Young Legends 17:30 – 18:15 Urban Warriors 18:20 – 19:20 Children’s Judo 19:25 – 20:25 Adult’s Judo
|
| Friday
Time Class 12:00 – 13:00 Seated Tai Chi (Zoom only) 13:00 – 14:00 Tai Chi 16:00 – 16:40 Young Legends 16:55 – 17:45 Squad 18:00 – 19:00 MMB 19:10 – 20:10 Adults 20:30 – 21:30 Ladies only Kickboxing |
Sunday
Time Class 09:00 – 09:40 Rising Heroes 09:45 – 10:25 Young Legends 10:30 – 11:30 Family Class
|
App
We’re excited to be launching a new app for you to use. This will help us to provide a better service to you with the information that many of you have frequently asked for.
1. Send us messages directly from the App
2. Keep track of your attendance and see how close you are to meeting grading requirements
3. Grading history
4. You can pay for equipment, gradings and courses through the app as well
5. View videos / notes of your curriculum (once you access the app, we will give you access to these. Most of the curriculum is complete but there are a couple of courses still to complete)
Example screens
Download or scan for the App on Android
Download or scan for the App on Apple
Safety sparring equipment
In all the Young Legends and Urban Warriors classes we are have been and continue to practice sparring. Therefore in order to safely take part in the lessons, the children need to bring all their sparring equipment to every class.
I know that since the original lockdown in March 2020, the children have all grown, so please can you check that all of their equipment still fits correctly. If you are unsure a coach can advise.
Young Legends classes
Equipment needed for Young Legends classes (6 to 9 year olds) includes: headguard, gumshield and gloves. Available in Red or Blue.
Urban Warriors classes
Equipment needed for Urban Warriors classes (10 to 14 year olds) includes: headguard, gumshield, gloves, and foot and shin protectors. Available in Red or Blue. Additional equipment including groin guards (boys) and chest protectors (girls) are not mandatory but are recommended.
You can review the necessary safety equipment and purchase it here https://sparkpages.io/?i=MzE
Dedicated Sparring Classes
Based upon your feedback over the summer, we are going to continue with the sparring classes over the Autumn period. These classes are part of our programme to safely reintroduce sparring back into classes with dedicated FREE classes to help you do this.
The classes consist of learning sparring drills and skills from our Karate and Kung Fu syllabus with a compliant partner and then working dynamically with one another on these skills before moving onto free sparring practice.
These are classes are on a Monday at 16:45 and a Tuesday at 17:30.
Young Legends and Urban Warriors are welcome to attend these classes. Attendees must bring the correct sparring gear for their age group.
New Judo Class
We are starting on Thursday 2nd September two Judo classes, one for adults and one for children. The British Judo Association are sponsoring a membership for three months training for new members and existing Shin Gi Tai members who have supported us since last March are welcome to train free of charge until the end of October in one of these classes.
If you would like to come and try the Judo class and boost your groundwork and throwing skills, please let me know know so that we can reserve a place for you.
Judo training involves learning how to safely fall, throw a partner and work together on the ground by learning how to use the body and balance to redirect the energy of a partner.
Grading Requirements
One of the questions that we are often asked is “Why aren’t I/my child grading this time? I/they have trained longer than person X who is now a higher belt than them.”
Essentially it comes down to time practicing and maximising one’s potential. Between each grading there is a minimum number of lessons and minimum number of weeks that must be achieved before grading is considered. In addition each individual must also meet the necessary technical standard to pass their next belt.
There are three ways to get more training time, the first is to practice more each week, the second is to practice for longer. The third and best way is to practice more and for longer, this route will take you to the highest levels mentally and physically. Regardless of practicing Martial Arts, Football, Netball or playing the Piano or Guitar or any other physical activity the secrets of being able to perform difficult complex skills are built through deep practice.
Many of you will have heard to the quote “Hardwork beats talent when talent doesn’t work” and it’s very true. When I first started training with 5 of my friends, every single one of them was better than me and I found (and still do) training new and enhanced skills very difficult. They all got their first belt before me, but by the time 9 months was up, I was the only one still training, because I and others had overtaken them because we practiced more. It was this kind of ongoing deep practice that set the scene for continued success for me with National, European and World titles under my belt and Black Belts or equivalent in 5 different Martial Arts. Simply put, if you want to have the skills of a Black belt, then you need to train like one.
Progress isn’t linear and is based on a set of building blocks and when you reach certain points there will be periods of accelerated development.
- Fundamental movement skills
- Functional strength and conditioning
- Repetition of Technical skills (and then constraints-based practice of this)
- Perception of self / Perception of partner
- Mental focus, discipline and concentration
- Development of speed and accuracy
- Learning about opportunities for action (related to both physiology of ones-self and partner and based upon your partners techniques or actions.)
- Ability to adapt movements based upon unscripted interactions with partners
Yes you need a higher level of commitment and passion. But the ongoing motivation achieved from successes will help you to gain skills much faster and more thoroughly.
To give you some practical examples of people training once or twice per week and where this sits on the grading continuum:
- For a Young Legend to earn their Yellow and Gold belt (belt sequence is from White > White and Gold > Orange and Gold > Red and Gold > Yellow and Gold)
- Training x 2 per week @ 48 weeks
- Training x 1 per week @ 100 weeks or nearly two years.
Someone training once per week would be looking Orange and Gold after the first year.
For Urban Warriors the times stay the same, but the colour belt will be Green for twice per week and Red for once per week.
- Then to progress from Green to Brown
- Training x 2 per week @ 52 weeks
- Training x 1 per week @ 120+ weeks over two years.
By the time a practitioner gets to Brown belt level they have to be practicing at least twice per week in order to develop the advanced levels of skills necessary to reach their Black Belt and from there the higher levels of Black Belt. From Brown to Black belt you are looking at a minimum of 2 years because there should be an exponential growth in skills.
I’m happy to discuss this with you if you are interested, I spent a long time studying this during my Masters Degree in Advanced Sports Coaching and have an interest in the subject.
For those of you training once per week, if you’d like to discuss the options for increasing your rate of success, please let me know.
Dates
We have some dates for activities during the remainder of this year
Gradings
- Weekend of 25th September
- Weekend of 11th December
Fundraising for Great Ormand Street
- November, date tbc.
Half Term activities
- Games session – Tuesday 26th October
- Activity tbc – Thursday 28th October
Christmas Closure
- Will be between 20th December and 3rd January inclusive
Please let me know if you have any questions.
Regards
Bryan
bryan.andrews@basingstokekarate.com
Head Coach