As I have explained before, my martial arts journey started in the mid seventies and I am still currently walking the path, hopefully for many more years to come. This means that my martial arts have been a part of my life for longer than most other things in my life. Schools, Jobs, friends and even wives have come and gone during that time but still the constant of attending the dojo to train has always been there. Unfortunately we all suffered a break in this regularity of martial arts in our lives only a short period ago when the world was gripped by the COVID pandemic, which led to the clo ..read more

I have become very pre-occupied recently with issues outside the martial arts world, issues that have given me a lot of grief over the last few years and it is the martial arts family that is one of the supports that have allowed me to get through these problems. Finally at a point when I start looking at myself and saying what does me good and one thing I realised was returning to my writing, which sadly means more blogs for you guys to read and I apologise in advance for my terrible story telling and silly puns. Anyway enough back story, lets get to the subject in hand. I have already explai ..read more

Why did I want to start the Women's only classes? The answer is simple. The main question I have from females wanting to start Judo. Are there any girls in the class? and it was always this awkward "well actually" moment. So I wanted a way where I can say there's not many but I have got this one class where its only girls (apart from the other 2 instructors and most of the time they just let me throw them around the room). You see I have spent most of the last 30 years being the only girl in the room. Not that it has bothered me but I am a Dojo Brat. I grew up in the dojo and it didn't matter ..read more

Firstly to explain the two roles in Judo, Tori is the person performing the technique so will be the attacker, Uke is the person receiving the technique so basically the defender. Everyone wants to be the Tori, performing the throw, applying pressure in the hold down, applying the pressure on the joint or the neck to cause the armlock or strangle but without Uke, there will be no Tori. As an old Judoka I have obviously been the Tori thousands of times but I have also been Uke thousands of times as well. What many do not realise is that being Uke is still part of the learning process as much a ..read more

If you have been cleared by your GP to engage in contact sports and general physical activity you can take up Judo. It’s very common to worry one is not ‘fit’ enough to start, or that sports like Judo aren’t ‘for people like you’, or that you would be ‘holding back’ other attendees or that people might resent your attendance. Often people feel like they won’t ‘pick it up’ quickly enough, or maybe think that the only people practicing Judo as adults have been doing all their lives. People also worry about very basic things. Issues founded in social anxieties (‘what if I break wind’, ‘what if I ..read more

I think I'm probably a rare case in terms of Judo. I have quite a unique claim to fame.... I have only ever trained at one club for my entire Judo career. I mean sure I've done the odd session at other places but regular, consistent training? There's only ever been one place for me. As they say "I found my Home" and I found it early. I started Judo at the age of five for perhaps the weirdest of reasons looking back at it now as a thirty-six year old. A favour, yep that's 31 years of this crazy sport for a favour. You have to wonder what I was thinking as a five year old to agree and more impor ..read more

I started Judo in the mid seventies, was about 9 or 10 years old at the time. I wanted to be Bruce Lee as he was massive at the time, I was to young to see "Enter the dragon" but the little bits I managed to see made me realise Martial arts was cool. Fortunately this was the 70's so you couldn't just jump on the internet and find a Kung Fu club. There was a Judo club near our house so I started Judo instead, which I think Judo was definitely the right path for me. I got my first grade in Judo, my 1st Mon in September 1976. By the time I was in my early teens my instructor already had me assist ..read more

Thank you for choosing Martial Art Misfits. We are a group of practicing Judoka with a variety of grappling and Self Defense backgrounds. Between the four of us we have nearly 100 years of active participation in the Martial Arts World. We hope that you will join us as you embark on your own journey into a world that we all love. We know starting anything new is always a scary concept but it is our goal to help you embrace that fear and even enjoy it. Judo is a very special sport as I like to remind my students frequently. It is a sport and way of life but more than that it is one of the few t ..read more

29th April I had agreed to do one of my rare competition appearances fighting as part of a team representing the Tokei. As I am slightly older I now keep competition down to maybe a couple events a year so I had just started preparing myself for this event when I was advised of the competition being cancelled due to lack of entries. Now as I have said before, I have a long history in Judo as I head towards 50 years on the mat, so I remember doing competitions in the eighties and nineties when you would turn up to venues full of Judoka ready to compete. The one thing that was always lacking wa ..read more

I had mentioned before how Bruce Lee had started my interest in the martial arts back in the early seventies, with the release of "Enter the Dragon". Many other heroes would follow that fed my passion for martial arts via the silver screen from Toshiro Mifune in "Seven Samurai" and "Yojimbo", the numerous stars of Hong Kong cinema like Jackie Chan, Sammo Hung, Michele Yeoh and Jet Li to name but a few and then new styles of martial artists like Tony Jaa with Ong-Bak. Obviously at the moment I worship the path of Keanu Reeves due to a series of films about a certain "John Wick" who apparently ..read more