Martial Arts is changing.

˜Martial arts has changed through out the years. When I first started training, the extent of our training was usually restricted to the  suburb where we lived. The schools were in church halls that were the rescue of so many small martial arts start ups. They were usually dusty, unused halls that were used in a bygone era for church youth groups, and fellowship, quite a contrast to see young children and adults running around in the white pyjamas that are a hall mark of martial arts. If you got the right time slots, you could run quite a good operation from the pop up schools in church halls. The PCYC’s  were a great place to start your martial arts  journey. When I first entered North Sydney PCYC, it was not the thriving hub that I created. I would run massive classes with 100+ students, and super session gradings putting through hundreds of students from children to adults, all on the same day.

The PCYC used to have all its doors locked and was controlled by one man. It was an absolute ghost town. The single president had total say, there was no such thing as a committee.

It was only through my persistence that I got the place opened up and available to several other groups wanting to open up there. But the power of the president wanted the huge building all to himself, He was running a naturopath clinic in the building, and teaching karate  at night. I spoilt his fiefdom.

Police citizen youth centre used to be called the Police boys club. I remember attending the police boys club all through my youth. They had a camp called camp McKay out west near Windsor. I went to the camp a couple of times. The bus slowly made it’s rounds gradually filling up as we  picked up all the boys from the various cubs, and off we went. I was terrified at first as the police ran this camp like an army bootcamp.The boys her quite rough, there was always some pushing and shoving but all in all everyone was quite well behaved.

I started my first school at a hall in Glebe Public school, I then went to Mosman public school. Then did a stint at Crowsnest boys’ high school, then I found the PCYC at North Sydney. I started what was called the wrestling room. Very small room in the upstairs back corner. So I waited on the dojo being available. As the small martial arts dojo’s left, I would quickly snatch their spot, ever so slowly expanding until I had the use of most of the usable space.

There was no internet and no social media. Can you imagine a life with out email and mobile phones. As martial artists we were isolated in our own little alcoves. I used to read about these amazing schools presented in magazines, like Black Belt. The Americans were steaming ahead and make incredible businesses creating hug wealth, there were karate and kickboxing moves on every corner

So, if you really wanted to train over seas you had to leave the shores of Australia and travel.

These days, if you want to train overseas all you need to do is to make your contacts, turn on zoom and away you go. Which way is the better way. Now we are stuck with a plethora of choices. I have traded my dojo for a cyber dojo and I record classes that I send out to the corners of the earth. There is no doubt that my reach is further but there are now cynics that have forgotten how you respect and treat a  senior master.  They think that because they are not in direct, face to face communication that they believe and the are not what or who they think they are. Trumped up pseudo fraudsters.

There are now schools of martial arts that are nothing more than thugs, and they attract a thug element. They were led to believe that there system was invincible but many of them have come undone, closing because have no substance. Covid was a huge cleanser for small business’ that were on shaky ground, in particular were martial  arts schools. The rules are all the same whether you are in  a physical dojo or you have your home dojo, where you invite a master to over enter your space via online.

Times have changed again. No longer is a free for all, thinking that you want to find an easier option to grades and black belt. You can have access to world class instructors but you are now required to apply to be accepted and taught by Andy Dickinson Sensei. We now have a gate way set up on my new webpage. It requires the enquiry to answer a couple of questions and according to the answers, I decide whether I want the prospective student to enter. It works really well.

Check out my new world class website and the link to the gate. https://northstarmartialarts.com.au/

Here also is a link to my new book. My first novel. The Last Warrior. https://northstarmartialarts.com.au/shop/