As a coach to many I lead a diverse life of coaching travelling and coaching some more, this past weekend i graded two very dedicated chinese boxing students to the grade of Purple belt, took 7 of the BJJ team to a competition and came away with 6 medals then held a Wing Chun Chi Sao Open Day that saw people travelling from as far as Germany to attend.
I don’t grade people often so its always well deserved and well earnt. Charlie and Graham take private classes together so they can work at their own pace and keep the sessions based around their own needs. It was pleasure to promote them both to purple belts in our Chinese Boxing system
The BJJ team is going from strength to strength at every level with double gold winners at Blue belt and a very dominating performance in a Brown belt Super fight. Everyone that fought on the day did us proud and we look forward to developing the new breed of white belts coming through the ranks into medal winners that expect to do well no matter what the competition. Our team trains as a team and everyone plays a part in everyone else’s success if one wins we all win.
I started the Chi Sao Open Day’s as a way for people to train together that just didn’t seem to be happening. There were no cross lineage get togethers with the open Chi Sao policy as far as i could tell. There were no such events with no teaching but many teachers present. Since the first event many many more have come forward and are getting bigger and better all the time. Cross lineage Chi Sao Open Days are for everyone and my idea was always for it to be an open source idea where anyone with other schools in their area could organise an event under the banner CSOD and people would recognise the format of openness and friendship with unity as a goal.
Very few problems occur when people are face to face and whilst some people will just never get along they can remain civil in an environment based on unity and diversity. You may not like a person but get on well with their students and friends and visa versa.
At this event two friends met for the first time in eight years to Chi Sao and have a laugh together
Its very humbling when people are prepared to travel great distances to train with you. I love my work and what I do and have always had to travel for my own training but when people are travelling from other countries its a different thing all together. Its only the most dedicated people that are prepared to take the time to travel that become the people that people travel to see. Patrick came over from our friends at Tortuga Gym in Switzerland and I was happy to promote him to the rank of Blue belt, he will now represent us in competition in Switzerland and Germany.
Tobe came to Thailand this year to learn the Chu Sau Lei system of Wing Chun Kuen and has now come over from his homeland in Germany for a few days Intensive training, Its good to get a extensive session in and i will be doing this a lot more in the future. 3 or 4 hour sessions that can really focus on details. Great training