Starting from Scratch

In 2025 a small group of us tried to start a new boxing club in a commercial unit. In doing this I realised how hard it is, so expensive and so many risks. It made me think back to the old Bridgwater Martial arts Academy days. How did I get that going?

Like always I had some amazing people around me. Rarely are you successful with a something like this if you don't have good people around you. But I had something else that I cannot get back now at 50 years old.

I was young and naïve, I had no idea what I was getting into, and I was full of energy. I knew what the club should be like and put everything into it (while working two jobs). I just signed the lease and went for it.

Now, well now I have a lot less energy, and a lot more experience. Maybe this is why it is a lot harder to start again.

To help illustrate the gap in knowledge; when I started I could write what I knew on a leaflet. Lots of big ideas but no substance. Now I feel like I could write a book about my experiences (just noting down another book idea…)

The clearest example is a high level difference, that when you are a young coach and training hard, you want to be the best, the hardest worker in the room. You want to set an example and in doing that the idea is you will create a club full of great fighters. The club will talk about no egos, while the top performers show how it is done, and the newer people have to catch up. Of course there were egos, some knew they were very good, and there is nothing wrong with that. Staying humble wasn't something AJ had said back then haha But even staying humble, some knew they could spar with anyone and do well. In a new club I would manage this better, creating time for the top level fighters that is dedicated to high performance, a chance for them to work at their level.

We would go further than that, there would be beginners lessons with volunteers helping, intermediate lessons, non-contact and contact lessons, so anyone interested has an opportunity to train in an environment they can thrive in.

In a lot of clubs that focus on competitions there is a way of “weeding” out the people they don’t want. A little heavy sparring normally sorted out who would stay and who would never come back. I went through this, getting beaten up week after week to try and be part of the club. Part of me loved it, not the healthy part, but when I saw how lessons could be taught, I knew I would never have a club that did sparring to decide who becomes a member..

What I could not see was that I did the same with exercise. There was just intense training, start to finish, and then go home. Closing time was ten minutes after the exhaustion had calmed down.

When the original BMA first started it was never about making friends for life, making memories, fixing mental health and addictions, helping people become more confident and beat anxiety wars. It was about gradings, how many sit ups you can do and competitions.

I think about all the troubles that people had going on and maybe if we had sat down for twenty minutes after a session, or set up more social events at the weekends, then maybe these things could have been talked about more. Over the many years I saw two young men come out as gay, both had a hard time with it. I know of three suicides in men that trained with us at some point, countless drug and alcohol addictions, failing marriages, many problems around disorders that were just being talked about, anger issues, work problems. People sat with this and never spoke about it. They would finish work, go train, eat, sleep and repeat, never really having a chance to let the crap out, except hitting something hard. Don’t get me wrong, hitting something, hard work, sparring, all these things produce endorphins that make you feel better. But it is temporary. Sometimes talking about something is needed, and sometimes the people you trust to kick your head in are the ones you trust to talk to. Like I said, by training with people you can make friends for life. You have experiences that are hard to create in normal life.

So when me and a few more great people are successful and get the funding to start again, there will be more of an emphasis on community. We want this next opportunity to be a Community Interest Company that goes a lot further. High quality training, chat time, events, and that helps with wider social issues. And I will definitely have a place to sit and drink coffee, while watching the blood, sweat and success.

Hopefully this year The Fight Society will begin. Join our community, a society of crazy folk, a collection of people who like to train in boxing and martial arts. A place to fight your demons.