Raj

Raj Soren (started 1984) My family and I had faced regular racial abuse while grow ...
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Raj Soren (started 1984) My family and I had faced regular racial abuse while growing [...]
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RAJ, 21ST MAR

Raj Soren (started 1984) My family and I had faced regular racial abuse while growing up in North Wales and Liverpool in the early 70s. Ever since then I had been keen to take up martial arts as a self-defence. I remember watching the Kung Fu TV series with David Carradine, Bruce Lee, Chuck Norris, Jackie Chan movies as well as Hong Kong Phooey cartoons. My parents wanted me to focus on my studies so I waited until university before looking for a martial art club. In 1984 I was looking to join Karate or Kung Fu club at Freshers fair at Manchester Polytechnic (Manchester Metropolitan University). However, before I could sign up for these other martial arts I met a very enthusiastic George Nicola, a dark blue belt at the time, who talked about how effective and versatile Jiu Jitsu was and he talked me into joining. Ever since my first session with sensei Jeff Thompson a first dan I was hooked on Jiu Jitsu. Jeff Thompson was a direct student of Shihan Brian Graham who brought our style to the UK. The organisation was called the National Samurai Jiu Jitsu Association (NSJJA) at the time and we had around 10 clubs in the UK. Gradings only took place once a year with Shihan Graham and Sensei Peter Farrar. I was impressed by how you could take control someone with a simple but effective technique like a wrist lock or arm clock and then take them to the ground with a throw. A year later George Nicola took over the club as a brown belt when Sensei Jeff went to study at another university for a post graduate degree. George was excellent at both judo and Jiu Jitsu and with his help I quickly got the hang of randori and groundwork. I went on to win numerous golds for several years in my weight category. I also went on to win gold in atemis in my early years. I trained three times a week and remember cycling 12 miles round trip to get to one of the weekly session in Didsbury. The club also became the national champions during my time there. In 1988, I gained my brown belt and started a new club at Manchester University at the Armitage sports centre with the help of Sensei George Nicola who later left to pursue his career. One of my fellow brown belts, Steve Allison, took over from George at the Polytechnic. I was also joined by Lee Baker, who was a talented young brown belt and we taught together for a few years. We had students including Richard Goulding and Gareth Horgan in our club at the time (both Tertiary Board members now). As a brown belt I became the NW regional chair and in 1990 I set up Salford University Jiu Jitsu club and later helped set up the YMCA club in Manchester. In 1991 I gained my black belt and moved to Sheffield for a new job. I continued to travelled to Nottingham University club to help teach there and later become the club instructor for several years. While in the East Midlands I also a taught at Nottingham Trent University and Loughborough University and I was also the regional chair. I passed the Nottingham clubs over to Gary Grimsby and Ian Goodfellow. In 2001 I moved to Bradford with 3 children all under 6 years old. In 2002 I set up Baildon Jiu Jitsu club which became very successful and grew from 1 club to a point where we had 10 venues in schools and community centres under the Bradford Jiu Jitsu club banner. We had 10 sessions a week which included 4 after school clubs and we grew to 150 students. I couldn’t have done this without the support of the following instructors Gavin Naughton, Rob and Emma Ashcroft, Rachel Smith, Graham Williams, Will Meehan , Jon Edward, Rebecca Flynn, Nick Francisco, Sean Higgins. A number of these no longer teach or train due to work or family commitments. The Bradford club went on to win over 15 junior randori and atemi shields, as well as a number of international competitions. At the Bradford club I successfully taught over 20 juniors and seniors to become brown belts and dans including Suraj, Chandni and Lukhi Soren, who I am very proud of. Other students include, Lewis day, Danel Netherwood ,Haris Sultan, Ayhsah Ahmed, Aaron Fiaz, Tom Deacon, Tom Claridge, Zayn and Hassan Ahmed, Abass Jhangir, Alexander Zakowski, Amy Spence many more. In 2018 I set up Meanwood Town club in Leeds with Rebecca Flynn and now it’s a thriving club under Rebecca. During that time, I would teach 2 classes Monday to Thursday and 5 classes from Friday to Sunday all at different venues. This was on top of my full time career as a sale manager and father. I was also the regional chair of the Yorkshire region for a year and I ran national blue belt courses. In 2003 Shihan Brian Graham passed on the running of junior Jiu Jitsu to me which was an honour. For 17 years I was the director of junior Jiu Jitsu with the support of many instructors such as David Walker, Ady Tredwell ,Nigel and Nicola Price, Tony Gill, Colin Mortimore, John Hanrahan, Adam MacQueen, Rob and Emma Ashcroft, Martin Shaw, Jyoti Soren, Natalie Lockyer, Charlie Miranda, John Harquail, Will Meehan and many more. A massive thank you to all junior instructors for the marvellous job they do. We managed to grow numbers of junior jitsuka from 125 to over 600 juniors at its peak. I have also been an active member of the promotions board for 15 years the tertiary board for 8 years as well as coaching and teaching at international Jiu Jitsu events. Over the last 12 years I have continued my journey in martial arts and gained my second dan in Aikido and I also teach an aikido club. I have also started learning Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and HEMA - Historical European Martial arts, which I also compete in. In the last few years I have published books on Coping with Stress, Confidence building and a Children’s anti-bullying martial art book which I co-wrote with my wife Jyoti. Since being made redundant in November 2022 my teaching skills have enabled me to I set up a training and coaching company working with organisations improve performance and well-being. I have still managed to do all this on top of my Jiu Jitsu and aikido commitments. It’s amazing what you can fit into a week if you have the passion, drive and commitment to pursue the things that are important to you in life. Some of the many proud moments include seeing my children grow in confidence and gain their black belts, helping numerous clubs win at national competitions, being junior TJJF director, being actively involved with the promotions board, gaining each of my dan grades and joining the Tertiary board and most recently my Rokudan promotion. My future goals include a desire to become the first non-white chairperson of the Tertiary Board in order to champion diversity and equality, older and junior Jiu Jitsu. To champion well-being and mental health, as well accelerate the growth of Jiu Jitsu through more town and international clubs, social media, children’s martial art self-help books and celebrity advocacy. I plan to continue share my love for teaching and training Jiu Jitsu and other martial arts while I still have my physical capability. I encourage you to join me in this exciting journey and help us to open up more clubs in the next chapter of TJJF.

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Dave Walker (started c1981) on the pleasure, perils and pitfalls of opening your own ...
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Dave Walker (started c1981) on the pleasure, perils and pitfalls of opening your own [...]
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, 22ND MAR

Dave Walker (started c1981) on the pleasure, perils and pitfalls of opening your own club and why it’s the best and most frustrating thing ever. Clubs I have run Plymouth Polytechnic (now Plymouth University) Clubs I have set up and run Bristol Town Club Bristol University Bristol Polytechnic (now University of the West of England) Vale Jiu Jitsu Club Clubs I helped set up Birmingham Polytechnic (now University of Central England) Birmingham University Glamorgan Polytechnic (now University of South Wales) Cardiff University BUT THAT’S ONLY PART OF IT Back in 1982 I didn’t have much choice – Sensei Peter Farrar was leaving Plymouth to move back to Leeds and there was only one person able to take the club over – me. It would fold if I didn’t keep it going. Truth be told I was really up for the challenge, besides which we had a great committee (you have to have one) and by that time the Poly had really started to take notice of the club. So different from when we started, training on concrete and carpet for the first 18 months. I’ve still got the scars to prove it. I loved the banter and competition with the other martial arts clubs (Judo, Karate, Taekwando) and the way we’d constantly try and outdo each other. Hats off to the Karate club they were really supportive, while Judo and Taekwando just thought we were young upstarts. We had some points to prove. I’m really pleased that 43 years later the club is still the longest running martial arts club at the University. Fast forward to 1984 and my time to move on from Plymouth. By this time, I was really keen on setting up and running my own club. I’d set my sights on Bristol – why Bristol? I’d gone to see The Clash play there and thought it looked a pretty cool place. Besides which I was young, enthusiastic and didn’t have anything better to do (apart from working but that’s another story). There was no other Jiu Jitsu clubs in Bristol and I wanted to be the first to open up a club before anyone else did. But there was another motive which still drives me today – I always wanted the TJJF or National Samurai Jiu Jitsu Association as we were then to be taken seriously. Back in the 1980’s our biggest problem was the WJJF. We were members but it seemed that all they wanted to do was take our money and sell badges to us. To be noticed we had to bigger than what was happening in Plymouth, Keighley, Bradford and Leeds and having clubs in Bristol meant we got noticed. Setting up the college clubs was easy and teaching Jiu Jitsu in Plymouth had given me the confidence to go and talk to College Sports Administrators. All I needed then was students to support clubs opening and that was solved by spending a few hours in the Student’s Unions asking students to sign a petition to take back to the student’s union sports reps. The freshers fayres were a lot of fun – I remember really going for it with posters and getting a lot of help from my girlfriend (now wife of many years). I couldn’t have done it without her. Selling Jiu Jitsu was basically a question of saying yes we do that to anyone who asked what we did. If we got students into the dojo, I knew that Jiu Jitsu itself would do the rest of the talking for me. The students’ unions and athletics unions were really helpful and the Judo club at Bristol University were brilliant (I got my 1st Kyu with them). In the second year both clubs really took off with over 100 people on the mat at Bristol University and over 60 at Bristol Polytechnic. Speaking to people later on it appeared that the main recruitment ad was actually me seeming normal and approachable – pint in one hand, cigarette in the other (not a good look nowadays and I hasten to add I don’t smoke and hardly drink anymore). As Mark Newall said ‘if a guy like that (me) can do a martial art then anyone can.’ I was always big on being inclusive and diverse making Jiu Jitsu as welcoming as possible for everyone which leads me on nicely to the trials and tribulations of opening a town club. One night whilst teaching at Bristol University I was approached by a group of non-students – all very friendly I hasten to add (punks, anarchists, different cultures) asking me about the possibility of teaching them skills that might come in handy in the poll tax riots. Now I’m a man of peace so I told them that teaching people to beat up the police wasn’t my thing and Jiu Jitsu was a self-defence anyway. We got talking more and they told me about the anarchist community and drop in centre they were setting up in a derelict car show room in St Pauls. They called it the Demolition Diner – easy to understand why when you saw the place. Eventually I agreed that I’d teach some free Jiu Jitsu sessions to anyone who happened to ‘drop in’ as part of their attempt to get the ‘misfits, oppressed and unemployed of Bristol’ a bit of fitness and self-esteem. We didn’t have mats, we trained on mattresses, and I loved it. I’ll go as far as saying it has probably been my best, most humbling and most thought-provoking experience ever in Jiu Jitsu. I loved being a club leader, I loved being in control, I loved the competitions my clubs had with other clubs but most of all I realised what Jiu Jitsu gave to other people was a self-belief and that what I had in Jiu Jitsu was a gift to pass on to others in the hope that they would get better than me and pass it on in turn to others. From the Demolition Diner I moved onto opening the Bristol Town Club (I never understood why I called it a town club as Bristol’s a big city) for adults and children. It’s true if you can teach children, you can teach anyone. First Easton Community Centre (lots of arguments over mats), then the Trinity Centre (very cool night club venue nowadays) and finally what became our permanent home for many years St Werburghs Community Centre. It’s much harder running a town club than a college club. There’s no financial support, you’ve got no control over who joins (although several of the Demolition Diner crew did and two became black belt instructors) and you need lots of help. Trying to integrate the university and town clubs was a struggle and getting them to train together was a real muddle but we got through it. The town club bonus though is that your students stay with you for a long time and not just the 3 years most students have at university. A question I’m often asked is - do you prefer teaching college or town clubs? and I’d almost always answer town clubs – yes there are more fitness issues, yes you get really challenged in trying to make what your teaching accessible to the whole club and not just those who are very fit, yes you have to deal with a real range of people and yes you still have to put out the mats But the bonuses far outweigh the problems. Lots of respect to Sensei Richard Brennan for ensuring that the Bristol Town Club is now one of the longest running town clubs in the TJJF (38 years and counting). In 2005 I decided to take a step back from running a club. I had brilliant instructors to hand the clubs over to and my club teaching time was done (or so I thought…). I moved to tiny village in rural South Wales in 2006. There were no other martial arts clubs and my plan was to keep going to national and international events but nothing else. Fortunately, two of my children didn’t see it that way. Jake (now Brighton University Instructor) and Toby (previous Plymouth University Instructor, now Vale Jiu Jitsu Club Instructor and Wales Syllabus Co-Lead) were both still in primary school. They’d both taken up Jiu Jitsu at the Bristol Town Club with amongst others Colin Mortimore, Marcus Valentine, Roger Ball and George Franks as their instructors. From the moment we arrived in Wales, they continually nagged me into starting a club just for them and the school friends they said they’d recruit. It was fruitless trying to resist and when my wife Ingrid weighed in I gave up and contacted my sons primary school to ask if I could start another Jiu Jitsu club. That was the easy part, we had no mats, no storage, and no money. It was like starting all over again but somehow, we got there. The junior and senior club are now going strong. A major help was a grant from the TJJF for mats and that unlocked grants from some other local funders. The Vale Jiu Jitsu club has now been running for over 15 years in which time we’ve travelled to countless regionals, nationals and internationals and had juniors who became seniors who then went on to train as adults in clubs in other parts of the UK. There is one simple truth though – I couldn’t have done this alone (the days of being able to run a club as a one person band are long gone). My family have been there for me throughout and parents and senior members have put more than their fare share into keeping the club going. The icing on the cake has been Sensei Adam Jenkins (St Athan) and Sensei Simon Kendrick (Bridgend - Laleston) opening clubs close by and the way in which we have helped support each other by covering sessions when work, illness or holidays have got in the way. We train together regularly and despite our ever-increasing age still manage some fairly decent sessions. Being an instructor can be an incredibly lonely place to be in but with support around you from like-minded people the sky is the limit. Would I recommend setting up and running a club to others? Absolutely, it’s one of the most rewarding experiences you will ever have. But don’t do it alone, being a lonely instructor is a terrible place to be in – you’ve got fellow Jiu Jitsuka around you so make sure you get their help as well. Final thought and this is a rough calculation. Since 1979 I estimate I have put out a mat at least 6,450 times. Tonight will be my 6,451. That’s an awful lot of mats. See you all at the Nationals. Sensei David Walker

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Chandni

I started Jitsu at the age of 4 and am currently a Junior Senior Primary. I love Jits ...
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I started Jitsu at the age of 4 and am currently a Junior Senior Primary. I love Jits [...]
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CHANDNI, 26TH FEB

I started Jitsu at the age of 4 and am currently a Junior Senior Primary. I love Jitsu because of the friends I have made from all over the world, and our club feels like a family. I love the fitness and competitive side of Jitsu as it has helped me to excel as an individual in other aspects of my life such as school and other sports. I also really enjoy the teaching side of Jitsu as it has enabled me to gain confidence in myself and earn the respect of others, due to this I find leadership rolls easy in school and be able to confidently communicate in front of a group. Two years ago I got diagnosed with type 1 diabetes, this has not affected my performance in Jitsu at all. In fact it is due to this I am now more determined than ever to prove to myself and others that I am still fully capable of defending the grade I wear. My proudest moment was the last atemi competition where I won a gold in the black belt category! My first ever gold in that competition and showed everyone and myself that I can still do it, and come back fighting harder than ever. Everyone has been so supportive with my diabetes, from the club and the instructors are very understanding. My passion for Jiu Jitsu just grows every time I'm on the mat and I can't wait to travel and visit all the clubs round the world to learn more.

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Jyoti's

As a parent, watching my children learn Jiu Jitsu and seeing them develop into young ...
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"As a parent, watching my children learn Jiu Jitsu and seeing them develop into young [...]
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JYOTI'S, 25TH FEB

As a parent, watching my children learn Jiu Jitsu and seeing them develop into young able adults has been a joy in my life. The friendships they have made, the communication skills they have learnt and the confidence they have gained is priceless. And to top it all, they have good self defence skills! My Jiu Jitsu world is an extended family to me, the children, the parents, the instructors and the whole ethos of the Jitsu culture is second to none. Joyti, Parent

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