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