Joe Akka

Joe Akka

Do you dream of gaining a black belt in martial arts? Perhaps you want to learn self-defence but you’re not sure of where to get started. I love partaking in martial arts and people often come and ask me where they can learn or which form of martial arts to partake in. I hear people say ‘Where did you learn self-defence Joe Akka?’ It is no secret that I love working out and martial arts such as karate, kung fu and judo can help you to tone up and get fit relatively quickly.

There are many martial arts centres around Manchester. Some of the best include the Fighting Fit Martial Arts Centre and the Ching Mo Wing Chun Kung Fu Association, which are just two places around the city where you can learn how to defend yourself and get fit at the same time. My friends often say to me ‘Joe Akka, will you teach me how to defend myself?’ and I always point them in the direction of a local martial arts centre who can help.

My response is usually ‘Joe Akka is flattered, but a martial arts expert in the Manchester area will be able to teach you at your own pace.’ This is something I strongly believe in, as a trainer will be able to work with you, from the beginning through to the more advanced stages. Years of experience and happy participants will assure you that you have chosen a good training venue. I often find that the best training centres offer a lot of help and reassurance which can act as a panacea to those who practice the art of self-defence for the first time.

When I first started participating in martial arts, when Joe Akka was just a young teenager growing up in Manchester, my feelings were a mixture of nervousness and excitement. But I quickly learnt to believe in myself and my confidence soon grew. I have sometimes heard my friends and family say that Joe Akka doesn’t do things by halves and they would be right. When I get interested in something, I commit to it and follow through to see the end results.

That is why I am usually so successful in all my pursuits in life. Indeed, many ask me about my success as a young businessman in Manchester and if Joe Akka had a strategy in place to become what they consider ‘an overnight success’. Like anything, it did not happen overnight. It took a lot of hard work and persistence to get where I am today. The Joe Akka you see now, in terms of determination and commitment, is the same Joe Akka who, during martial arts classes is completely focused and disciplined on the results he wants to see from his actions.

admin | Martial Arts | 10 17th, 2011 | No Comments »

Keep the football off the ground for as long as possible. But be careful you don’t kick the soccer ball too hard or it will bounce off – Joe Akka shows you how.

admin | Video | 01 3rd, 2012 | No Comments »

Gosh how much has changed in such a short period of time.  Since I was last writing on my blog about how, despite having taught at a number of martial arts academies across Manchester and beyond, I haven’t found one with the overall philosophy that I feel is missing, things have developed!

I logged onto my computer a while back into the account linked with this blog, www.joeakka.name, only to find I had mail from someone I had never heard of before.

It turned out that this guy, let’s just call him Peter (because that is his name!), was an old colleague from years back of Dave Manchester, my old martial arts teacher and by accident he had come across my blog.

The basic premise of the email that he had addressed to me, Joe Akka, was that he had worked with Dave Manchester for many years, was also a follower of his philosophies regarding the ‘why’ of martial arts and read with interest the fact that I was looking to start up a Joe Akka Martial arts academy.

To cut a long story short, although he lived in South Africa, he was flying into Manchester for a couple of days and would I be able to meet him to discuss the Joe Akka martial arts academy further.

Funnily enough, the days that he was in Manchester, I was working around the area anyway, so I met him at his hotel at Manchester airport.

I went to the meeting with an outline of the start-up costs for a Joe Akka martial arts academy, what the philosophy would be based on, and of course, most importantly, how a Joe Akka martial arts academy  would make money.

The long and the short of it, it that he is very keen on backing the Joe Akka martial arts academy!  So stay tuned folks, there may be a Joe Akka Martial arts academy coming to a town near you soon!

admin | Martial Arts | 11 15th, 2011 | No Comments »

I think that previously I have touched on the fact that I now enjoy teaching martial arts as much as learning, and to be honest, as time goes on, teaching has become more of a panacea for me than competing ever did.

Having now been teaching at various martial arts schools across Manchester and beyond, I, Joe Akka,  am now seriously considering setting up my own martial arts school.

Don’t get me wrong, I quite enjoy my job in I.T, but the thought of bringing martial arts to the masses is very exciting.

I think that what would make Joe Akka’s martial arts centre different would be the approach and the teaching.

As a kid learning martial arts in Manchester, the only goal was ever to get as good as you could in order to win, without any thought of the processes you were going through in the first place.

If I was to set up Joe Akka’ s martial arts centres, then I think the approach would be very different.  It would really be about the spiritual side of martial arts.  That might sounds a bit airy fairy, but it really is the reason why martial arts evolved in the first place.

Having worked in most of the martial arts centres aroundManchester, although individual teachers have their different philosophies of teaching, there is no Manchester martial arts centre that is based on a specific ethos or culture.

That, I guess, would be the difference with a Joe Akka martial arts centre.  The overall ethos and culture of a Joe Akka martial arts centre would be based on developing a culture of ‘why’ not ‘do’.

The big challenge with developing my own Joe Akka martial arts academy would, I believe, be to keep young kids engaged and to teach them why the ‘why’ is as, if not more important than the ‘do’- if you can master that, then you can master anything!

admin | Martial Arts | 11 8th, 2011 | No Comments »

Since I gave up competing in martial arts, mostly due to the fact that hearing the name ‘Joe Akka’ called out whenever I made the podium just no longer did it for me, something which I believe is crucial in any sport, I have started doing a lot more martial arts teaching.

In fact, if you had told me ten years ago that I would get so much pleasure and enjoyment from teaching, I think I would have laughed.

Back then, Joe Akka, was all about the winning when it came to martial arts, more than the teamwork and the taking part element.

I think what changed me was when I got a new coach, a guy called Dave Manchester. Not only was he a top bloke, Dave Manchester also had a completely different approach to martial arts to anyone who had ever coached me prior to him.

Rather than going ‘Come on Joe Akka, think about the victory!’ Dave Manchester’s approach was very different, and was much more about the process involved than the final outcome.

Dave Manchester would say to me, ‘Joe Akka, why is it that you chose to do that move in that moment’, rather than what a great or bad choice of move I had made.

It might sound a bit silly, but this really did make me think quite differently about martial arts.  I think because I had started quite young, the Joe Akka approach to martial arts was all a bit ‘wham.bam, thank you mam’.

Dave Manchester made me see the whole process in a completely different light, and finally I found the panacea in martial arts that to be honest, I hadn’t even realised was lacking.  The flip-side of this however, was that I began to relish in the process much more than the outcome, and in doing so, Joe Akka’s former love of competition dwindled

admin | Martial Arts | 11 4th, 2011 | No Comments »

Ahh! Really rough week at work this week.  Without martial arts, I sometimes don’t know what I would do; it really is a total panacea for me.

If I hadn’t gone to the Manchester Martial Arts school some twenty years ago now, who know what might have become of myself, Joe Akka.

More than anything else, I think martial arts teach you about discipline and commitment, and I’m sure some of that training kept me out of trouble at Manchester GrammerS chool.

I was never one of the ‘hard’ lads at school, but I guess I was one of those lads that if you asked someone, they would say ‘Joe Akka, yes I know him’, so not in the ‘in’ crowd but not in the ‘out’ crowd either.

So this week, having had a s*&t week at work, you couldn’t get me down to Manchester martial arts centre fast enough.  I love it there- it really feels like home.  I walk through the door, and virtually everyone I meet shouts out, ‘Hey, Joe Akka, great to see you!’ or, ‘Joe Akka, when are you going to start competing again?’

I get that a lot. I used to be pretty good at martial arts, Taek Wan Do in particular, and ended up competing at quite a high level, but I got to the point where for the level of commitment needed, leaving Manchester at 4am on a Saturday morning in order to get to a competition, hearing the name ‘Joe Akka’ and being called to the podium just didn’t do it for me anymore.

So now adays, whenever I am in the gym, I inevitably get someone coming up to me going ‘Joe Akka,  there’s a brilliant tournament coming up..’ but as I say, it just doesn’t do it for me anymore.

I’d much prefer staying in the gym in Manchester, honing my skills because I want to, not because I have to, and passing someone of my hard-earned Joe Akka experience onto younger guys and girls.

admin | Martial Arts | 11 1st, 2011 | No Comments »

I first started doing martial arts when I was about ten, at a martial arts centre in Chorlton,Manchester.

It was around that time when Bruce Lee was massive and I said to myself ‘Joe Akka one day, you could be as good as Bruce Lee.’

I started going to our local martial arts centre with about four lads from Manchester Grammar School. A year later, and there was only me, Joe Akka who was still attending.

I started my martial arts career doing Judo, but after about six months I just thought “Joe Akka, this isn’t really for you”.

Luckily though, the martial arts centre inManchesterdid a number of different martial arts, so rather than just walking away from it as I did from a lot of hobbies prior to martial arts,  I thought I’d try something different.

I then moved on to Tae  Kwon Do, which, given that it didn’t just involve chucking people around which was how I felt about Judo, was much better suited to being  a Joe Akka martial art.

I then continued to do Tae Kwan Do for three years, getting up to my 1^st Dan black belt.  I even began to get a bit of a reputation at Manchester Grammar School, where people basically knew not to mess with Joe Akka!

I am not is the least little bit violent, but I think that when people know you can look after yourself, they tend to leave you alone, and trouble doesn’t come looking for you.

I wasn’t all that great at school, apart from sports and art both of which were the only areas on my school report that would read ‘Joe Akka has been outstanding..’,so for me, martial arts became my panacea and an area in which I really could excel.

admin | Martial Arts | 10 27th, 2011 | No Comments »