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!