With Valentine’s Day this month (Hear us out, don’t scoff yet!), we were prompted to take a moment to reflect on our members and what we love about our Pride! We know the juxtaposition of a martial arts gym with love is seemingly jarring. But just think about it…
Why are we here?
Why do we train?
If we didn’t LOVE training, being part of the RDA community, getting stronger, getting fitter…then, potentially triggering an existential crisis, why are we here?
This month, we asked our coaches what they love about our members. Here is what they have to say!
Shout Outs
Standing on the rooftop, we also asked coaches to give shoutouts to some of our RDA members who embody what we love about our lion pride.
Professor Kyle Skiba would like to recognise Oscar Seargent from Kids BJJ as student of the month. He’s passionate about BJJ and it is “so wonderful to see him enjoying it so much”.
Muay Thai Coach Teneille would like to acknowledge Luke who is the complete martial artist, training in various disciplines- Muay Thai, BJJ, wrestling and boxing. His dedication to training and nutrition has resulted in more than 20kg of weight lost! Luke’s consistency and tenacity is greatly admired!
Last but certainly not least, we would like to recognise April, who was nominated by Korina Drogan. If you haven’t met April yet, you won’t miss her next time. She’s blonde, Irish and 100% feisty. A hapkido practitioner, April continued with classes and training for grading whilst heavily pregnant (we mean, heavily, heavily). The instructors supported her by modifying techniques and requirements to ensure she remains safe whilst working towards her goals.
Adult Hapkido Grading and Gong Kwon Yul Sul Seminar with Grandmaster Nigel May
It’s always an honour when Grandmaster Nigel May comes up to visit us! Some of our Adult Hapkido members graded on Saturday 26th February 2022 and we are pleased to report that the standard of this cohort was noticed by the grandmaster! A huge congratulations to all and especially Korina Drogan for achieving Dan bo, next stop, black belt!
After the grading, Grandmaster Nigel May conducted an introductory Gong Kwan Yu Sul class. Sharing the history of this martial arts form in Korea and Australia. He outlined the system and etiquette before running the class through the basics. More about this in a future post!
Upcoming Events in March
- 1st, 3rd and 5th – Lil Ninjas (Hapkido) Tip Testing and Grading
- 5th – Muay Thai Beach Session – CY O’ Connor Beach
- 27th RDA’s 4 Week Women’s Self Defence Course (This link will take you to the Eventbrite page)
WT: The Real Value of Women’s Self Defence
Serious post ahead. Trigger warning: Physical/ sexual assault, violence, crime.
It’s very easy for businesses, instructors and self-defence experts to sell self-defence courses through fear-mongering. Flashes of video clips showing people (not just women) getting attacked and then cutting away to the experts showing some elaborate technique that is impressive but with an undercurrent tone of this-is-so-simple-you-should-have-done-this-to-prevent-that…ultimately leaving you with the feeling of “I can’t do that”.
In full disclosure, we do run self-defence courses and classes exclusively catered for women and would love nothing more than to see more women sign up and train with us.
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Here at RDA, we take immense pride in our inclusive WSD courses and classes.
