Shojiki Martial Arts

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Meg with sosia Gerry Bryant.and matt and Phil waiting to fight

I’ve been training in Martial Arts for 36 years, having started at the age of 7. I started training in Gojoryu which I enjoyed as it gave me discipline and enabled me to use a lot of the excess energy I had as a child. During this time I managed to be involved with demonstrations in different locations. I broke a number of tiles and wooden props and was in the newspaper a few times at the age of 8-9 when I looked like a little hamster.

When I was about 13, I started to train in kick boxing and at that time kickboxing was very American with the star trousers and flashy outfits. I really enjoyed this as it had a lot of impressive kicks and tournaments and still does to this day. I enjoyed showing off my skills to girlfriends and friends. I took part in a lot of tournaments, winning the majority of them and the Scottish Open. As much as I loved Kickboxing I knew there was something missing.

I then went about training in all different Martial Arts including Aikido and Kung Fu. I then met a man who was a doorman most of his life. He was a big man and although much older than me, I could see he’d had a fair few scraps in his time. I started training under him and I liked the no nonsense strikes he taught me that were simple and effective. The training sessions with him were very tough. He was old school Kyokushin and he has trained with Steve Arnell in Japan (Steve Arnell had trained with Mas Oyama!).

I enjoyed training with Gerry and listening to his many stories and experiences of Japan. He helped me through some tough times of my life. The only downside was Gerry has trained for many years in halls and gyms but decided to convert his garage to Dojo. This meant there wasn’t enough room to move around and certainly no enough room for sparring. Whilst it is important learn many striking techniques it is also important to train to move, so that you are prepared for a real fight Kyokushin is a very tough style using elbows and knees and a lot of thigh kicks. In 1993 K1 was born out of Japan. It was a knockdown version of Karate with head punches and gloves – it was exciting. Andy Hug was a famous Kyokushin fighter who fought in K1 with great success.

I sought out a good Muay Thai club and went along. I met some professional fighters there and it was good to gauge where I was at with my ability. I loved it and the guys were nice but unfortunately the gym had to close. I asked Matt where the best place to train was, I also had my daughter with me who I wanted to keep training. The name that kept coming up was Dean at the Exile Gym in Southampton. So that was that and I started training there.

I soon noticed that there was a lot of talent at Exile, more than I had seen before. Dean has the perfect balance, he is an excellent coach with a good attitude and no ego. One of the fighter there was a guy called Mo who showed a lot of talent with excellent sparring skills. He has now gone on to become number 1 in the Country in Muay Thai and K1! Mo even beat Manachai by knockout.

I realised then that it doesn't matter how many strikes you know, you still have to be able to fight, handle yourself and deal with the nerves that come with it. Otherwise you end up with a false belief in yourself. I have trained with a lot of ‘so called’ black belts, good and bad and I can honestly say a lot of them won’t come out of their bubble and push themselves. If you have a club that doesn’t include a lot of sparring and a variety of talent, you can’t test ability. People then become disillusioned with their ability and will fail.

I have always had a passion for martial arts and have been fortunate enough to train with some real talent to whom I have listened to, allowing me to be the best I can be. I realised that I had to pass what I know onto other people so I set up my own club. I thought for a while about what it was that I am trying to teach and realised that ultimately it is ‘honesty’. In Japanese ‘Shojiki’ means honesty or honest.

I was already teaching/training a few people and a few of the lads I was teaching, I took to the British Open to compete. My daughter, who I have been training since a young age, has also took part in a fair few tournaments.