Academy of Combat: Christchurch Martial Arts

In this post I am going to take a different approach then the usual technical aspects of training that I comment on.

It is in times of adversity that we often come to realize the value of things that we have come to just accept as part of our lives.

My city has suffered incredible damage from recent earthquakes and is very slowly recovering. I was very fortunate to come though reasonably unscathed.

However, my apartment block was red stickered (entry prevented due to safety concerns) and I still have been unable to get back into it.

The academy survived, once again, with minimal damage and was up and running within a week. It was really fantastic to see the students coming back to get into their training with comments like: thanks for getting things going again as we just wanted somewhere to come and see people we know and have a good training session.

And especially the young children, who must have found the events of the earth quake very traumatic. It was great to see their smiling faces and listen to them just being happy kids again.

As the weeks go by now, more and more of the students are returning which gives me the feeling that what we are doing is worthwhile and goes way beyond just providing a place to learn martial arts.

The environment we create is so important, as It provides so much to people when they need it; a friendly face, someone to have a joke with, a means to share in a common interest and a great confidence booster.

The city will come back and there will be so many opportunities, for those who have stayed, to really make something of themselves and help build a great city, because we are survivors and have now faced a very traumatic time for a developed, western civilized city.

One thing that this experience has brought to my mind is to value everything that I have learned and experienced for it enables us to overcome the toughest of times.

There is nothing we can do with past history but learn from it. We must live in the present and embrace every moment of it, and as we do, we should prepare ourselves for the future, whatever it may be.