99 – The COVID Safe Return Plan Course For Martial Arts Schools

Walt Missingham from MAIA, The Martial Arts Industry Association, shares insights about the COVID Safe Martial Arts Instructor Course.

IN THIS EPISODE, YOU WILL LEARN:

  • Removing fear and ensuring safety with a COVID safe return plan for your martial arts school
  • What MAIA’s COVID Safe Martial Arts Instructors Certification Program is
  • How to get certified and the benefits martial arts instructors can reap
  • How does it differ from the courses provided by the government and other institutions 
  • And more

*Need help growing your martial arts school? Learn More Here.

 

TRANSCRIPTION

This is a coming together of a range of people in the martial arts industry to put out a course that people can educate themselves and then go to their respective local government and state governments, because as many of your listeners will know, they are being asked to provide a COVID safe return plan. And that is beyond the administrative capacities of many of our martial arts teachers.

GEORGE: Good day, this is George and welcome to the Martial Arts Media business podcast. I’m joined today by Walt Missingham from MAIA, the Martial Arts Industry Association. And at the time of recording this, we are talking about the pandemic and COVID-19 that has drastically obviously impacted the martial arts industry community.

So I want to talk about a few things that they have put in place to basically give some assurance to the public in regards to legalities and so forth, with running your school and with all the restrictions and everything that goes with that. So welcome to the call Walt.

WALT: Yes, thanks for giving us the opportunity to speak with you George.

GEORGE: Fantastic. So if you could just give us a 2-3 minute introduction of who you are and what the focus is of what you're doing?

covid safe martial arts

WALT: I really don't think I need to introduce myself, anyone who doesn't know who I am is probably not in our industry. I'm the president of the peak body for Martial Arts in Australia, the Martial Arts Industry Association. We deal with all manner of problems and programs associated with martial arts.

But the key focus, as you correctly said at your introduction, is the COVID-19 pandemic and again, as you correctly said, that's impacting not just the industry here in Australia, but globally. And so like many organisations, that's been our key focus for the last several months.

GEORGE: Gotcha. Now, with everything going on, you've put together a COVID safe martial arts instructor certification program – what is that about?

WALT: We identified a number of key problems, by reaching out to different people in the industry, liaising not just with people from martial arts, but people from the board of coaching community. You may not be aware, but we liaised with the Australian Coaching Council for the construction of this certification program. And a sister certification program for non martial arts coaches: swimming, football, etc. has also been released and that's only been released three days ago and we're just passing 4000 coaches have gone through that program, the coaches and officials.

So one of the problems that we very early identified is that it's perfectly reasonable, but most instructors had a concern about when we can resume and what we can do when we resume. And it's a fair comment to say that a lot of the information from the government has been unhelpful, confusing and ambiguous.

So we put together a certification program that just cuts to the bone in terms of what information a coach or an instructor needed. There's an education component to it and there's also a procedural component to it about what to do and what not to do in teaching martial arts classes under the various phase 1, phase 2, phase 3 conditions.

But we also identified through polling companies that the return date is not the biggest problem that our industry faces; that date will occur at a point in the future. In the near future by the looks of it. The problem is the large numbers of people that were giving us feedback that they were not going to go back to training because they are frightened to do so.

So we have two problems, one is we can't teach under government regulation, but that changes at a point in the near future. But the more substantive problem is the fear component that people have in the general community. I mean, my goodness, I saw the other day a woman driving in her car with a face mask on.

And apart from the overwhelming advice that face masks aren't going to help you, I mean, what is she going to catch driving around in her own car? And that's the sort of illogical fear that we have to deal with and we have to do it in a considered…

We have to empathise with these people and we do that by getting proper training and proper information out there. Which is why we moved towards the COVID Safe Martial Arts Instructors Certification Program. To create a non-political, it's an online course, it's free of charge. In fact, it cost us money.

The MAIA has committed considerable financial resources to assist our industry in recovery. And then this logo that is getting huge prominence, you know that George, you've looked on social media, this thing is not just all over social media in Australia. We’re assisting bodies in Canada, the USA, England throughout Europe and Asia, getting similar programs up and running.

GEORGE: Fantastic. So can you give us an idea, so what is in the actual certification program?

WALT: Well, you go through it step by step. First of all, it outlines how the disease is transmitted, what the disease is, it exposes a lot of the myths as well, there's a lot of people out there who were rushing to get, for example, the flu vaccine and that's one of the questions – does the flu vaccine protect you from the COVID-19 virus? Answer, no, it doesn't. And there's a whole lot of myth exposed there. And then we move from that section of the course to the actual procedural specifics of running a COVID safe martial arts class.

GEORGE: OK. So now, what does it really mean for a school to do this? Like, how does it help, in which way would it help them?

covid safe martial arts

WALT: I've always taken the view that education in any subject is a help, but never more urgent than right now. We're dealing with, at the moment, and I'm just getting some figures. We’re now knocking on the door of 10,000 instructors having gone through this.

Let's do the math, let's look at how many students those instructors are coming in contact with. Their websites, their social media, their interaction at every level is pushing the COVID safe martial arts school logo. There is a point, the pressure from other sources, such as parents is going to be enormous for people to be COVID safe certified.

There is also the insurance component. Insurers are looking at this type of education. I know for a fact there are some insurers that are specifically looking at excluding claims of in sport, if they emanate from COVID safe infections, and that's a very serious thing that we’re currently liaising with insurers on behalf of our industry.

There are a lot of other things out there that many people, they get about their day to day business of teaching martial arts aren't aware of. And we’re addressing that as well and the COVID safe certification is part of how we're addressing that with insurors.

GEORGE: OK. I guess just to play the devil's advocate here, right? So how does this differ – I know there's mention of a few government courses and things like that?

WALT: Really? Name them.

GEORGE: So I'm just going through a couple of comments here.

WALT: I said, I didn't say name the comments, I said name the government courses.

GEORGE: Yes. Yes, I'm just reading here: Australian Government Course, Australian Coach Mission Course, all the health organisation courses… and that's all that's coming up from the list here.

WALT: And that's fairly nondescript, so…

GEORGE: OK.

WALT: We’re really talking about probably fictionalized versions of something in someone's mind. But to move on from that: even if those courses existed, and I'm fairly confident that most of them don't, how do they address martial arts?

GEORGE: Not sure.

WALT: Well, I'll answer that for you, although the silence answered it: they don't.

GEORGE: Perfect. OK. What else do we need to know? What else do we need to…

WALT: I'll give you an example of misinformation, just by way. And I won't name names to embarrass the people. The COVID Safe Martial Arts Instructors Program rolled out. It is without question the most successful mass communication of the martial arts industry ever in Australia.

The volume of people doing it, and the comments and social media are enormous. The fact that other countries are taking it up, not only are we leading the way in Australia, we are leading the way in the world in terms of instructor education and how to deal with the aftermath of this pandemic.

But to give you an example of how poor the level of grasp of the problem is by some in our industry: there was a group of martial artists that said, oh no, we're not doing that course; we're doing the official course run by the Australian Coaching Council. Now of course, if you read the fine print of the Australian Coaching Council Course, they acknowledge the help that the MAIA provided them in constructing a coach course based on the martial arts instructors certification course. 

So in other words, they're doing the same course by a different name, but for them, no this is the official one. And when you have that level or that lack of intellectual evaluation of something, it gives you cause for pause that these people actually drive cars and vote, let alone teach martial arts. Next question George?

GEORGE: Perfect. OK. So, my questions are on my limited experience with this, so I'll take your guidance on where we should steer this conversation in your experience. But from looking at something like this, is it endorsed by the government, or…

WALT: Any course – which is why in your earlier question I knew that that was going up the wrong pathway. As a matter of policy, the government will not endorse any course. This is up to industry. In fact, they even say if you go to their website, “This is the responsibility of industry bodies.”

GEORGE: All right. So what else should we know about this? I'd ask you this way. Which questions should I be asking you in regards to this?covid safe martial artsWALT: Well, it's an interesting take on an interview George. I think we've covered it.

I mean really, this is about two things: this is about making people aware of the course and making them aware of the second thing: it's non political, it's free. Just for argument's sake, if we were motivated financially and we were charging for this course and we’re currently kicking over 10,000 and when we go global, we’ll be looking at more like 250,000 then if money was our objective, then we'd be doing OK wouldn't we? We wouldn't be doing too badly at all.

But money is not our objective. This is a coming together of a range of people in the martial arts industry to put out a course that people can educate themselves and then go to their respective local government and state governments, because as many of your listeners will know, they are being asked to provide a COVID safe return plan. And that is beyond the administrative capacities of many of our martial arts teachers.

They don't know where to start, they don't know what to do. How do I know that? I'm getting on average a 100 emails a day asking for help with stuff like that and we're giving it to people. Any people, not just members of MAIA – anyone in our industry we're helping.

So this is the problem: you've got a gap between what is required and how to get to that point just to satisfy the minimum requirements of the government. In some jurisdictions, it's not just about waiting for the government to say, oh you can now do this and this – you must submit a recovery, a resumption plan, a pathway back.

And that is something that a lot of our people in our industry are simply having trouble with. We've done that for them. They click on this thing, they get certified and we’ve even put up template pathway plans for them as well.

GEORGE: Ok, perfect. So once a martial arts school owner or instructor has completed the course, what's the next step from that point?

WALT: OK. Then that's up to them, isn't it? I would think it would be a real good idea to be using that logo in your advertising. We also provide support materials, like posters, COVID safe martial arts school posters that show procedures that you can print up and put in your dojo, your training area. We have a range of things. You see, we didn't just look at this as oh, we've got to do a certification course. We have a range of initiatives that we’re rolling out from this point into November of this year. 

All of them focused on educating instructors, helping instructors with marketing and getting students back into the classes of our industry. Not just classes in the MAIA membership, even though that is very, very large. We have approximately 3000 accredited instructors under the MAIA banner – there's no one else that can make that claim.

And so we have a large number of people already, but this is bigger than that. This is an industry based problem. We have never faced a problem of this magnitude before and I hope never again. And this is where we have pulled together many, many people.

Look at our COVID safe martial arts Australia website, covidsafemartialartsschools.com and you'll see a supporters list. Look at the list of the thousands of now certified COVID safe instructors. You go through those names and you'll see, you've been around the block a few times George, you'll see instructors there that have been highly critical of me personally, and highly critical of the MAIA – and yet, they're listed there. 

Because they see, they're grown ups, they can see the need for this, this is a time where people put aside whatever preconceptions they have and all work together for the betterment of our industry. Because this is a really big problem. There are many instructors and schools George that have closed down and I fear they won't be coming back. And we've got to minimise that damage to our industry. That's our job and that's what we're doing.

GEORGE: Fantastic. Walt, thanks so much for taking the time to chat. I know we've actually had a chat a long time coming, it was going to be on different terms, but glad to have had a chat.

WALT: I'm happy to always talk to you George and it's important that we get out there and communicate. I think that information is important, the right information is important. If you'll just do me this favor and just send me the link from next week, I'm doing a lot of media and we're going to be putting a media link on our site so we would be happy to put your podcast up there on our site, which is being seen George by thousands of people every day, so I think maybe it's a good idea if you do that.

GEORGE: Perfect. Thanks so much and for anyone that missed the link, it's covidsafemartialartsschool.com.

WALT: In fact, covidsafemartialartsschool.com.

GEORGE: Perfect, yes, so double s. And we'll have that link in…

WALT: It's not hard to find, yeah, you can put it on there, it's not hard to find. Half the planet seems to be able to find it at the moment, so we’re having to bring in extra people to help. It's a good problem to have, it means we're reaching people, but it's still a problem. The administrative logistics at the moment for this are enormous. But we're gonna keep at it and we're gonna do our absolute best for everyone out there to help them to get their schools back on deck and their students back into the classroom.

GEORGE: Fantastic. Walt, thanks so much.

WALT: My pleasure George, as always. We'll talk again no doubt. Thank you mate, bye bye.

GEORGE: Thank you.

Awesome. Thanks for listening. If you want to connect with other top and smart martial arts school owners, and have a chat about marketing, lead generation, what's working now, or just have a gentle rant about things that are happening in the industry, then I want to invite you to join our Facebook group.

It's a private Facebook group and in there, I share a lot of extra videos and downloads and worksheets – the things that are working for us when we help school owners grow and share a couple of video interviews and a bunch of cool extra resources.

So it's called the Martial Arts Media Business Community and an easy way to access it is, if you just go to the domain named martialartsmedia.group, so martialaartsmedia.group, g-r-o-u-p, there's no .Com or anything, martialartsmedia.group. That will take you straight there. Request to join and I will accept your invitation.

Thanks – I'll speak to you on the next episode – cheers!

 

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16 – Justin Sidelle: The Lifestyle Of Running A Martial Arts Business In The Tropics

Sun, surf and martial arts? Brazilian Jiu Jitsu black belt Justin Sidelle shares the laid back lifestyle running their martial arts business.

martial arts business

IN THIS EPISODE YOU WILL LEARN:

  • Justin’s martial arts journey that inspired him to travel the world
  • How a healthy environment motivates martial arts training and how it affects your performance
  • The importance of “word of mouth” and social media in boosting your martial arts school’s exposure
  • Having a martial arts holiday in Bali, Indonesia vs Thailand
  • Giving back to the community and making a difference
  • And more

*Need help growing your martial arts school? Learn More Here.


TRANSCRIPTION

And on top of that, being in such an environment that's that healthy and that welcoming, your training goes through the roof. You perform better, you learn better, you learn faster.

Hi, this is George Fourie from martialartsmedia.com and welcome to the Martial Arts Media business podcast, episode number 16. Today, I cross international waters – again. Well, it's not really international for us so much, because it's just Bali, and Bali and Perth, that's about a three and half hour flight, but I'm speaking to Justin Sidelle. And Justin Sidelle is the head coach at Bali MMA, the head jiu-jitsu coach at Bali MMA. Now, if you recall episode 13, I had Jess Fraser on, from the Australian Girls in GI and she mentioned that Bali MMA is her home gym, although she jet-sets and travels around the world. So I wanted to get in touch with Justin and just have a chat with him about his lifestyle: living in Bali, being able to train jiu-jitsu, which he loves and living in the tropics and just living an awesome lifestyle and living a very laid back life and doing a lot of good things within the Bali community.

But first, just a quick update, more a notification, if you're not aware of it, depending of course on where you listen to this podcast, if you listen to it on your iPhone or through your Android type device like a Samsung or so forth, or on the website. If you listen to it on the website, you might have noticed it, but we give away a martial art business plan for online media for martial arts business owners and it's basically a plan for the online media side of things.

It's looking at the different components of digital marketing for your martial arts school, so what you need to basically cover all the elements. There's a lot of information out there, you've got to do this on Facebook, and you've got to do this on Google and you've got to have SEO, but this is kind of giving you a holistic view of all the components that you need to have a prosperous martial arts school, but not only that, to make sure that you're not single point sensitive.

Let's say Facebook fell off the map today: can your business still sustain and can you still market? Do you still have ways and means to actually get in touch with your people? So it's just looking at things from a holistic point of view and all the elements that you need to cover. It's on the website, you can download it on martialartsmedia.com, or if you go directly to the link, it's martialartsmedia.com/plan. Download it, check it out. That will put you on our email database and we'll also send out weekly updates from when we release this podcast and such.

That's just it from me. I want to get into the podcast now. I've got to tell you as well, this was always going to be a problem: talking to someone in Bali, I knew the internet wasn't going to be the best, we ended up talking on the phone and there was a bit of a delay, which kind of overlapped a few times. All in all, the interview is awesome, you're going to get a lot of value from this and it might even spark you, light a fire under you to go take a nice tropical holiday with some awesome martial arts training. So, without further ado, please welcome to the show – Justin Sidelle.

GEORGE: Alright, good day everyone. Today I have with me a guest from Indonesia, from Bali to be exact. Well, I guess rather saying, based in Indonesia, but actually an American gentleman. His name is Justin Sidelle and how I was introduced to Justin was through Jess Fraser from Australian girls in GI, who I had on the podcast episode 13 and she mentioned that Justin is her head coach and her home training grounds, if you want to call it that way is the Bali MMA. Welcome to the call Justin.

JUSTIN: Thanks George, thanks for having me.

GEORGE: Alright, awesome. So I guess we should start right at the beginning and we're going to ask of course how an American ended up in Bali, but  – who is Justin Sidelle?

JUSTIN: That's a good question, man. Who you are as a person never stops changing, right? So it's hard to answer that question I think for a lot of people. I was somebody who was out traveling. I was traveling through Asia and I got a good job opportunity thrown my way and I was first in Thailand, so I worked in Thailand for a while and then I met the Leone brothers and Donny and they wanted to come out to Bali and open a gym out here, so I kind of followed them out here and we opened Bali MMA.

GEORGE: Alright, cool. How long ago was that, how long did you start traveling that you went over to Thailand?

JUSTIN: I've been out of the States now for three years. So a year in Thailand and now two years in Bali.

GEORGE: What was the big motivation for going? I know there's a lot of motivation to set up in Bali, but what was the idea behind setting up Bali MMA?

JUSTIN: I think it was a passion for, I still look at the guys I came here with, I still look at Andrew and Anthony and Donny and a big passion for them was surfing. They all wanted to come out here and surf and that was something I was interested in getting involved with. Definitely, the Asian lifestyle, living in the tropics, is something that I think attracted all of us for wanting to come here.

15049824_10209156096792461_674409732_nJust that training lifestyle and the destination, that's just kind of so inspiring and makes you want more for yourself and more on where you're at in the world. It was just the perfect place to open a gym really, and there was nothing really out here like this already. We were the first really professional gym that set up. So it's kind of cool, we're working our way up towards being a world class destination gym and I think we've done that. Then you continue pushing forward to really keep up with our competition.

GEORGE: With not having the competition and you were the first there, what was your primary goal? Were you thinking, OK, we're going to set something up for Indonesians as such or Bali, being such a hot travel destination, was it more a goal of being a place where people can train on a holiday, or were you going for that expat market for people that are living in Bali and trying to accommodate for them?

JUSTIN: That's a good question. I think initially our goal was to be a destination gym. Because before we were in Phuket and Phuket was a much more transient place, we had a lot more tourists coming in and out. That much said, we don't have that here in Bali, we just find that there are more expats and locals here that are interested in training, which we didn't have as much in Thailand.

So I think what we figured out quickly was that we were going to be able to cater to both. So I have my core group of guys that are either part of our professional fight team or live here in Bali that train with me daily and then I also have handfuls of tourists coming through every week, if it's even just for a drop in class or just two months of a hard training camp, or maybe just 6 months to a year, just to give their life a new start. I get all of that, it's a great environment.

GEORGE: So the majority of people who train there, what styles are you coaching and is it mostly adults or do you have kids programs as well?

JUSTIN: Oh yeah, adults and kids both. We're really multifaceted, we have a professional MMA team that I coach for their jiu-jitsu, so my approach to them has to be a little different, right? My concern with them is not only them  having a pristine jiu-jitsu technique, but also that they're safe in a fight, so for them, I kind of structure their jiu-jitsu a little differently, so I know they're going to go in there, they're going to be safe in a fight, they can handle themselves well and they're looking to finish.

So I have  a different mindset for my pros than I do for my hobbyists. My hobbyists, depending on whether they're competing in jiu-jitsu, I need to give them tools so they're going to work in that style and that environment. My hobbyists, I tend to steer towards more self-defense. Again, kind of like that mixture between MMA and sports jiu-jitsu that has to be taught to them. So I really try to cater it to my students and who's there. Kid's programs, we have a couple.

We have our main kid's program here that's taught by Andrew Leone – fantastic kid's coach, he's really hands on, he's funny. He knows how to get the kids rolled up and having a good time, he does a great job with our kid's program here. I helped him, I established that with him, we built that together, it's a ton of fun. And then we do a program called Jalang, with a green school. Jalang it means “to wonder” in Indonesian. They come out once a semester for six weeks and we teach them jiu-jitsu and boxing and wrestling as well. We do it separately, so it's not straight MMA, but we teach all the components to them.

GEORGE: What a variation there! How do you cater for international clients, and people coming through on holiday? How do you get the word out and how do you get the marketing out in a place like Bali?

JUSTIN: A little bit of it is word of mouth, a lot of it is through social media. There tends to be, what we're finding is that there's a community of people that want to go on holiday and do something healthy for themselves. They just don't want to go partying the whole time, so a lot of people are choosing to do things, like go to an MMA camp, in a destination like Bali, so they can go and get the holiday they want, but train on the side, eat healthy, live a clean lifestyle while they're here and then go back to the real world.

So a lot of it is just networking, people who come through, they go home, they tell people from their gym, and then next time, they come and bring friends – it’s just people who like to travel already. And then a lot of it is people that have come back, that have trained with us before, so maybe they pass through. When we were training together in Thailand and in Bali, so now they're coming over here to check out what we're doing over here. And then, we just establish those relationships and people keep coming back.

GEORGE: I can see you have quite a few, I know Tiffany Van Soest, that's also the home training facility for her.

JUSTIN: She's my neighbor, she's right next door.

GEORGE: Oh, cool. So does that help a lot with marketing, having someone like that on board, and big names, how does that influence it?

15045612_10209156137353475_1634376610_nJUSTIN: Oh, absolutely! She's such a big influence on the team here, the energy she brings into the room. It says a lot about her skill set, she can walk into a room full of MMA fighters and they all just shut up and listen to whatever she has to say, so it’s a technical striker. All that input is really great and having high-level competitors like that in the gym pushes everyone else to raise the bar on themselves and train harder. Having world class athletes that we do, that come in regularly makes a big difference in the energy of the gym.

GEORGE: Going back, I want to know a bit more about you. Alright, you come from America, you started traveling and so forth – let's just actually take a step back from all this and let's start with your career, where did you start in martial arts?

15050023_10209156119793036_29076811_nJUSTIN: I started doing traditional martial arts as a kid and then when I got a little bit older, I got involved with Brazilian jiu-jitsu. So I in 2005 I started jiu-jitsu and I fell in love with it right away, I knew that's what I wanted to practice and that's what I wanted to do. So I just kept cutting the fat around things in my life that wouldn't let me train and it was actually after I did, in 2010, I was still training probably three or four days a week in jiu-jitsu and competing actively, I competed in IBJJF, really great jiu-jitsu tournaments. Jiu-jitsu just becomes such a Mecca in California, you could go to California and train, it’s just always tough competition, great guys to train with.

So anyway, in 2010, I went to Thailand for the first time and got the taste of training full time, I went to Tiger Muay Thai, and did like three weeks there and it blew my mind. On my way back, I ended up getting a job offer from the gym I was training at the time, with Dave Camarillo, so I ended up at that point in my life, switching from, I was working in restaurants and bars and grocery stores and stuff like that, to training jiu-jitsu full time. And so I trained and taught with Dave for the next four years, I've probably been a brown belt for maybe like a year and then I left to do some traveling in Thailand and south east Asia and I ended up doing work with Olavo Abreu. And so I took that and stayed there and got my black belt from Olavo Abreu and then came to Bali.

GEORGE: That's got to be the ultimate lifestyle for you, living in Bali, being able to train every day, quite a laid back lifestyle?

15044892_10209156097392476_288918132_oJUSTIN: Oh, for sure! It's great man, I wake up every day, go get breakfast on a beach, drive my motorbike around through rice paddies, all that good stuff, and you go to the gym and you train – I love my team, I love everyone there, the atmosphere of the gym  is so great. I thought about this a while ago: when you show up to work at least 30 minutes early every day, for no reason other than to be there, you like your job. You know what I mean? When you're getting out of bed early just to go to work, you really like your job. I'm just so happy to be at the gym and training with my team, it’s been great man, it’s a great lifestyle.

GEORGE: How big is the gym? How many students do you have coming in and out? Regulars, versus the people that just come by for holiday training and camps and so forth?

JUSTIN: It's hard to say, cause it’s kind of seasonal, but it’s unpredictable. When we have people coming in slow all day. So I'd say when it’s slow, I can just – jiu-jitsu is what I've got the best idea of, right? So when it’s slow, I have ten people in my class, when it’s busy I have close to thirty. So it kind of depends on the time of the year and how many people are coming in. I can get a really even mix and now, since I've been down here for a while, I have people who come and train with me for longer.

I'll use Jess as an example, she loves training with us, so she'll come up for months. And then I have Jess with me for four months, and that's great. And then, she feels like a local, she feels like family to me, she's been here so many times for long stints. But then, there's the tourists coming in and out and then the people living here. Whenever someone leaves, someone else comes in, you know what I mean? The door is never wholly shut, we've always got people in the gym.

GEORGE: So let's say, a place like Australia, if I look at Perth: Perth is probably, I wouldn't say it takes the majority of Bali, because Bali is a big place, but I know that it's the number one vacation destination, just because, I mean, it's a three and a half hour flight, it's cheap for us.

JUSTIN: Oh, it's so close to you guys.

GEORGE: Yeah, driving down south or getting on the plane to Bali is kind of the same thing for us, except Bali is a whole different country, so it’s very popular for multiple reasons. But also, there's so many people that come from here and then they go to Thailand, they go do things like Tiger Muay Thai and Sinbi and go train in those destinations. What would you say to people to consider Bali MMA as an option beyond the other alternatives, like there is in Thailand and so forth?

JUSTIN: Again, it’s something that you should just experience. I've been fortunate enough, I've trained at Tiger Muay Thai with a top team and I've trained at some of the smaller gyms in Phuket and then I've been here. it’s just such a different experience, it’s a different vibe. There's a lot of similarities too, they're all great gyms to train at, you've just got to shop around and see these other destinations. I think training at these gyms is a bonus to the place you're in too. I always wanted to go to Thailand, training at first was almost as a bonus, it was something to sweeten the deal.

15050297_10209156096952465_1302411700_nThe vibe in Bali is just so different, it's something you really have got to come in and experience and see just how warm and welcoming everyone is. One of the things people talk about are the dogs, we have all these gym dogs at the front of the gym and they're super friendly and nice. You walk up in this cafe area and you're greeted by these super friendly dogs. The people at the cafe are super friendly. They're all international so they're really welcoming and excited to meet new people. Then you go inside and everyone's very welcoming again – everyone's ready to lend a hand, answering the questions you have, super supportive people that just make you want to stay.

And I think that's the thing most of why people come, they get that overwhelming sensation of feeling so welcome that they should stay here and they feel at home. And they are the people that want to come back and keep training with us. I think that's something that's definitely worth experiencing, it's the camaraderie that we all carry here, it's very strong and we make people feel very welcome when they come here to train. And on top of that, being in such an environment that's that healthy and that welcoming, your training goes through the roof. You perform better, you learn better, you learn faster. So the level in the room is very high.  And because everyone's taking care of themselves and working so hard, people get a lot better here really quickly. Again, you've got to come try it.

GEORGE: From what you're saying, because I've been to Bali multiple times, That whole relaXed and laid back culture, it sounds like you've really embraced that and I can actually visualize how you would experience that within your gym and just have a really awesome holiday, but get all this great knowledge and value from all the expert coaches and trainers out here.

JUSTIN: Right. And it's a really good place for people to go who are traveling alone too. When I first started traveling in Asia, I didn't have many connections, but the connections I had were through martial arts. So the great way to go out and meet some people who are doing the same thing you are, if you're traveling and you train, definitely go stop by a gym, it's a  really good way of meeting some local people and it will give you a better experience of the place you're seeing and visiting. It's something I took on very early on in my traveling and it's something I do even when I'm still traveling, I always bring my GI with me, I'm always ready to go train at a gym. It's just a  great way to meet people.

GEORGE: Ok. You mentioned earlier, briefly, that you also have fight shows and tournaments and things within Bali. Can you elaborate a bit more on that?

JUSTIN: We have something called Canggu fight night. We just had one for Halloween that was really successful, we do kickboxing smokers, people then come out and watch, the boxing and kickboxing. We just put on a  really good show, a good time for them. If you follow us on Facebook, you can see there're some videos that we recently put up. And again, it's  that vibe that makes it so different. I've been to a lot of Muay Thai fights and MMA shows and stuff like that.  

The vibe really affects how good of a time the people watching are having. And everyone here is just so easygoing and laid back, it makes the fight truly fun and people are just genuinely having a good time and I think when the fighters are having a good time, so are the fans watching. It gets everyone to kind of open up, put on a good show and fight hard. Our next one's going to be, I think the second week of December, so if you guys are thinking about coming to Bali, definitely try to be here for Canggu fight night.

GEORGE: OK. And where about in Bali do you host that?

JUSTIN: We're based in Canggu.

GEORGE: OK, that's where all the awesome surf spots are. 

JUSTIN: Right, yeah. We've got some good surf spots here. Canggu is an interesting place, it's kind of where hipsters meet hippies, it's  very unique. Again, if you're looking for having a healthy holiday, it's a really great place for it, because there're so much health conscious restaurants close to the gym, and just again, the environment here is really great. There's a ton of rice fields everywhere  and we're close to three beaches with great waves. It's a good time.

GEORGE: Oh yeah, definitely. Alright, awesome. And then, one more thing I want to ask you before we start wrapping it up: you also mentioned your involvement with one of the orphanages there?

JUSTIN: Yeah, we've done some work for the orphanage called Jodie O'Shea. People usually go in and work with the kids a little bit and then a bunch of the other guys from the fight team come out too, pretty much all the fight teams and then Subba brothers come out quite a bit.  It's a good time, it's just kind of something we started doing because we wanted to give back. I've been trying to get a program up and running with them to be a continuous thing, but it's difficult, they're pretty far away from us and with the traffic and everything, it's a little difficult. We just try to do stuff where we can give back to the community. If it's doing free women's self-defense seminars, or working with kids locally here. I think it's something really good we can do to help share our passions.

GEORGE: Justin, it's been awesome chatting to you and I know I'll definitely make a trip to Bali to come and see you guys sometimes. For anybody that wants to come and visit you guys and make a trip to Bali, what should they be doing? What would be the process to get in touch with you guys?

JUSTIN: Either on Facebook or our website, balimma.com. Any questions you have, don't be shy to ask. You can message us directly, but it's better to go through the site. People will message me all the time, asking me questions about coming out to train – please, please don't be shy to do so. If you guys want to come out, train, see Bali, just explore, it's a great place to do it. So Bali MMA, check us out on Facebook or  our website.

GEORGE: Justin, it's been great chatting to you and I hope to see you  on the sunny side soon.

JUSTIN: Absolutely, thanks, George.

GEORGE: Cheers.

15126212_10209156097552480_676270323_oGEORGE: And there you have it. Thank you, Justin and I'm sure that might have sparked some ideas for you, to go and train. Awesome trainers in Bali and a great lifestyle. And if you've been to Bali or if you haven't been, Changu, where they are situated, is a really, really cool part of Bali and there are nice surf spots. What I like about it is, it’s because I don't surf that often as I used to, the surf spots are, it’s kind of from the beach, so there're not long extensive paddles, but it's reef breaks that are in easy access from the beach, and there's nice little restaurants and it’s sort of out of the main hustle and bustle from Bali. And of course, they've got an awesome gym in there, Bali MMA, so great place to have a holiday.

Thanks again for listening, thanks for tuning in. I do want to ask a  bit of a favor: if you could head over to iTunes and really help us, we're really trying to get the rankings up for the show. The more people vote on the show, the better we get listed in the iTunes library or directory if you want to call it that. So if you do want to do us a big favor, and if you've gotten value out of this show, please head over to iTunes. You can just go to martialartsmedia.com/iTunes, that will take you there and just leave us a review. Five-star reviews are what helps us get the good ranking, but an honest review would be much appreciated.

And that's it. Awesome guest on board again next week – I will chat to you soon, have a good week. Cheers!

 

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