| The trend has already begun,
in that the teaching of self defence has moved away from
the traditional martial arts, as the distinction between
an oriental art and its relevance in a modern complex
society with all its potential for violence, ever widens.
There have been programmes for the qualification of teaching
self defence and personal security, which have been developed
outside the martial arts community. The poisoning of martial
arts by politics and style territorialism has prevented
the far reaching development of nationally accepted standards
for teaching self defence. In fact, these have been established
by people outside martial arts, who have little or no
practical martial arts experience, but who have appreciated
the vast breadth and detail of the subject matter and
who have developed acceptable standards with academic
and work related (NVQ) systems.
One of our primary aims for the
BCA was to establish bi-monthly instructors courses,
where we could introduce our senior members and instructors
to the very best in martial arts and combat systems.
Over the years we have ensured a continuing stream of
some of the world's finest exponents of martial arts,
combat systems, or people with substantial, practical
experience of personal combat.
Six times per year on a Sunday
in Coventry, U.K., these guest instructors excel themselves
and continue to impress. We have no prejudices as to
style, system or geography and we have exposed our people
to experts in Judo, Ju-Jitsu, Karate, Filipino, JKD,
Krav Maga, Wing Chun, Thai Boxing, Tae-Kwon Do, Professional
Boxing, Wrestling, Special Forces CQB, Grappling (many
systems) and much more.
The list of our guest instructors
is long and reads like a who's who, with such people
as Neil Adams ( 2 x Judo Olympic silver medallist),
Bob Breen, Rick Young, Dennis Martin, Matt Clempner,
Mark MacFann, Lance Lewis, Peter Robins, Mo Teague,
Trevor Roberts, Vince Morris, Kevin O'Hagan, Kevin Darkus,
Karl Tanswell, Martin Murphy, Jim McDonnell, Scott Welch,
Sandy Holt and so on (with sincere apologies for anybody
I have missed).
The above list is in no order
of merit and is not comprehensive, but it serves as
an example of the high standard of guest instructor.
It has become somewhat of a tradition
that the last course of the year (early December) is
taken by myself and Geoff Thompson. Up to two years
ago, the BCA Instructor courses had always been closed
courses, but they have now been opened up to all-comers,
albeit at a higher fee than for a BCA member. Our end
of year course has become a tremendous success and Geoff
and I intend to continue the tradition, at least for
the foreseeable future.
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