pwblackbelt

Thankyou Sam,
To be honest our main sport (and love) is actually Kickboxing.My wife won the World Championship for full contact kickboxing under my training. I also won the professional northeast kickboxing championship and the British Freestyle Karate championship.
However, as you mentioned, our main aim is to provide training in personal development and self defence for children and fitness training for adults using kickboxing as a fitness tool.
This stuff isn't bragging just clarification. We help kids a great deal in the UK and have a lot of kids training with great success that are diagnosed with autism,A.D.D. or A.D.H.D. and similar conditions.
It is a great feeling when you have a child be brought to you and can't look at you, has difficulty talking and seems to only ever look at their feet with shrugged shoulders and turn then into a Confident, outgoing, talkative BLACK BELT. We specialise in making parents cry (but in a good way).LOL
I reckon we should be able to find enough parents that want their kids taught to be confident and disciplined (I hope)

kaylee

Hi everyone

What a great thread. We are hoping for a move round about Septemberish, depending on if the house is sold. Best wishes to all who have made the move and those that are going to

jandy44

Good Evening Peter,
I firstly must congratulate you on the success of your business in this country,I admire your determination to succeed,Im sure that you will be a great success in Spain,it is quite obvious that you are passionate about your sport.I admire that you have had the patience and understanding that has allowed you to teach children with autism,not an easy task,but one that must give you a great sense of achievement.
You appear to be very positive in the goals you wish to achieve,Im sure that your business in Spain will be as successful has it has been here.
I hope that you are successful in finding suitable premises,Im sure there will be a lot of bureaucracy to overcome also,but Im sure your determination will help you.
We wish you all the very best,please keep us updated ,it will be extremely interesting to hear your progress.

Good Luck..............Jean

jandy44

Hello kaylee,Mmmmm we are in the same boat along with a few others,all waiting to sell the house.I hope that you have a quick sale,where in Spain are you hoping to move to?we are off to the Andalucia region eventually.I wish you every success.With a bit of luck you will be off before the blighty winter sets in.Good Luck...........

Compost Mentis

Hi Jandy, count me in too. Didn't see this until after I had written a screed of my own. My goodness how many of us there are now. A while ago there were eight moving quite soon. How things change in a short time. As you say, soon there won't be anyone left.

Linken1647

I am quite excited about moving to Spain. It was hard telling the family but now that the house is on the market, it all seems more real and I can't wait.
Scary thing is that if someone were to come in tomorrow and say I am a cash buyer and I want to exchange ASAP, we have 25 years of clutter to de-clutter quickly! How on earth do you decide what goes and what to keep? What a nightmare! We could be on first name terms with the guys at the council waste yard fairly quickly!

kevinbeddow

Hi valandgef
we are from your neck of the woods aswell ''Blanchland'' we drive to mallorca maybe 2 a year with our dog called ''Profit''
I love driving through france, as mentioned the country is lovely and the roads are so empty?
we stuck to the toll roads as we wanted to get to barcelona for the ferry to palma,so if you need any info drop me a line?
Regards
Kevin

kevinbeddow

sorry that was for bwblackbelt?

kevinbeddow

Hi valandgeff
we can leave home at 8.30 on a sat morning and be at the tunnel for 2pm?always travel on sat as not much traffic going down south,untill you hit the dart tunnel?
m20 to tunnel always empty on sat.
do the crossing wich takes 40 min and then drive to rouen,we get there for 6 in hotel that loves dogs.

sorry about the mix upon last post, as lost the plot?

Need some heat in body?
regards
kevin

Compost Mentis

Hi Linken 1647, I have just been through that process, and I can tell you deciding what to take and what to leave was one of the most difficult things. Even after I've had a good clearout, the stuff is back in no time. I'm one of those people that keep stuff in case it comes in handy, so I knew it was going to be traumatic, as impractical and too expensive to take everything. As soon as I had decided to move I started clearing, and making a list of furniture I would be taking. I cleared out everything that was real rubbish, and that was quite a lot. I went through my wardrobe and sent everything that I hadn't worn in the last 6 months to charity shops. Also books that I either hadn't ever read, or would never read again. Then I contacted the carrier, and looked at real space versus cost. Also worked out which items I could flat pack. Then I started to collect boxes. Gave a lot of bits to friends, including most of my house plants.

To cut a long story short, in spite of the above I had an awesome amount of stuff to take. The night before they came I still hadn't entirely finished, and knew that quite a lot of what was left would be taken by the house clearance people to the tip. By that time I knew I had packed everything that was really important, and had stopped agonising over it. I've still got stuff in a friends shed that I can't bear to get rid of.

When it comes to it, I would say, start now, don't leave the job for later, I'm so glad I didn't.

Good luck!

Brenda.

pwblackbelt

We will be flying over to Malaga rather than driving. I would probably enjoy driving through France etc but speed is of the essence with regards to our set up and search of premises.

pwblackbelt

The line we will be taking is looking for permission to run a gymnasium in whatever premises we find that is the right size and shape etc. We have to run the business as a self defence and personal development business (which is exactly what it is) because the Spanish martial arts federations will not recognise any British qualifications????? How crazy is that.
My wife is the World champion and a 4th Dan Black Belt, I have a 5th Dan Black Belt in Kickboxing, a 3rd Degree Black Sash in Kung Fu, a 2nd Dan Black Belt in American Kenpo Karate and a 1st Dan Black Belt in Arnis De Mano and they don't want to recognise the qualifications. We are both first aid qualified and local authority police checked for working with children and security work with adults etc.
However Spain is Spain so we will have to work within their guidelines and sort it out their way. I would rather get a licence to run this type of business than a new bar or cafe or restaurant. Some of the scary stories you hear about planning permission getting denied after spending thousands of pounds.

jdr

How would the Spanish team get on in an International competition then ?
Would they declare a walk over if they had to fight a British team.

pwblackbelt

To be honest I have never known a Spanish competitor anywhere. I have fought in Italy and France and know of a lot of French and Italian fighters but not Spanish. The sport is huge in Holland and the USA and quite popular in Germany. I have asked around a lot about Spanish fighters but my fellow kickboxers have never come against or across any.
The main problem with martial arts is that peoples ego's can become inflated and they want to be the boss of everything. I know groups where they will not allow anyone outside of their group to compete against them but they still have a British Champion?? How can that be when they won't compete with everyone available?? But it is a sad fact.
To be honest this is one of the main reasons we retired from fighting and decided to concentrate on a more positive aspect of discipline and personal development for children and fitness training for adults.
It is a far nicer way to make a living by helping people in a positive manner and seeing great results when kids achieve something their parents never thought was possible.
I was speaking to a parent last night whose child attends my school. His child is autistic. We recently had to move the child into a different class as he was progressing very well.If you know anything about autism then you will know change can be extremely traumatic for them. However this particular parent was amazed at how well his child had dealt with the change and thought that he would never have been able to cope with it a year ago before he had started his training with us. That makes me feel very good. This type of confidence will spread into other areas of this child's life and help them cope with things better.
We have another parent who is amazed by the results achieved by her child, who 3 years ago would hardly ever talk. Now he won't shut up!!! LOL
she is very happy with her son's improvement though. This is far more important to me than any competition.
Adults also need help with confidence (maybe more than kids) and we have systems to do this.i work with adults that were scared to come out of their houses before working with them.Helping people is better than fighting people ha ha.
Anyway getting hit hurts

jandy44

Hi Compost Mentis,I know there is a load of us on the way,Im going to have a count later,it makes you wonder about how many there are that dont come on here