The history of Mordialloc Martial Arts

The history of Mordialloc Martial Arts … Back in 1992 a mad Ninja Turtle fan 8 year old wanted to do martials arts so he could kick like his heroes. We went along to a session at a recommended club on Beach Rd Parkdale where we were made most welcome. Young Greg got into it straight away. I also had younger son Steve with me who wanted to get up as well but was a little bit shy. I said to Steve “ If I get up, will you get up as well?” Steve agreed so the three of us started our martial arts journey on that cold August day in 1992.

We went to as many classes as possible, sometimes 13 classes every week. We did Taekwondo, Kickboxing and Weapon classes. I think Friday was the only day we didn’t go to some sort of class.
In 1996 all three of us graded to our Black Belts. Steve becoming the youngest Senior Black Belt ever at 11 years of age.

In 1998 our Instructor Geoff Hutchinson started Friday night classes in the Scout Hall in Mordialloc. He knew time was nearly up on our Parkdale venue. Geoff decided that he would prefer a full time venue in Oakleigh instead of all these scatted venues he had at the present time. (Parkdale, Mordialloc, Cheltenham & Oakleigh) So once Our time was up at Parkdale he closed the rest down and consolidated everyone into the new full time venue in Oakleigh.

We had a number of students at Parkdale I knew wouldn’t go to Oakleigh. I decided that I would like to take over Mordialloc and continue with our school there. Geoff was more than agreeable to this idea, so Mordialloc Martial Arts was born.

We started two nights a week. A Tuesday and kept the class on Friday going. Some of the seniors had kids who also wanted to try Taekwondo so 5pm classes started. Fridays started going down hill so we moved it to Thursday night and added a 5pm kids class as well.

During the day we started up a Ladies weight loss class called the Kilo Club, which ran for 10 week cycles. The Kilo Club ran for around 2 years and many of the Ladies were keen to continue in the evening now that their kids were at school and they were returning to work. So the Kilo Club transitioned into 7pm Ladies Kickboxing

The Scouts kicked us out of Tuesday when they found a Dance Club willing to pay higher rent to get the day. We moved back to Mondays and it didn’t really effect any of our students. After two years the Dance Club moved to a bigger location and we took over Tuesdays again, also keeping Monday. The Scouts came and went on a Tuesday so we had to take the bags down every week. But they soon passed on so we had the place to our selves once again.

Again a couple of our senior ladies suggested that they would like to get a 4pm Tuesday class going. This was a big success so Monday’s and Thursday 4pm started as well.
We also added a Sticks class on Thursday night and Kickboxing and TKD on Saturday mornings.
So over ten years we went from one class with 5 students to 20 odd classes a week with 250 martial artists and kickboxers.

Around 7 years we introduced MasterClass. MasterClass gave our more advanced students to under take the Senior Syllabus as well as try their hands at weapons and Kickboxing. From one class a week with six student to two classes a week and over 40 student. A hugh success.

Mordialloc Martial Arts has now been in business 20 years. Many of our Black Belts are still training and this year we had our first 10 year Member recipients 7 in all.

Our new venue is now 2 years old, after 20 years at the Scout Hall. It may be a little off track compared to the exposure of the Scout Hall. We call our new venue home and we have many exceptional Martial Artist coming through. What more could we ask for?