Martial Arts club

[fist of fury]

Stealing kirks post idea about an M.A club for sparring. He mentioned dues or club fee's but what about liablity? The club would be set up for various M.A'ist to get together and workout with each other get a perspctive on different approaches to combat. To make themselves moe effective find out what works for them. How do you set something like that up with out being sued? restricting it to those 18 or older is one thought.

 

[Dronak]

How about having everyone sign some sort of waiver before entering? Or making up a sign with rules and junk that people can read before deciding whether or not to participate. The sign can say that if you choose to participate, you are implicitly accepting the stated rules and agree to abide by them. There has to be something you could do without having to resort to lawers and full legal contracts or something. I mean, I've been involved with ballroom dancing and for all the college competitions I'm familiar with part of the rules have this disclaimer type statement that the hosting club/school isn't responsible for lost or stolen items or any injuries that may occur. It's an implicit contract, by registering and participating you agree to abide by the stated rules. I'd think you could do something similar for this. I would hope that if you held some such event, you'd be attracting reasonable people who would agree not to sue the host and it wouldn't be a major concern, but I can certainly understand wanting to be prepared.

 

[Rob_Broad]

The problem with a group of people getting together is there is too much chance of injury and someone will always try and take control of the group and want to do things their way only. Too many chances for lawsuits and injuries. A proper class will have enough discipline to keep the egos in check but with a a clear leader you can have too many ego's flairing. There will also be the issue of what rules would you use for the sparring, there are amny different sets of rules out there. What would happen when you squared off against a TKD guy would you be allowed to punch to the head and have him cry that it is against the rules. I would not try to put a thing together like this even if I could get the insurance to do it.

 

[fist of fury]

I guess sparring isn't the right word. No points or rounds I was thinking more along the lines of working on techniques and situations you would encounter in the street. Granted if you wanted to polish up your tournament skills thats fine, but working you street combat oriented skills is what I was thinking.

 

[Kirk]

It's so disheartening that what so many people would probably
WANT to do, can't happen. We don't spar in my school, yet so
many people recommend that we do. I don't want to go to
another school! I guess I'll just need to go into some biker
bar and start hitting on some biker's "old lady".

 

[fist of fury]

Originally posted by Kirk

It's so disheartening that what so many people would probably
WANT to do, can't happen. We don't spar in my school, yet so
many people recommend that we do. I don't want to go to
another school! I guess I'll just need to go into some biker
bar and start hitting on some biker's "old lady".

Sometimes sparring early is a bad thing. You can develope bad habits and become a good at sparring but not a good fighter.

 

[tshadowchaser]

i have other instructors and their students at my school at verious times. I also vist their schools. More often than not when we get together on weekends there are at least 6 systems in attendence.
We all signin at the school we visit and put down our name and rank. By doing so we signify that we are in the martial arts, thusly we have an idea of what goes on.
We follow the rules of the school being visited that day or the black belts get togeather befor hand and decide what rules we are going to use if we spar.
The head instructor of the school gets to decide on what we are going to go over (if not sparing) or again we all can have a say. We work as a brotherhood to promot learning. We all know that people can get hurt and try to practice with respect to each other.
Shadow

 

[Datu Tim Hartman]

You should pm Icepick. He is a lawyer and could shed some light on this topis.


:asian:

 

[Klondike93]

Once a month on saturdays, our school gets together with 2 other schools and we sparr for about 2-3hrs or until everyone just gets too tired to keep going. Never gave much thought to any liability issues, it was just understood, your there to sparr with others and you might get hurt at some point. It hasn't happened yet, but it could. Most of the people doing it are the ones that really like to spar so they know the risks. It's really alot of fun cause your fighting different people with different styles and you learn to adjust or get beat. I recomend to everyone who likes to sparr.

I guess I'll just need to go into some biker

My first kenpo instructor had 5 points for practicing kenpo:

1. practice the techniques in the air
2. practice the techniques on the body
3. test the techniques to see if they really work (he was really saying go out and get in a fight)
4. test the techniques against a situation other than originally taught
5. test the techniques against multiple opponents (biker bar)

sorry for such a long post.

:asian:

 

[JoshVogel]

Hi,


It's definitely interesting to hear criticisms about this type of thing. I'm starting my own group here in Philly tomorrow (sunday) to see how it goes.

Some of the best advice that I got as far as promoting it is making friends with various instructors and to see if their students want to come and join up. I'm planning on doing that this week, going around the city to see who's around.

It's very tough to find people to work with. As far as having a group leader goes, I can see that type of thing happening. what I explain to everyone that wants to join up is that there are no teachers. That means that no one tries to monopolize the group and turn it into a class. Anyone is free to ask whoever whatever they want, but no one is to take control. But, we'll see how that works out. It's all hypothetical right now. I'll post tomorrow to tell how it went.
Regards,
Josh

 

[Flatlander]

Welcome to the Board Josh! Thank you for offering to keep us informed. Please do. It will be interesting to hear how it works out. Also, thank you for rejuvinating this thread, I hadn't read it yet.

 

[JoshVogel]

Hi,


No problemo and thanks for the kind welcome!

I'm pretty excited about tomorrow. It's tough to get people to get together to practice regularly here for some reason (outside of class..).

I think one of the problems that will happen tomorrow is based on experience. Three or so of the people have little, less and virtually no experience with martial arts. This, in some ways , is good for me in terms of seeing how people with no training fight or spar as they would have no rules to really follow as far as movement or strategy go. The down side is that I don't want to turn this into a teaching class as I'm far too inexperienced to teach. I don't mind showing what I know and helping when asked, I just don't want to get caught up in "teaching" stuff. But, then again, there's people that will be there with experience and we can all chip in to help give advice or take advice or whatever. I'll keep you guys posted!

Josh

 

[tshadowchaser]

When I have my get together each instructor gets a chance to demonstrate something. Some times we all work off a certain offensive tech and show a defense, but sometimes we all show something unique to our systems.
The idea is to have fun, let everyone work with everyone else (instructors included).
The school running the event gets to choose what will be going on for the day: sparing, forms, self defence, etc.

 

[JoshVogel]

Hi,


Well, we had our first group meeting today. I had a great time! The turnout was me, my brother and one other guy. Hopefully on thursday more people will show.

My brother and I started off hitting the bag a bit. Then we did some free sparring/kickboxing/long distance fighting which was fun. Then I did some Hsing I apps. with the other guy while my brother worked the bag.

My brother and the other guy did some pad punching stuff, jabs and crosses for a while as I hit the bag. After that, we did a multiple person drill where we had two against one where two people tried to take the one guy down half heartedly while the one guy practiced keeping the two in front of each other or keeping them from attacking him at once while avoiding takedowns.

Then my brother and I spent some time clinching and trying to throw each other after which we did some push hands and rou shou. Then we finished up with the multiple persons thing again.

All in all a good time. Injuries: One fat lip (brother), One bloody lumpy nose (me) and that's it. So all in all a good day with us all being respectful and cool to each other and minimal accidents happening.
Regards,
Josh

 

[Sarah]

Our club has a 1/2 hour class on Mondays and Tuesdays called 'Fyte Nyte' were we work on sparring, combo’s etc etc. Sometimes people from other clubs come along.

It is run just like a class with an instructor, but most of the time we are just sparring, we get to work with lots of people of all levels.

We do sign a form when we join the club saying we understand that there is a possibility we could be injured and the club is not Liable. You could argue that by going to the class, putting on the gear and sparring you are aware there could be injury.

Surely you could only hold a club liable if they were being negligent in same way. And the club should hold a Public Liability Insurance Policy just incase.

 

[Rob Broad]

Our club has a 1/2 hour class on Mondays and Tuesdays called 'Fyte Nyte' were we work on sparring, combo’s etc etc. Sometimes people from other clubs come along.

It is run just like a class with an instructor, but most of the time we are just sparring, we get to work with lots of people of all levels.

We do sign a form when we join the club saying we understand that there is a possibility we could be injured and the club is not Liable. You could argue that by going to the class, putting on the gear and sparring you are aware there could be injury.

Surely you could only hold a club liable if they were being negligent in same way. And the club should hold a Public Liability Insurance Policy just incase.

Sarah

I agree with you whole heartedly that by signing the waiver and putting in the gear and sparring that you aware there could be an injury, it seems like common sense. But, unfortunately common sense isn't that common these days. There is always that person who will get a little boo boo and blow it out of proportion and even a crappy lawyer can argue and win against a waiver.

 

[Sarah]

It must be a bit different here (New Zealand) I have never heard of thet happening at a martial arts club.

Sad really isnt it.

 

[Blindside]

I think you need need the Dog Brothers waiver:

http://dogbrothers.com/adobedocs/fighterform.pdf

Lamont

PS: I can't imagine martial arts without freefighting/sparring/randori or whatever you call it.

 

[JoshVogel]

Hi,


I thought about waivers and stuff like that. I was worried about getting sued or whatever, but then it occured to me: "Josh, you made just over eleven thousand dollars last year. If you get sued, what will they sue you for? Your ball point pen collection?"

Then again, I'm not sure how the whole process of suing works, so my cavalier attitude towards it might get me into more trouble than I think... Who knows?

Regards,
Josh