An ‘accidental’ martial arts club that has female coaches and students at its core.
By Adrian Jackson
We started a martial arts club by accident in Bunhill Fields. A mixed group of friends from different martial arts and backgrounds began training together on a big old tarp in the park near the cemetery. It’s a beautiful spot with large and lovely trees and a dedicated team that work very hard to keep it an oasis of community space.
We were training carefully but hard and really enjoying the physical and mental challenge of pitting different systems’ ideas against each other in a fun and constructive way. What we hadn’t expected was somebody walking over with her laptop under her arm and asking if she could join in next time.
Fast forward to today and our accidental martial arts club, Kinetic Zen, is teaching students from ages 4 to 60+ six days a week out of Finsbury Leisure Centre. A few years in, we realised over half the students were women. In my experience, women are hugely underrepresented in the grappling community. At the Paris Olympics, only 13% of coaches were women, and on grappling mats the gap is easy to see.
That matters more than you might think. Martial arts and especially grappling arts rely on efficient use of human body mechanics and practical physics. Physical laws are the same for everybody. The shape of your hips is not. A truly inclusive grappling programme benefits enormously from a mix of instructors who have solved problems you might face in a body shape like yours.
When we started building the Brazilian jiu-jitsu (BJJ) programme, we had the opportunity to talk to Abbie O’Toole about the calm, quiet, highly technical teaching style we wanted to promote. For context, Abbie is a top-flight Brazilian jiu-jitsu athlete recently dedicated to professional competition. I was honestly stunned when she agreed to become our lead grappling coach. She was awarded her black belt by Roger Gracie himself and has won several IBJJF Open gold medals.
With Abbie on the team, we attracted more talent and could offer more classes to a wider group. One of the brilliant instructors we gained is Julie Morgan, another Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt and a BJA 2nd Dan in judo. Julie is passionate about taking our teaching into schools and building sessions for teenagers who want to learn a new skill.
Being a great competitor doesn’t automatically make you a great coach. Great coaches have great empathy and care about every student’s name, capabilities and goals. Abbie isn’t a great coach just because she is a ferocious competitor; being a careful, quiet listener is one of her superpowers. Julie shares that approach. She has a powerful, understated ground game, and her judo makes her a great sparring partner on your feet too.
We are also all dedicated to the art of teaching and making sure that you can study and train for goals that might not include winning gold medals internationally. One of the judo concepts we borrowed throughout our teaching is mutual benefit. Students of all sizes, shapes and skill levels train together with a carefully cultivated culture of Goldilocks resistance, consent-based boundaries and a belief that we can all learn from each other.
We run a mix of classes throughout the week, but Wednesday is special with Abbie and Julie on the mats together teaching female-led no-gi and traditional gi BJJ classes (the gi is a Japanese-style training jacket and trousers). The first BJJ class is free until the end of November. If you’d like to try it, you can find details of Kinetic Zen’s BJJ classes here, or message us and we’ll tell you which class suits you.
Adrian Jackson founded Kinetic Zen in 2019 and has taught self-defence in Islington for over a decade. He holds a black belt in Krav Maga under Alan Predolin and won his judo 1st Dan in competition aged 51.
