Getting ready for the big move

We need a one-tonne lorry for the big move.

Come August we will be training at our new dojo in Pudu, which be more than 1.5 times larger than our current place (our current mat area is 50 square metres; the new place will be 80 square metres).

Moving dojo is always a hassle. It's also costly. And you inevitably lose some members who, for one reason or another, find the new location unsuitable. But there can also be a lot of good to come out of a move. Each time in the past, when we moved to a new place, it always led to better things for our club.

In this case, we will be having more space for training and that is important as our membership is growing -- especially with the introduction of a children's class as well as our new centralized elite competition training sessions. More space also means we can do randori with less worry about knocking into walls and other players.

The new place has long opening hours, which means more flexibility for training times. We are currently scheduled to have five sessions a week, for two hour each session. But if we need more sessions or more hours, it's possible. The space is also big enough that even with the expansion of the mat area to 80 square metres, there's still plenty of room for further expansion if necessary.

The new place will have a lot of foot traffic so we hope some of them will be interested in trying out judo. We're making some buntings to promote the judo club, which we will place in strategic locations (next to our dojo, at the reception area and at the underground parking lot, near where people go to pay their parking tickets. Visibility for our club should be high.

Here's to bigger and better things.