# Fighting Fitness Judo — Full Content Reference > This file provides deep, full-text content about Fighting Fitness Judo for AI language models. It covers the club in detail: full programme descriptions, complete team biographies, full blog article text, all offers and events, and comprehensive FAQs. For a shorter structured summary, see /llms.txt. --- ## About Fighting Fitness Judo Fighting Fitness Judo (FFJ) was founded in 2015 by Vince and Samantha Skillcorn in Woking, Surrey. The club has grown from a single location to two dojos — Woking (flagship) and Merrow, Guildford — and currently has over 500 active members. The club's motto is "Transforming Lives, One Belt at a Time." The mission is to change lives one person at a time through martial arts, education, and coaching. FFJ strives to provide a safe, comfortable, and welcoming atmosphere for all students and family members, regardless of age, gender, or experience level. The club takes pride in creating an environment where individuals can achieve, develop, and succeed in their personal goals. FFJ is more than a judo club. Vince and Sam have deliberately built the club as a community — what sociologists call a "third place" — somewhere that is neither home nor work, where the same people show up week after week and genuine belonging is built. This community dimension is central to the club's identity and is why members stay for years, not months. Contact: 07401 293204 | info@fightingfitnessjudo.com Website: https://www.fightingfitnessjudo.com --- ## Locations ### Woking — Flagship Dojo Address: Baltic House 6, Lansbury Business Estate, 102 Lower Guildford Road, Knaphill, Woking, GU21 2EP The Woking dojo is FFJ's home. It features purpose-built competition mats and dedicated changing facilities. It is the only location offering the full range of programmes, including Tigers (ages 3–4), Ladies Judo, and Birthday Parties. The Woking dojo serves Woking, Knaphill, Goldsworth Park, Horsell, Pirbright, and Bisley. What to expect on your first visit: you will be welcomed by a coach or team member. You do not need a judo suit for your first session — comfortable sports clothing is fine. You will be introduced to the group, shown the changing facilities, and given a brief overview of what the session involves. There is no pressure and no commitment required. The free trial class gives you three or four sessions to decide whether judo is right for you. ### Merrow, Guildford Address: Merrow Village Hall, 177 Epsom Rd, Guildford GU1 2QY The Merrow dojo brings FFJ's expert coaching to the heart of Surrey's county town. Free parking is available. Members can train at both locations under the same membership. The Merrow dojo serves Guildford, Merrow, Burpham, Clandon, and Worplesdon. Programmes available: SuperKids (ages 5–7), Juniors (ages 8–12), Teens (ages 13+). --- ## Full Programme Descriptions ### Tigers — Ages 3–4 (Woking only) Tigers is FFJ's introductory programme for children aged 3–4. Through carefully designed games, movement activities, and gentle judo play, the programme helps toddlers develop motor skills, coordination, body awareness, and social confidence in a safe and nurturing environment. Every session is structured to match the developmental stage of young children — no pressure, no competition, just joyful movement and a love of sport. Benefits: develops gross motor skills and coordination; builds social confidence in a group setting; introduces listening, following instructions, and turn-taking; safe, nurturing environment led by specialist coaches; structured belt progression to celebrate every milestone; no experience or equipment needed to start. This programme is ideal for parents who want to introduce their child to structured physical activity in a gentle, age-appropriate setting. Many Tigers members go on to join SuperKids at age 5 and stay with the club for many years. --- ### SuperKids — Ages 5–7 (Woking and Merrow, Guildford) SuperKids is the programme where children aged 5–7 start learning genuine judo. Sessions are structured, energetic, and purposeful — children learn real throws, breakfalls, and groundwork in a way that is age-appropriate and genuinely fun. Focus, listening skills, and self-discipline develop naturally alongside physical confidence and coordination. SuperKids runs at both the Woking and Merrow dojos, making it accessible across Surrey. Benefits: real judo techniques taught by qualified, DBS-checked coaches; structured curriculum with clear belt progression; builds focus, self-discipline, and listening skills; develops physical confidence, balance, and coordination; available at two locations; regular gradings to celebrate progress. SuperKids is often the first structured sport a child tries. The programme is designed to be welcoming to children who have never done judo — or any martial art — before. Children who are shy, nervous, or have struggled to settle in other activities often thrive in SuperKids because the environment is structured and the coaches are experienced in working with young children. --- ### Juniors — Ages 8–12 (Woking and Merrow, Guildford) The Juniors programme is where children aged 8–12 make real strides in their judo development. With a structured belt progression, regular gradings, and the option to compete at local, regional, and national level, Juniors builds resilience, teamwork, and a genuine love of the sport. Coaches include former British Internationals who bring a level of technical knowledge and passion that is rare at community club level. Benefits: structured belt progression with regular grading opportunities; competition pathway covering local, regional, and national events; coached by former British Internationals and Level 4+ coaches; builds resilience, teamwork, and mental toughness; available at Woking and Merrow; safe, inclusive environment for all abilities. The Juniors programme has a competition pathway for children who want to compete, but competition is never compulsory. Many children in Juniors train purely for the enjoyment and personal development, and are equally valued members of the programme. --- ### Teens & Adults — Ages 13+ (Woking; Teens also at Merrow) The Teens & Adults programme is for anyone aged 13 and over — whether a complete beginner, returning to the sport after years away, or looking to compete at a high level. Training is challenging, technical, and purposeful. Members develop real judo skills alongside fitness, mental resilience, and a genuine sense of achievement. The atmosphere is welcoming and ego-free. No one cares where you started — only where you are going. Benefits: open to complete beginners with no experience needed; structured curriculum with belt progression for all ages; competition pathway for those who want it; improves fitness, strength, flexibility, and coordination; welcoming, ego-free training environment; coached by former British Internationals. Adults of all ages join FFJ. Some have never done judo before. Some did judo as children and are returning after a gap of ten or twenty years. Some are in their fifties and have never done a martial art. The programme is designed to meet people where they are. The club has a particular reputation for being welcoming to adult beginners who have tried other fitness options and found them lacking in community. --- ### Ladies Judo — Women only (Woking only) Ladies Judo at Fighting Fitness Judo is one of the club's most popular and celebrated sessions. It is a women-only class, designed to be accessible, supportive, and genuinely empowering — whether a complete beginner or returning to the sport. Members build strength, confidence, and real judo technique in an environment where they can train at their own pace without pressure. The programme is led by Sam Skillcorn — Commonwealth Games Champion and former British International. Benefits: women-only class that is safe, supportive, and welcoming; led by Sam Skillcorn, Commonwealth Games Champion; suitable for complete beginners and returning judoka; builds strength, confidence, and self-defence awareness; structured belt progression at your own pace; a community of like-minded women who train together. Many women who join Ladies Judo say they had wanted to try a martial art for years but felt intimidated by mixed classes. The women-only format removes that barrier entirely. The class has a strong community feel and many members have been training together for several years. --- ### Judo Birthday Parties (Woking only) FFJ offers judo birthday parties at the Woking dojo as a unique, active alternative to the usual soft play or cinema party. Children get to try real judo — throws, breakfalls, and games — in a safe, fun, and expertly supervised environment. Parties are run by qualified coaches and can be tailored to suit the age and experience of the group. FFJ handles everything on the mat. Benefits: unique, active party experience on a real judo mat; supervised by qualified, DBS-checked coaches; suitable for mixed ages and complete beginners; flexible party formats tailored to the group; available on weekends; memorable, healthy, and genuinely fun. Birthday parties are available to book by contacting the club directly. They are popular with parents looking for something different — an experience children talk about for weeks afterwards. --- ## The Coaching Team ### Vince Skillcorn — Head Coach & Co-owner Credentials: MSc, Advanced Sports Performance Coaching; Level 5 Judo Coach; UKCC Level 4 Coach; 4th Dan Black Belt; Former British International. After retiring from international competition, Vince transitioned straight into coaching and quickly became one of the first people in the country to achieve an MSc in Advanced Sports Performance Coaching. During his MSc he focused on long-term athlete development — how children enter the sport and progress to elite level or long-term recreational involvement. Vince has coached athletes to the Youth Olympics and U18 World and European Championships. He also operates as a judo and business consultant under the brand The Judo Coach, focused on making judo more professional and enabling judo coaches to turn their coaching into a career. ### Samantha (Sam) Skillcorn — Club Coach & Co-owner Credentials: Commonwealth Games Champion (2002); U20 & U23 European Bronze Medallist; Level 2 Judo Coach; 3rd Dan Black Belt; Former British International. Sam has travelled the world competing for Great Britain and knows exactly what it takes to be successful at the highest level. Since retiring from elite competition, Sam has been focused on developing Fighting Fitness Judo into one of the best clubs in the country — creating an excellent member experience, building new development courses, and finding new opportunities for members to train, compete, and travel. Sam leads the Ladies Judo programme. ### Tony — Club Coach Credentials: 2nd Dan; Level 3 Judo Coach. Tony came back to judo as an adult after watching how much his children were enjoying their classes. He started training with Vince over 10 years ago and has worked hard to achieve his black belt and coaching awards. Tony has a unique experience of judo and life, and brings this energy to his classes — affectionately known as T-Dog by many members. ### Becky Lyndon — Assistant Coach Credentials: 1st Dan; Judo Coach. Becky started her judo journey as an adult and overcame many difficulties to achieve her black belt — she truly challenges people's perception of what can be done. Becky assists on a variety of classes and events, helping coaches and members alike. ### Abbas Khan — Club Coach Credentials: 1st Dan Black Belt; Level 2 Judo Coach. Abbas started judo at Fighting Fitness Judo through the Surrey Youth Games. He progressed through the club's Junior Leadership Academy and then decided he wanted to take the next step on his judo journey by joining the Coach Development Programme. Abbas is now an integral part of the coaching team. ### Hayden Scruton — Club Coach Credentials: 1st Dan Black Belt; Level 2 Judo Coach. Hayden has shown true determination and hard work in achieving his 1st Dan Black Belt. He progressed through the club's Junior Leadership Academy and then joined the Coach Development Programme. Hayden is now an integral part of the coaching team and leads sessions at the Summer Camp. ### Alice Dixon — Enrolment Co-ordinator Alice manages all enquiries and ensures everyone experiences a smooth introduction to Fighting Fitness Judo. Having children who attend the club herself, she is well placed to answer questions both as a parent and as a team member. ### Rachel Winter — Membership Co-ordinator & Customer Care Rachel looks after the membership community, ensuring every member feels supported and valued throughout their time at Fighting Fitness Judo. All coaches are DBS-checked. --- ## Club Values Excellence in Coaching: Every coach at Fighting Fitness Judo is DBS-checked and committed to continuous development. The club invests in its coaches so that every session delivers real, measurable progress for every member. A Welcoming Community: No egos, no cliques. From the very first session, every member — nervous beginner or seasoned competitor — is made to feel at home. That culture is non-negotiable. Long-Term Development: The curriculum is built on the principles of long-term athlete development. Whether the goal is fitness, confidence, or competition, there is a structured pathway to get there. Judo for Everyone: Martial arts can be for everyone, regardless of age, gender, or experience level. Programmes span ages 3 to adult, with classes designed to meet each group where they are. --- ## Current Offers & Events ### Free Trial Class (ongoing) All new members receive a free trial class — typically three or four sessions. No commitment, no payment required. Available for all programmes at both locations. To claim: complete the enquiry form at https://www.fightingfitnessjudo.com/book or call 07401 293204. ### SuperKids Open Day — Sunday 19th July 2026 A free, no-pressure taster event specifically for children aged 5–7 who have never done judo before. The Open Day was created to give parents and children a relaxed, welcoming introduction to the club — not in the middle of a normal class, but in a dedicated session on a Sunday when parents are not rushing from work and can properly see what their child is learning on the mat. Children who have never done judo before, and parents who want to see the venue and the coaches in a more relaxed atmosphere, are the target audience. Date: Sunday 19th July 2026, 11:00am–12:00pm. Venue: Woking, Knaphill. Age group: 5–7 years. Places: 20 (limited). Cost: Free. Book at: https://www.fightingfitnessjudo.com/superkids-open-day/ ### FFJ Summer Camp 2026 Five days of judo, adventure, football, archery, Nerf battles, and memories children will talk about all year. Open to members and non-members. No judo experience required. Ages 5–12. Week 1: Monday 27 – Friday 31 July 2026. Week 2: Monday 24 – Friday 28 August 2026. Hours: 9:00am–3:00pm daily. Free early drop-off from 8:30am. Venue: Woking, Knaphill. Price: from £247 per week (under £50 per day). Payment plans available. Activities: daily judo coaching with FFJ head coaches; football with Woking Cougars FC; archery (new for 2026); Nerf battles; outdoor sports and field games; gymnastics; arts and crafts; dodgeball tournament; mat-based games and challenges; paper aeroplane competition; Player of the Day awards; Friday pizza and movie party; one offsite trip per week; daily WhatsApp photo updates to parents. Camp staff: lead coaches Hayden Scruton and Abbas Khan, supported by apprentice Lewis Dean. All DBS checked. Male and female staff on site every day. Book at: https://sparkpages.io/cart/2/?i=_sEEb&c=&ocu= --- ## Frequently Asked Questions What age can children start judo at Fighting Fitness Judo? We welcome children from as young as 3 years old in our Tigers programme. Classes are age-appropriate and taught by experienced, DBS-checked coaches who specialise in working with young children. Our programmes run from Tigers (3–4), SuperKids (5–7), Juniors (8–12), and Teens (13+). Do I need to be fit to start judo? Not at all. People of all fitness levels join every week — some have never exercised in their lives. Judo meets you where you are, and you will get fitter as you train. There is no pressure and no ego at Fighting Fitness Judo. Will my child become aggressive from learning judo? Quite the opposite. Judo is built on the principles of mutual respect and maximum efficiency. Our classes actively build confidence, self-control, and respect for others. Bullying behaviour is not tolerated and is incompatible with the values we teach. What do I need to bring to my first class? For your first session, just bring comfortable clothing, a water bottle, and an open mind. We will provide everything else. Once you decide to continue, we will guide you on getting your first judogi (uniform). Do you offer classes in both Woking and Guildford? Yes. Our Woking dojo at Lower Guildford Road offers the full range of programmes. Our Guildford location at Merrow Village Hall currently runs SuperKids (ages 5–7), Juniors (ages 8–12), and Teens (13+) classes. How long does it take to get a black belt in judo? There is no fixed answer, and we would be wary of any club that gives you one. The path to black belt is a deeply personal journey that typically takes many years of dedicated training. What matters is the progress you make along the way — in technique, fitness, and character. Are your coaches qualified? Yes. All coaches at Fighting Fitness Judo are DBS-checked and bring years of competitive and coaching experience. The club is led by Vince and Samantha Skillcorn, who have developed their own structured coaching programmes built around real results. Do you offer a free trial class? Yes — we offer a free trial class for all new members. Simply fill in the form on the website or call 07401 293204 and we will arrange your first sessions at no cost and with no commitment required. Do you accept childcare vouchers, Edenred vouchers, or Tax-Free Childcare payments? No. Fighting Fitness Judo does not accept childcare vouchers, Edenred vouchers, or Government Tax-Free Childcare payments. All memberships, class bookings, and Summer Camp places must be paid directly. Contact us on 07401 293204 or at info@fightingfitnessjudo.com with any questions about payment. Is judo good for shy children? Yes. Judo is one of the best activities for shy or quiet children. The structured environment gives shy children clear expectations — they always know what is happening next. The one-to-one nature of judo training (working with a partner) means children build individual relationships rather than having to navigate a large group. Many of the children who have made the most visible confidence gains at FFJ were shy or anxious when they first arrived. Is judo safe for young children? Yes. Judo is one of the safest contact sports for children. The first thing children learn in judo is how to fall safely — a skill called ukemi. This means children learn to protect themselves before they learn anything else. All FFJ coaches are DBS-checked and trained in child safeguarding. The club has an excellent safety record. What happens at a judo birthday party? A judo birthday party at FFJ typically runs for 90 minutes to 2 hours. The birthday child and their guests arrive at the Woking dojo, are welcomed by a qualified coach, and spend the first part of the session learning basic judo moves — how to fall safely, some simple throws, and some ground games. The second part is more game-based, with judo-themed activities and challenges. The party ends with time for cake and celebration. FFJ handles everything on the mat. Parents just bring the cake. Can adults with no experience join the adult judo class? Absolutely. The majority of adults who join FFJ have no previous judo experience. The adult programme is structured so that complete beginners can train alongside more experienced members without feeling out of their depth. Experienced members are welcoming and patient with beginners. Many adults who join say they wish they had started sooner. --- ## Full Blog Articles ### Article 1: Why Adults Are Joining Judo in Woking — And Why It Has Nothing to Do With Fitness By Vince Skillcorn | Category: judo-lifestyle | URL: https://www.fightingfitnessjudo.com/blog/why-adults-are-joining-judo-in-woking A few weeks ago, one of our black belts caught me at the side of the mat after an adult class and asked, more or less out of curiosity, whether we'd been doing some kind of new marketing for adults. He'd noticed the class was busier. New faces every few weeks. People in their thirties, their forties, their fifties. Some who'd done judo years ago and drifted away. Some who'd never set foot in a dojo before. A noticeable uptick over the last six months that he didn't quite have an explanation for. I told him, honestly, that we hadn't been doing anything different. The marketing hadn't changed. The classes hadn't changed. Yes, we'd just updated the website — but that wasn't it; the new adults had been arriving long before that went live. The adverts on Facebook, if anything, had been more focused on the children's classes than the adults' over that period. So no — it wasn't marketing. The adults arriving at our adult judo classes in Knaphill, just outside Woking, were arriving under their own steam. Word of mouth. Google searches. A half-remembered conversation with a friend. They weren't being pulled. They were coming. I've thought about that conversation a lot since. Because I think something is going on, and I don't think it's particular to us. I think we are part of a much wider shift — one that has very little to do with judo specifically, and a great deal to do with what has happened to the lives of adults in this country over the last fifteen or twenty years. And I think it's worth writing down what I believe is actually behind it, because if I'm right, it matters — and not only for us. ## The thing British adults are quietly missing I want to start with a word that might not, at first, sound like it has anything to do with a martial art. The word is infrastructure. When sociologists try to explain why so many adults in modern Britain describe themselves as lonely, disconnected, or quietly unhappy, the explanation they keep coming back to isn't really about feelings. It's about infrastructure. Specifically, it's about the slow, decades-long collapse of what researchers call third places. The phrase comes from an American sociologist called Ray Oldenburg, who pointed out in the late 1980s that most adults have two main places they spend their lives — home, which is the first place, and work, which is the second. Everything good in adult life that isn't home or work, he argued, depends on having a third place. A pub. A club. A church. A working men's institute. A community choir. A Sunday-league football team. A boxing gym. A bowls club. An allotment association. Somewhere that isn't your house, isn't your workplace, and isn't transactional — somewhere you go because you like being there, where the same people show up week after week, where you have a role, a place, a sense of belonging that doesn't depend on what you earn or what you produce. Third places used to be everywhere in Britain. They were the architecture of ordinary adult life. And one by one, over the last thirty or forty years, they have closed. The numbers, if you go looking for them, are sobering. The UK has lost more than a quarter of its pubs since 2000. Working men's clubs are down by something close to two thirds. Church attendance has collapsed across most denominations. Sunday-league football participation has fallen by more than half. The number of registered amateur sports clubs has dropped year after year for over a decade. And the spaces that replaced them — coffee chains, gyms run as solitary cardio sheds, online communities, food delivery, streaming services — are not third places at all. They are, almost without exception, designed for solo consumption with strangers, not shared participation with familiars. This matters because the research is now very clear that adult wellbeing — physical, mental, even the boring stuff like cardiovascular health and life expectancy — depends on having regular, repeated, in-person contact with the same group of people over years. The British charity Campaign to End Loneliness reports that nearly half of UK adults — somewhere around twenty-six million people — feel lonely at least occasionally. Nearly four million feel chronically lonely, often or always. The World Health Organization has now formally classified loneliness as a public health crisis. The widely-cited research is that chronic loneliness has effects on the body roughly equivalent to smoking fifteen cigarettes a day. And the bit nobody talks about — but which any honest adult reading this will recognise — is that we mostly don't do anything about it. We don't, on the whole, walk into our offices on a Monday morning and tell our colleagues we're lonely. We don't, on the whole, ring our friends up in our forties and say, do you want to start something with me, a regular thing, where we meet every week and do something together? That's not how British adults behave. We absorb the loneliness and carry on. We tell ourselves we're just busy. We assume it'll get better when work calms down or the kids go to university or we retire. It doesn't, usually. The infrastructure has gone, and individual willpower can't replace infrastructure. This is the wider story I think the new adults arriving at our club are part of. ## Why fitness on its own doesn't explain it I want to be careful here, because the obvious counter-argument is that adults have always come to clubs like ours, and what we're seeing is just a normal year. Maybe. But I don't think so, and here's why. If the people coming were primarily looking for exercise, they'd be going to the places that promise exercise most efficiently. The big-box gyms charge lower fees than us. The fitness apps charge less still. PureGym in Woking has lower fees than a club like ours, with twenty-four-hour access and far more equipment. If the adults arriving at our door were optimising purely on price, they'd be going there. They're not. What they say, when I ask them — and I do ask them, because I'm curious about why they've ended up at a judo club rather than somewhere more obvious — is some version of the same thing. They tried the gym. They didn't go. They tried running. It got boring. They tried home workouts. They quit by week six. They tried CrossFit and didn't like the atmosphere, or they tried yoga and didn't feel any better afterwards, or they tried Pilates and found it relaxing but not interesting. Most of them have, in other words, already done the obvious things. They have already tried the fitness-shaped answer to the question they thought they were asking. What I think is actually going on — and what the third places research suggests is going on — is that they were never asking a fitness question to begin with. They were asking an infrastructure question. They wanted somewhere to go. Somewhere with the same people every week. Somewhere where the activity itself required them to be present, to engage, to learn names, to fall over and get back up in front of other people who would also be falling over. Somewhere where, by accident, they would find themselves part of something. A gym can't provide this, because the gym is structurally a place of solo activity. Two people side by side on treadmills are not in a community; they are in parallel solitude. An app definitely can't provide it, however good the workouts are. A YouTube channel can't. And — this is the bit that has been quietly clear for years but which the fitness industry will never say out loud — even most fitness classes can't, because the people in them rotate too quickly, the format is too anonymous, and the structure doesn't actually require engagement with anyone else in the room. ## The thing we have always tried to build Here's the part I want to be honest about, because if I leave it unsaid the rest of this piece is less true than it should be. When I started the club, I didn't know the phrase third place. I had never heard of Ray Oldenburg. I hadn't read the research on adult loneliness or the data on the disappearance of community institutions in modern Britain. I was a coach who wanted to run a good judo club. But the thing the researchers describe — the same people coming back every week, the engagement, the relationships built sideways through shared activity, the sense of belonging that isn't transactional — that wasn't something I stumbled into. It was something Samantha and I have been trying to build from the day we opened. We've worked hard at it. We learn members' names early. We notice when somebody hasn't been in. We make sure that the new beginner is welcomed properly by the people who've been there longer. We treat the social life of the club — the conversations after class, the trips, the grading celebrations, the WhatsApp group — as core to what we do, not as an extra. We have always believed that the community is the point. Not the side effect. The point. What I didn't know — what reading the third places research over the last year or so has shown me — is that the thing we were trying to build has a name, a history, and a substantial body of academic research behind it. The structural features we've been engineering by instinct turn out to be the same structural features the researchers say define a healthy third place. We weren't accidentally creating a community in spite of running a judo club. We were intentionally creating a community by using the judo club as the structure through which to do it. That's a useful distinction, and I want to get it right. Because what I think is happening — what the black belt was picking up on when he asked about the marketing — is that the deliberate work Samantha and I have done to make this club feel like somewhere you belong, repeated across hundreds of small decisions over many years, is now meeting a generation of adults who badly need somewhere to belong. The supply is meeting the demand. We're not the only place in the country doing this kind of work, but there aren't that many of us, and we're well into our second decade of doing it. So when a new adult walks through the door, they don't just find a judo class. They find a room that has been quietly, intentionally designed for the experience they didn't quite know they were looking for. ## The bit specifically about men I want to write a paragraph or two specifically about men, because the research on what's happened to male adult life in this country is genuinely the bleakest I've read on any of these topics, and I think it explains some of what we're seeing. The infrastructure that used to give men a third place has been more thoroughly demolished than the equivalent infrastructure for women. The pubs that used to function as social anchors for adult men are largely gone. The working men's clubs are mostly gone. The Sunday-league football is dying. The factory floors where men used to spend forty years next to the same blokes don't exist in most parts of the country anymore. The kind of regular, low-stakes, sideways-facing male friendship — the kind built around an activity rather than a conversation — has lost almost all its scaffolding. What replaced it, for most men, was nothing. Not "less of the same thing." Just nothing. A 2024 study of UK men found that nearly one in five had not had a meaningful conversation with another man, outside their family, in the previous month. The same study found that the men with the worst measured mental health were almost without exception men who couldn't name a place — physical, regular, in-person — that was theirs. Men, on the whole, don't reach out the way women do. Men don't, generally, ring each other up and ask if everything's all right. They don't, generally, go for a coffee and a chat. Male friendship has always operated, for better and worse, sideways rather than face-on — built around shared activity rather than direct emotional disclosure. Which means when the shared activity disappears, the friendship disappears with it. The men who lost their league team or their working men's club or their pub didn't replace those things with deeper conversations. They mostly replaced them with nothing. A judo club is, I think, one of the small number of places where this kind of sideways-male friendship can still happen. Two men gripping each other's lapels and trying to throw each other for sixty minutes are doing something very ancient — something that, if you read the anthropology, men have been doing in some form for ten thousand years. The conversation that happens afterwards in the changing room, or in the pub down the road, or in the WhatsApp group on a Friday evening, is built on the activity, not separate from it. That's how male connection actually works, and it's why a sports club can carry weight in a man's life that a coffee shop or a therapy app or a Zoom call cannot. I think we are seeing more men in their forties and fifties walk into our adult judo classes in Woking specifically because they are starting to understand, on some level they can't quite articulate, that they have run out of the kind of places where this can happen. They don't necessarily say that. What they say is: I needed to do something. I needed to get off the sofa. My back's playing up. My wife thinks I should. What they mean, underneath, is closer to: I need a place. I need a regular thing. I need to be known by some people who aren't my wife or my kids or my colleagues. The judo is, for some of them, almost a side effect. They came for one thing and stayed for another. ## And the bit specifically about women I want to be careful here too, because the conversation about the male loneliness epidemic has somewhat overshadowed a quieter but equally important story about adult women. The infrastructure of female friendship has not collapsed in the same dramatic way the male equivalent has — women generally still have closer friendships and more frequent in-person contact than men. But it has changed, and the change is sharpest in the years when women have school-age children, demanding work, and ageing parents all at once. Women in their late thirties through their fifties often describe their social lives in terms of people I should call but don't. The school-gate network thins out as children get older. Working friendships rarely survive a career change. Old friendships from before the kids were born become harder to maintain as everyone's schedules diverge. And women, more than men, tend to compensate by trying harder — more texting, more catch-ups, more carefully scheduled brunches. Which is exhausting, and which works for a while, but which is not the same as a third place. A third place doesn't require coordination. You just go on the right day at the right time and the people are there. The women in our adult classes — and women come to our Woking judo club too, not just men — are, I think, partly drawn here for the same underlying reason. Plenty of them come for clear, specific reasons that have nothing to do with loneliness: they want to learn to defend themselves, they want to be stronger, they want to do something physical that isn't running or yoga. But the women who stay — the ones who become part of the club over years rather than weeks — tend to stay because of something they didn't expect when they signed up. They came for the judo. They got a third place. ## What I'd tell that black belt now That conversation by the mat was a few weeks ago. I gave him a fairly short answer at the time — no, we weren't doing more marketing; I wasn't sure why the room was filling up. I've thought about it a lot since, and if he asked me again today, my answer would be longer. I'd tell him that I think we are doing something genuinely useful, and that the reason the room is filling up isn't a marketing campaign or an algorithm or a lucky run. It's that the deliberate work Samantha and I have put into making this club feel like a community — across thousands of small decisions over many years — is now meeting a generation of adults who badly need somewhere to belong. And a judo club, it turns out, is one of the few places left where that can happen properly. I'd tell him that we shouldn't be surprised. The research on this is some of the clearest research in modern sociology. Adults need third places. Britain has lost most of its third places. The places that still function as third places — and that are still genuinely welcoming to newcomers — are now disproportionately valuable, even though almost none of them advertise themselves that way. And I'd tell him that the responsibility this puts on a club like ours is real. It's one thing to run a good judo class. It's another to recognise that, for the adults walking through the door, what we are actually offering is more important than the throws or the gradings or the technical curriculum. We are offering a Tuesday evening that isn't home and isn't work. We are offering names being learned and faces being remembered. We are offering the texture of a life with somewhere to go in it. That's the thing the black belt was noticing without quite being able to name it. The room is filling up because the thing we have been quietly building, for years, is the thing a lot of adults in 2026 didn't realise they needed until they walked into it. We're glad they came. We're going to keep building it. FFJ runs adult judo classes at the Woking club in Knaphill — beginners, returners, men and women, from their twenties to their sixties. A free trial class is available — three or four sessions, no commitment, no pressure. --- ### Article 2: Why Summer Holidays Are the Most Important Weeks for Your Child's Physical Development By Vince Skillcorn | Category: child-development | URL: https://www.fightingfitnessjudo.com/blog/why-summer-holidays-child-physical-development-judo The summer holidays are about to start, and most British parents are currently thinking about logistics. Childcare gaps. Holiday clubs. Days with grandparents. The two weeks abroad. The bit that almost nobody is thinking about, because nobody has told them to, is what the six weeks ahead will quietly do to their child's body — and what some of that quiet change means for their child's relationship with sport, fitness, and movement well into adolescence. I want to write about it now, in mid-June, because the choices that matter for how a child's September goes are mostly choices made between now and the end of August. The good news is that the things that help are mostly straightforward. The point of this piece is to make sure you know what they are before the holidays start, not after. Every September, children walk into our dojos in Knaphill and Merrow Village showing a pattern that I and most experienced coaches recognise immediately: a temporary loss of coordination, a subtle drop in balance, a body that doesn't quite move the way the child's parents tell me it usually does. It's most visible in children — particularly in the eight-to-thirteen bracket — who haven't done much structured physical activity across the summer. The September pattern is not random, it isn't bad luck, and it isn't just about getting out of practice. It's a window of genuine biological vulnerability that the research has only properly understood in the last fifteen years, and that has implications well beyond the start of the school year. A proportion of the children who quietly fall out of love with sport between the ages of nine and fourteen do so because of something that happened in this window — something that nobody around them recognised as a window at the time it was happening. This isn't a piece designed to make any parent feel guilty about giving their child a proper break. Children need rest. Families need holidays. Nobody's child needs a summer training schedule. It's a piece designed to give the parent who cares about their child's long-term relationship with movement the information their GP probably hasn't given them, and that most school PE teachers don't have time to explain. If that's you, this is for you. ## What the Research Has Been Showing There's a body of academic research, going back about fifteen years, on a phenomenon sports scientists call adolescent awkwardness. It's been studied most intensely in football academies, but the underlying mechanism applies across youth sport. The basic finding is this: during periods of rapid growth, children can temporarily lose coordination. Their motor skills regress. Their balance gets worse. Their spatial awareness — the unconscious sense of where their body is in space — fragments. They become more prone to tripping, dropping things, mistiming movements, and getting injured. The most thorough academic review of the field, published in 2025, summarises the consensus: rapid growth and coordination loss are linked, though the researchers themselves note that the field is still working out the precise relationship. I want to be honest about one thing the same review flags, because the research isn't quite as tidy as it's sometimes made to sound. There is no single accepted definition of adolescent awkwardness. There's no standardised test for it. Some researchers question whether the coordination loss is genuinely universal or whether it's a phenomenon that affects some children much more than others. The strongest finding is that some children, during some growth phases, show measurable coordination regression and elevated injury risk. The strongest finding is not that every child going through a growth phase becomes uncoordinated. So I'll try not to overclaim. But the underlying mechanism, where it does occur, is well understood. When a child grows, the bones lengthen first. The muscles, tendons and the nervous system that controls them all have to catch up. There is a window — sometimes a few weeks, sometimes a few months — where the child is, in a literal mechanical sense, working a new body with a brain that still has the old body's internal map. They reach for a glass and their hand goes slightly past it. They go to step up onto a kerb and their foot clips the edge. They try a movement that they used to do without thinking and the timing is off because their arms are now slightly longer than their brain thinks they are. Researchers call this internal recalibration the body schema update. Children call it being clumsy. Parents call it that strange phase where their kid suddenly seems to be tripping over everything. The vast majority of academic writing on this focuses on full adolescence — the proper growth spurt around ages eleven to fourteen, where peak height velocity hits and the effects are most dramatic. But the same underlying mechanism, in milder form, can play out every time a younger child grows quickly over a short period. Including, in many cases, over a six-week summer holiday. ## Why the Summer Specifically Children don't grow at a steady rate. They grow in bursts — sometimes overnight, sometimes over a few weeks, sometimes in concentrated runs over a season. And the long summer holiday turns out to be one of those concentrated runs for a lot of children. There are a few reasons why. They sleep more during the holidays. They eat more, because they're not in school routine and meals get bigger. They spend more time outdoors and get more sunlight, which affects growth hormone release. And — significantly — they typically do less hard physical activity than during term time, which means the muscular and tendon adaptations that usually keep pace with bone growth fall behind. The activity data on this is genuinely sobering. A UK study using accelerometers — actual movement sensors, not parental self-report — found that children's moderate-to-vigorous activity drops by around 45% over the summer holidays compared to term time, and doesn't fully recover until the following spring. Another UK study found children spent 70 extra minutes a day on screens during the summer break and lost 12 minutes a day of moderate-to-vigorous activity. I should add — because the research deserves it — that not every study agrees on the same scale of effect. Some studies find smaller activity drops, particularly in families that prioritise outdoor holiday activity. And some studies find that more affluent families show less of a summer activity decline than less affluent families, which suggests the summer-loss phenomenon is partly about access to facilities and structured activity rather than about something universal in children. The point is not that every British child loses 45% of their activity over six weeks. The point is that a great many do, and that the children who do are the ones we tend to see arrive at the dojo in September showing the pattern this piece is about. So picture what's happening to many children between mid-July and early September. They grow — a centimetre, maybe two, maybe more. Their bones lengthen. Their muscles, tendons and motor control don't keep pace because the daily movement that drives those adaptations has dropped sharply. By the time they walk through the school gates — or the dojo doors — in September, they are, biomechanically, a slightly different child than the one who finished the summer term. Taller. Less conditioned. With a nervous system that hasn't had recent practice updating its internal map of where their limbs now are. ## And Here's the Bit Nobody Tells You This is where the story takes a turn that I think every parent needs to hear, because it's the bit that determines what your child's relationship with sport looks like in five, ten, twenty years. Researchers have known for some time that previous injury is one of the strongest predictors of premature drop-out from sport. Children who get injured don't always come back. The ones who do come back are at a meaningfully higher risk of getting injured again, which then makes another drop-out more likely. Layer that onto the September scenario and you can see the shape of the problem. A child who comes back to sport after a summer growth burst may be at higher risk of injury exactly when they're most likely to feel demoralised by their temporary loss of coordination. If they pick up an injury — even a small one, like a strain or a rolled ankle — they may be off for two to four weeks. They come back to find their team-mates or training partners further ahead. They feel behind. They feel clumsy. The brain quietly starts to make the connection: sport hurts. Sport makes me feel bad. Sport isn't for me. A small but meaningful proportion of children who quit sport between the ages of nine and fourteen are, on the data, quitting because of an injury that happened in a window of growth-related vulnerability that nobody around them — parents, coaches, teachers — recognised as a vulnerability. This is the piece I find most uncomfortable to write, because it means that the September moment isn't just about a child being a bit slower than they were in July. It's about an unrecognised risk window in which the wrong injury, at the wrong time, can shape a child's relationship with their own physicality for life. The good news — and there is good news — is that the research has now identified what to do about it. And it's not what most parents would assume. ## What the Research Says Actually Works A major piece of research published in 2023 looked at male academy footballers going through the adolescent growth spurt — the moment of maximum awkwardness and injury risk. The researchers identified which players were in the risk window and put them through a specific intervention: modified training load, targeted balance work, coordination drills, and an individualised strength programme. The result was extraordinary. For the highest-risk players, injury incidence dropped by 86% and injury burden dropped by 92% compared to the previous season. I'll add the necessary caveat: this was a study of elite male academy footballers, not ordinary recreational children. It's reasonable to assume the same direction of effect at the community level — the underlying biomechanics don't change because a child is at a smaller club — but it would be wrong to assume the size of the effect translates directly. The honest claim from the research is that targeted balance, coordination and strength work during growth phases substantially reduces injury risk in young athletes. The size of the protection varies with the population and the intervention. We can be confident the direction is right; we shouldn't pretend the exact numbers transfer to every child. But the principle is what matters, and the principle is clear. A child going through a growth phase is not destined to get hurt. They are not destined to lose confidence. They are not destined to fall out of love with sport. They are, however, in a window where the kind of activity they're doing matters enormously. The wrong kind of activity — high-load, high-impact, repetitive, with no attention paid to coordination and balance — is what produces the injuries that drive drop-out. The right kind of activity — varied, balance-focused, coordination-rich, allowing the body to rebuild its map of itself in safe conditions — is what protects them. And here is the piece I want every parent reading this to take seriously: the summer holidays are, for many children, the worst possible moment to take them out of structured movement — because they are the moment a child most needs it. The instinct most parents have — that the summer is a break, and the child will be fine going back to their sport in September — is, biomechanically, often backwards. The summer is when their body is changing most. It's when their nervous system most needs the steady drip of varied movement that keeps the internal map updated. It's when a six-week pause in regular structured activity does the most cumulative damage, because every week away can be a week of bone growth without the matching muscular and neural adaptation that would have happened in term time. ## What You Can Actually Do About It I want to be practical here. I'm not telling any parent that their child needs to train through the entire summer. Children need rest. Families need holidays. Routines need to break. None of that is in dispute. What I am saying is that the worst-case version of the summer — six weeks of no structured physical activity, lots of screen time, lots of growth, no rebuilding of the coordination map — is what produces the September problem. And there are plenty of ways to avoid that without ruining the holiday. One: don't pull your child entirely out of their sport for the full holidays. Even one session a week through August is meaningfully different from six weeks of nothing. The child's nervous system stays in conversation with the activity. The coordination doesn't deteriorate to the same degree. When September comes, they're not coming back to a new body from cold — they're picking up where they left off. Two: watch for the visible signs of a growth phase. Trousers suddenly too short. Shoes that fitted in June pinching by August. A child who seems to be tripping or dropping things more than usual. Increased complaints of leg or knee aches at the end of the day. Any of these are signs your child is in a growth window, and during such a window, more varied movement helps and less hurts. Three: prefer varied, coordination-rich activities over repetitive, high-impact ones during growth phases. Swimming is excellent during a growth phase because it's full-body, varied, and low-impact. Climbing is excellent because it requires constant proprioceptive feedback — the body is always telling the brain where it is. Judo is excellent because the entire activity is built around controlled falling, balance, and learning to use a new body in space. Repetitive high-impact activities — long-distance running, intensive jumping sports, heavy weight training — are the activities to be most careful about during growth phases. Four: if your child does get a small injury, don't let them disappear from the sport. A child who picks up an ankle sprain or a strain and is then off the sport for a month often doesn't come back. The momentum is broken, the team-mates have moved on, the confidence wobbles. Even if they can't train at full intensity, get them back in the room. Let them watch. Let them help out. Let them do the warm-up. The relationship to the sport — and to the people in it — matters more than the lost training time. Five: take the September return seriously. The first two or three weeks back are when injuries are most likely. They're also when confidence is most fragile. The right approach in that window is patience, varied work, lots of balance and coordination drills, and reduced expectations about technical performance. The wrong approach is to push hard to "catch up" — which is when the injuries happen and the disengagement starts. ## The Longer View I want to close by widening the lens, because the September moment isn't really the point of this piece. The point is what the September moment can do to a child's whole life. A child who has a bad September — who comes back clumsy, gets hurt, loses confidence, and disengages — is, on the research, meaningfully less likely to be physically active as an adolescent. A physically inactive adolescent is, on the research, much less likely to be a physically active adult. And a physically inactive adult is, on the research, statistically at the start of a long line that includes worse mental health, worse physical health, worse social connection, and a shorter life. That sounds dramatic. But the data is clear: the body habits a child has at fourteen are, for most people, the body habits they have at forty. And those habits get set, partly, in moments like September — moments where a child's relationship with their own body is fragile, where the right kind of support keeps them in the room, and where the wrong kind of pause sends them out of it. The summer holidays are not the cause of this. Lots of factors are. But the summer holidays are one of the moments in a child's year where parents have unusually high leverage — and where the decisions about what to do, or not do, with their child's body have unusually long-term consequences. FFJ runs weekly Tigers, SuperKids, Juniors and Teens classes at the clubs in Knaphill, Woking and Merrow Village, Guildford throughout the summer holidays, with only a two-week closure in August. A free trial class is available — three or four sessions, no commitment, no pressure. Long enough to know whether judo is something your child would love. — Vince Skillcorn, Fighting Fitness Judo --- ## Social Media - Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/fightingfitnessjudo - Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fightingfitnessjudo - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@FightingFitnessJudo