General Martial Edge News

Martial arts in Disneyland Paris

I have just got back from the European Festival of Martial Arts in Disneyland Paris. The venue was the New York New York Hotel and I have to say I was very impressed with the whole event. The organisers - Fighters Inc - had invited over various martial arts associations for the junior events. Running simultaneously throughout the day was an open Taekwondo championship, open freestyle, open karate and open Brazilian Ju Jitsu.  I wont go into too much detail here as I plan to share with you all an in depth review on the weekend event. However in a nutshell it has the potential to become the premier European martial arts event for juniors.

Launch of the Chris Crudelli Competition

Throughout October we will be holding the Chris Crudelli competition.  We are offering 10 signed copies of Mr Crudellis latest - Way of the Warrior - to any forum member who can introduce 5 friends to the Martial Edge scene. I received our review copy from the publisher and the book is one of the finest on the subject of martial arts. The book summarises every form of martial art from all the continents.  Every page is crammed with full colour photography and it is certainly a book you will want to keep by the side of your bed! 

MA Summit

As I mentioned in last weeks blog the MA Summit hosted by Bytomic Distribution is drawing closer and there are still some tickets available for the event. Have a look at our events section to get some more information on who will be attending and what it is all about.  The Martial Edge Team  will be there for both days so we hope to see you there.

Martial Arts Forum News

The thread of the week for me was the one started by Su Lin in what was probably a response to my blog post on the Teams ambition of becoming the worlds largest martial arts community. For those of you that missed that post make sure you check it out as it is an interesting read. As I have said many times before I have so much optimism for the way this forum is growing and the way that everyone who uses the site can be open and allow free flowing debate.

Pete Mills
Senior Editor/Co Founder
Martial Edge The Worlds Largest Online Martial Arts Community

Babes with Blade Competition

Earlier this month we launched the Babes with Blades Competition for the forum users of Martial Edge. Basically Babes with Blades is martial arts stage show put together by actress and stuntwoman Cecily Fay. As you know we pick the winner from putting the names of the people who have entered into Timothy Daltons stunt jacket, and get the Martial Edge mascot to pluck the winner out! Anyhow the Babes with Blades competition winner is Martial Edge forum user Bailu Taiji. So congratulations on that one and we look forward to seeing you and your guest at Jacksons lane theatre, London on Friday the third of October.

MA Summit -Team Martial Edge in the house!

For the instructors out there this October there is going to be an event that you certainly need to attend -The MA Summit. The event organised by David Lowe of Bytomic Distribution will have key note speakers including KFM (Stunt and fight team for Batman, The Dark Knight), one of the most successful school owners and speakers from the USA - Frank Silverman, motivational speaker and trainer - Richard Wilkins from the Ministry of Inspiration here in the UK and Fari Salievski - a huge success from Australia plus many more. The team from Martial Edge will also be at the event so make sure you get your hands on some tickets.

For more information on the MA Summit check out our review.

Reaching 1000 members before Christmas

As it stands our member base is at 557. The team have set a target now of 1000 members before the Christmas period. Can this be achieved? Well we are of the opinion that this is more then realistic and achievable but we need your help.  Start spreading the word at your clubs and schools and if you use other martial arts forums make sure you are spreading the word there too!  Also keep feeding back your suggestions on how we can improve the site and any ideas of how we can increase the numbers who join as members.

With increasing traffic it is clear that we are doing something right. But to really grow we need you guys to be spreading the word as well as us!

Martial Arts Shop News

Martial Edge on Ebay

This week has seen the launch of our Martial Edge Ebay store. For us it makes perfect sense to have our online shop and use Ebay as a platform because of its established platform. For those of you who have ordered from the site leave a message of feedback in talk to the team or perhaps even write a review in our store.

Martial Edge selling direct to clubs, schools etc

Another angle with our martial arts shop that we are keen to be involved with is directly to the clubs and schools throughout the United Kingdom. The nature of our platform means that you or your students can simply log onto the site, make an order and the products will be shipped directly to either the instructor or students doorstep. Also for larger orders why not give a member of the Martial Edge Team a call to find out what discounts are available?

General Martial Edge News

As Jason Dainter conquered Scarfell in full on commando style – thats right folks when we are not hitting the computer keys the team at Martial Edge are full on country side walkers I had a more ingenious way of getting up Snowden in Wales. For reference please note that the Martial Edge T shirt was on but as it was a bit chilly I am afraid the green jacket was necessary!

Pete Mills
Senior Editor/Co Founder
Martial Edge The Worlds Largest Online Martial Arts Community

General Martial Edge News

Well this week I have to start off with the high point and that of course was on Sunday we were invited down to Bob Sykes Academy in Huddersfield, West Yorkshire to meet with Andy Norman. Andy is co founder of the Keysi Fighting Method which has now appeared as the preferred fighting style of Batman in both Batman Begins and the Dark Knight. After a gruelling 4 hour seminar in which we were introduced to Keysi, I got the opportunity to sit down with Andy for an in depth interview, which you can read here.

Martial Edge have also booked themselves flights to the European Festival of Martial Arts which is been held at the Disneyland Resort outside Paris. The main part of the weekend event is the junior competitions, but there will be also a showing from the boys at Combat 32 who will take on Europes finest freestyle fighters and there will be seminars from established martial artists such as Rick Young. So we are really looking forward to this event!

For more information on the Disney Event check out the website for more details

Martial Arts Forums

Another week, another batch of new people signed up and getting stuck into the forums which is fantastic for the growth of Martial Edge. As I mentioned in last weeks blog I have decided to expand them slightly which seems to be working quite well. I think apart from one or two areas such as a separate movie review section the next stage will be to introduce topic areas for specific styles. However, as always we encourage you guys to feed back to us your ideas in the Talk to the Team thread.

Babes with Blades Competition

Just as a quick reminder the Babes with Blades Competition will be running until this Friday. So if you have not already entered please do so now! At the event you will also have chance to meet myself and Jason if three stuntwomen are not enough for you and it promises to be a great show. Click through here for more information on that.

Martial Arts Shop

Finally a quick plug on our Martial Arts Shop. We have some great offers on products such as a Century Bobs so if you have not already done so check them out. In the pipeline over the next couple of weeks is our Ebay Store as we feel that an established store on here would be good for us. Remember it is safe and secure and with great product ranges, and often next day delivery you know who to trust!

I think that is it for this week but as always you can catch me in the forums or any other member of the Martial Edge Team.

Pete Mills
Senior Editor/Co Founder
Martial Edge The Worlds Largest Online Martial Arts Community

General Martial Edge News

Well another week has gone!

Since I started this blog back in May I cannot believe the progress we have been making with the site. Not just in the virtual world but also making Martial Edge a name people can relate to in the real world too. Last week saw the launch of the Babes with Blades Competition through our association with one of the founding members, Cecily Fay. If you have not heard about it yet we are offering two free tickets to watch the show along with your very own Martial Edge team members Pete Mills and Jason Dainter. The show will be held at Jacksons Lane Theatre in London on the 3 Ocotober. So for more information on how to enter visit here.

This week we have really been gearing up our Martial Edge awareness campaign. A user once said on joining Martial Edge it was like eating at a fine restaurant but there was no other patrons in the place. Its not quite like that now but for energy and time, not to mention the finance that has gone into creating Martial Edge it is time we saw membership to the site rocket. Jason, who is a fellow co founder of Martial Edge was essentially schooled in the Web 2.0 philosophy during his university days that a website should not only be a gateway to free flowing information as Martial Edge is - but that you should be able to find out posts of that site in different places. Therefore you can now find Martial Edge at our Myspace profile, Facebook Profile and at Bodybuilding.com. So if you visit these sites and maintain profiles there - add us!

Of course this is the only the very tip of the iceberg. In the pipeline is our very own Wikipedia entry outlining the history of the site and shedding some light on the background of Martial Edge. Also you can help us too by linking to your own websites and blogs, emailing articles to friends and of course harassing friends into creating Martial Edge profile pages.

Martial Edge forums

Well I don’t know about you guys but I am actually looking forward to cold winter evenings this year. Why? Because I will be online in the martial arts forums every night thats why. If you are a member of the site go check them out if you have not already done so. It really is becoming a great place not only to share information but learn new things. This week we have added four new sections; Health and Nutrition in the Martial Arts, Philosophy in the Martial Arts, Classifieds, and a forum thread for any foreign members that stop by the site called Sprechen Ze Jive; hey it may remain empty for a while but as long as its there it means equal opportunities for all right?

Martial Edge Store

I am pleased to say that this is now up and running and on receiving our first orders we are really excited about the potential of Martial Edge mail order side of things. I know some of the feedback you gave us after the launch of it was that we do have gaps in supplements and nutrition and in particular more in the area of a high quality womens clothing range. But we promise this will come and we do take notice of what you guys have to say because Martial Edge is a community website. Anyway make sure you check it out as we have some great offers on this month including Century Bobs at the lowest price to be found anywhere on the internet.

Phew

I think thats it for this week. As always you can catch me or any member of the Martial Edge team in the Martial arts forums.

Pete Mills
Senior Editor/Co Founder
Martial Edge The Worlds Largest Online Martial Arts Community

General Martial Edge News

Before I chat about the site id just like to send our thoughts to forum member Andy (a.k.a. Mule) who is currently taking some time off to recover from medical treatment. Clearly its not my place to be discussing his personal life but I have received a few PMs this week asking where is Mule? So I hope you will join us in wishing him a speedy recovery!

I had to laugh at a couple of forum posts last week with regards martial arts products discussion. As you will be now aware Martial Edge launched its product range around 3 weeks ago now and I am pleased to report it is slowly starting to take off. Remember, any purchases made in the store directly helps us grow this site! So anymore discussion on threads like should I buy from this competitor - and I am afraid I will be coming out of retirement - yep you know who you are.

A forum conversation that has really got people going over the last couple of weeks has been the 9/11 debate in the Political, Social and Cultural Dimensions. Click here to see the thread and give your own thoughts

Obviously even the most passionate martial artist cannot talk shop all the time so this has been a good addition to our forums where users of Martial Edge from both sides of the pond can share their views on the world. So if you have not made any in roads into the forums yet definitely check this thread out.

Martial Edge Competition

On a final note be sure to check out our latest competition with Cecily Fay . This month we are offering users the chance to win 2 tickets to see the Babes with Blades at Jacksons Lane Theatre in London courtesy of Martial Edge. Members of the Martial Edge team will be there so be sure to check both the competition and indeed the event out!

Pete Mills
Senior Editor/Co Founder
Martial Edge The Worlds Largest Online Martial Arts Community