The Spirit Gym ! Closed ? Not really...

I don't really know how to start this entry, but I guess that I just have to cast myself out into it. I have closed my gym. It sounds like a bad thing, but truly it is not as bad as it might sound. I still have my team together and now we have regrouped and are now working out in Gold's Gym in Nakano. Thank you Gold's Gym for letting us work out when we have no other place to go, Mr. Tezuka a long time friend of Andy Hug's is the owner of Gold's Gym Japan, and has been kind enough to let us train there during the day hours when no one else is using the gym. I have had a very long and good relationship with the original owner of Spirit Gym, and although due to some serious bad timing we were forced to close down the gym. It is now run by Tsuyoshi and Hiroshi, two brothers whom are the only true Uchi Deshi of Johan Vos Sensei. The gym has been changed to a Vos Sports School and it is run now mainly the way, they do things in Holland under Sensei Vos' guidance. I am very happy that they both decided to try their best to keep the gym running and also know how big a challenge it is for both of them, but if they work hard then this will be for the better. What this means for me personally is ofcourse that I do not have my own gym right now, and although I am teaching twice a week. Once in Shin Okubo Karate and once in Gold's Gym Omotesando. I now have time to focus a bit more on my own training again, I am not getting younger and I feel that if I am to try to fight at top level again, that I need this time to train and focus a bit on myself and my fighters. Once we have redeemed ourselves for what we are worth, I am sure that the opportunity to open a gym will arise once again. It was a very hard choice that I had to make, and even now after everything has settled down I still miss everyone. Some of the students that I used to teach at the gym have followed me to Gold's Gym, and yet others have come to the Karate class. For this I am truly honored and humbled, and also I feel that I need to do my best and not let everyone down. One guy said half joking that I have abandoned everybody just so that I can fight again, but this is not true, this reason has nothing to do with it. To make you understand me a bit better, I need to go back a little and talk about the passion I have for redeming myself. I broke me leg now almost 4 years ago, and then I left Kyokushin, opened my own Dojo and later started The Spirit Gym. But lying there in the hospital for 6 weeks with my leg in a sling and a ice machine constantly icing it down, I had time to think. I truly had all the time in the world to think about what I wanted to do with myself. And I realized that I was not living the kind of life I would be happy with. I saw many paths for my future and many different ways to becoming happy, but it was not the one I was walking at that time. So I did what most people would never even think about, I followed my heart. I decided to stand up straight and walk on my own two feet, I decided that I was tired of living in any one elses shadow, I decided that if I ever made it into the light that I wanted that light to shine on me for me, and not for what anyone else had done and then a I could catch a little of the reflections. It was a very hard choice to make, but I have never been affraid of following my heart. Hell, I had some money saved up and the world looked ready to take me on. So I did what I knew best how to do I taught Martial Arts to people that were drawn to me. I don't consider myself the best teacher or not even in the same class as many of the greats out there. But I have energi and faith, something no one can ever take away from me. So I started teaching, but as most people would realize, living in Japan for me was never that easy after I had become K-1 Champion. It didn't matter where I went people would recognize me, this is good when you are up there amongst the Champions and doing it in front of thousands of people, and getting paid ridiculus amounts of money. But now I was just me, no money, no fights, just the fame left and all the bills to pay. Well, that was OK, I never really complained and training was going great, the fighters that I worked with were doing good and I could see that my efforts were paying off. But here comes the dilema, since people know who I am they also have and interest in what I am doing, so naturally they see me coaching someone and that is all good until they ask me, " So, when are YOU going to fight again?" I could find myself at the gas station, and the guy would say to me" It is full it will be 1743 Yen, thank you, so when are YOU going to fight again?" or I would be shopping with the kids and someone would come up to me and say, " Hey Nicholas, I saw you in the movie the other day, it was fun! But when are YOU going to fight again?" The stories I could tell you about the places I have been asked this question is just endless, even you guys that come here at my website keep asking me the same thing. The truth is that my hands and feet have been bound together by aggreements of people that are so far out of my reach that I can't even begin to explain it. Well, I guess that says a lot to some and nothing to others, but there are truly things I would prefer not to discuss here on a public channel. Anyway. like I said teaching, acting, doing drama's or whatever I could find to do besides fighting was never really enough. I always knew that I had to get back into the ring and show the people that I can really do this, I am a fighter of heart and I have dedicated so much of my life to give it up that easy. So when I decided to come back to the ring I wanted to do for the love of the game. For the fact that there are so many out there that truly never get to live their dreams, I want to live my dreams and I want to be someone that people can look up to and say, that guy was really something. And to become this dream catcher I must do what others dare not, or will not or just can't. This is my life and therefore I fight again, last year I came back to toplevel fighting after recovering from a snapped shinbone, and 3 and a half years away. I fought not my best fight, but I did what I had set myself out to do, WIN. And win I did, 2nd. round TKO. I can now truly retire if I wanted to because to all those people out there who doubted me I have now the proof that I can do this. I can truly accomplish the dreams and goals that I set myself, and my next goal is to come back fighting in Japan. I don't know how I can do this, but I really want to do it. So now all I am asking for is some time to focus on myself for a while and then, when the time is ready I want to spread the knowledge. I am saying many things here in this entry, and also leaving many things unsaid. But that is just the way things have to be right now, The Spirit Lives and so do I. Thank you Mas. Oyama for making me believe that anything is possible! The claws of the young Lion have not dulled yet, I shall rise once again as was promised and Roar the world.

Nicholas