Our martial arts gym is for everyone

The sport-wide campaign Onze Club Is Voor Iedereen (Our Club Is For Everyone) draws attention to diversity and inclusion. Perhaps somewhat fashionable terms, but it simply comes down to everyone being welcome. Martial arts have always been very colourful, including as regards the backgrounds of the participants. Even so, there are still opportunities to help new groups take the first step. Fighters with a physical or mental disability, for example. In the period ahead we will highlight a number of gyms that may inspire others to appeal to a broader public as well.

No Limits
No Limits Gym in Nieuwerkerk aan den IJssel was founded by Antoine Schutte. He wanted a name that made clear that truly everyone is welcome. "People with and without a disability, lesbian, gay, transgender or bisexual, man, woman, child, regardless of race or skin colour," the website states emphatically. "It is important to know that this is a gym where respect, equality, a sense of security, safety and sportsmanship are the soul of the gym, and that people embody this when they train here."

Only Friends
Amsterdam mayor Femke Halsema recently visited Only Friends, a special gym in the capital. There she expressed her admiration for the work of founder Dennis Gebbink. "He devotes himself heart and soul to children and young people with a disability," she wrote on Instagram afterwards. Thanks to Gebbink, Only Friends has become a household name. His institution, for that is what you may call it, has grown into a place with almost 800 young members and 30 sports for people with a disability, including kickboxing.

SportsArt
The gym of kickboxing and muaythai phenomenon Jorina Baars in Den Helder is an "ordinary" gym, but SportsArt now also provides a home for a special group of athletes. On Monday mornings and Thursday evenings she has a group on the mat facing an extra challenge: Parkinson's disease. Boxing is complex even for the average athlete, because you have to keep your balance, keep your defence in order, not lose sight of your opponent, and attack as well. With Parkinson's it is harder to combine different tasks, but training this offers patients exactly the practice they need. Scientific research shows that boxing slows the progression of the disease.

Overfit
Together with his mother, Adam al Kandoussi set up the Stichting Overfit (Overfit Foundation) in the Overvecht district of Utrecht. The wrestler gives wrestling and kickboxing classes to people with an intellectual and/or physical disability and to children with behavioural disorders. "This group of special and remarkable people deserves extra attention and care during the classes," the Overfit website states. "We want to encourage people to develop into improved versions of themselves. In addition, we want to use sport as a binding agent in order to promote social cohesion in the environment around us."

Noby Sports
Sabah Abdellaoui saw many girls around her who did want to take up sport, but did not feel entirely at ease having to train with twenty large men. She decided to organise "girls only" classes, which helped young women take the step into the gym. For beginners in particular, a girls only group can lower the threshold.

Tabonon
To be an inclusive gym you do not necessarily have to organise special classes for particular groups. Owner Hanieh Kamran wanted to create an inclusive and safe sporting environment for everyone in her gym Tabonon. These core values are held in high regard and are actively promoted. In her view, an inclusive and diverse gym starts with the atmosphere within the gym, so she consciously safeguards this in all four branches that Tabonon now has.

Best practices
If what is on offer is properly matched to demand, more and more people will find their way to the gym. In the coming weeks we will highlight these gyms on the VA website because they successfully appeal to new groups and have developed a culture of inclusiveness. In the hope that these "best practices" will inspire others.

The campaign Onze club is voor iedereen (Our club is for everyone) offers support from NOC*NSF (the Dutch Olympic Committee and Dutch Sports Federation) to clubs, associations and sports entrepreneurs that want to actively work on diversity and inclusion. A menu of options has been developed for this purpose, including free workshops and training programmes.