The End of the Line

The Fudokai Aikido Dojo has Closed

After over 15 years activity, with falling class numbers, I was forced to close the Fudokai Aikido Dojo on the 27th April 2013.

My thanks go to all those who trained with and supported us during the lifetime of the club.

If you are looking for Aikido in Norfolk then I suggest you contact the Fakenham Aikido Club run by Dr Malcolm Walder or, in Suffolk, the Broadland Aikido Club training in Lowestoft run by Frank Burlingham.


Mats For Sale SOLD

80 1m2 jigsaw mats and storage boxes

60 mat tatami

We have 80 1m2 40mm thick Trocellen®, Olympic quality interlinked Judo mats for sale.

These Trocellen, Olympic-quality, interlinked judo mats are 40mm thick and consist of a sandwich of plastic foams. The outside surfaces (one green, the other red) are a fairly firm closed cell foam and the inner foam is softer. The surface is sufficiently firm that your toes don't dig into the mat making those pivot turns safer on the toes and the rice-grain surface gives good traction when moving around the mat. The softer inner layer means that the mats easily cope with heavy breakfalls. Personally, I reckon that these mats provide almost the ideal surface for the practice of Aikido.

For the chemists and technically minded, the Trocellen® mats are made of a cross-linked polyethylene foam made from polyolefin resins which gives a lightweight mat making the tatami quick and easy to lay and take up at the start and end of class. To save you the effort here is a link to a web site selling these mats as new.

Although used, these mats have been well looked after and are in excellent condition. We only held one class per week using these mats and rarely used more than 40 of them in any one class. Indeed, we only once laid out a 60 mat tatami and the full 80 mats would not have fitted in the room we hired.

The mats come as 2 sets of 40 mats in lockable, tamper-proof boxes on rubber wheels. The boxes stand about 190cm tall and should fit under most door frames (though, at over 1m square, they would only fit through extra-wide or double doors) enabling the boxes to be easily moved from a storage area to the dojo.

The mat boxes are home made and can be flat-packed for storage if not required for use. The sides walls are made from thin ply for lightness and the doors act as part of the structure providing rigidity so the boxes should not be wheeled around if the doors are not fitted.

The only caveat I would raise is that the interlinking mechanism is based on an absolutely exact shape and, when used, the mats get slightly compressed leading to minor deformations of the shape. What this means is that, if you start laying mats from one corner of the dojo, by the time you reach the opposite corner, the accumulation of deformities can add up enough to make laying the last few mats well-nigh impossible and you will have to take up the mats and start all over again. After this happened to us we solved the problem by starting to lay the mats from the centre outwards, thereby minimising the cumulative effect of the deformities.

Along with the 80 1m2 4mm thick mats and their boxes there are another 40 thinner (about 20mm) jigsaw mats. These are from a different manufacturer and will not link to the 40mm judo mats but they would be suitable to make a 'run-off' area or for the practice of karate or other martial art where breakfalls are not part of the training.

So the whole offer consists of:-

  • 80 1m2 4mm interlinked judo mats
  • 2 wheeled, lockable mat storage boxes
  • 40 1m2 20mm thick jigsaw mats

All for the price of £1,200 (buyer to collect).

If you are interested in these mats or know of someone who is, contact me by email at fudokai@gmail.com.

Please note that the 80 judo mats are on offer as a single unit and will not be split and the offered price is for these mats with the mat boxes and extra, thin mats as a bonus.