The Martial Arts For Kids book series is now available in paperback format from Amazon.com and will be released on the Kindle network early in 2012.

This series of books is an extension of the highly succesful Martial Games For Kids System being used by Martial Arts Instructors around the world.

These books “Martial Arts For Kids: Kids Activities For Healthy Kids“ and “Martial Arts For Kids 2: Kids Group Activities For Healthy Kids“ have been written for parents with children learning a Martial Art.

The Activities, Challenges and Games in these books will help get kids training at home to accelerate their regular martial arts training in the Dojo:

• Boosts Physical Strength
• Improves Flexibility
• Increases Balance
• Enhances Co-ordination
• Builds Explosive Speed

These books will help kids develop the necessary physical attributes to maximize their Martial Arts Skills.

They will also help parents to stay involved in their childs development.

While video games, iPod’s and facebook drag kids away from exercise and real life social activity, Martial Arts helps bring families together with a healthy and balanced lifestyle in and out of the Dojo.

I recomend these Martial Arts For Kids books for every parent that has a child enrolled in Martial Arts Training.

The last day of a holiday is always a bit sad because you don’t want it to end but it’s also fun because you know you have to squeeze in as much activity as possible before it all comes to an end.

So here is a recount of my last day in HK…

My wife and I had planned to go to the Crystal Cabin skylifts on the last day but the weather was against us again and it was a foggier day than when we went to the HK Peak so we cancelled those plans and decided to go back and enjoy all the best bits of places we’d found over the past few days.

The day started off slow and well behaved but my wife wanted to go back to the markets (the ones that nearly killed my back walking around them for hours) so we parted ways, the girls went to the markets and my friend and I headed to Soho for more Bacardi 151 and people watching.

We found a great spot in the English Pub named “Yorkshire Pudding” and even ordered Yorksire Pudding as a snack while relaxing and people watching, there are a lot of very fancy expensive cars driving around HK.

After a few drinks we decided to go back to the massage place we found with the girls but we had no idea where it was.  After walking around in circles for an hour we stopped at another pud/bar and got a mixed platter snack that was some of the best pub food I’ve had in years.  we were just about to leave when my friend spotted Elvis walking past the window, he called out and Elvis came in to meet us.

Meeting Elvis was a highlight of my Asian holiday, an unexpected treasure that can only happen while on holiday.  We quickly bought him a beer for being such a friendly megastar and in return he put on a mini concert for us in the bar.

I never dreamed I’d get to sing Blue Suede Shoes with the King!

My Dad named me Aaron because that’s Elvis’s middle name.  I haven’t shown him the photos yet but I’m sure he will be impressed when he sees them.

One Last Massage…

To finish off the night I had my heart set on one last cheap massage but we couldn’t find the place we’d been before.  After some web surfing on the iphone I found the name of a place near the hotel that apparently only asians go to… this sounded perfect to me.

We managed to find the place but my friend chickened out.  it took a bit of negotiating as the staff didn’t speak english and my Mandarin is very limited but I managed to arrange a 3 hour massage for $70 Aussie dollars.  The place was amazing with large steam rooms, spa baths, saunas for guests to use but since all the patrons enjoying thses facilities were completely naked I skipped that part and went straight in for a traditional massage.

A small Chinese woman, about 5 feet tall and 50+ years old entered the room and got me to lie face down on the massage table.  She then climbed up on the table, grabbed hold of some ceiling rails and proceeded to walk all over me for the next coupl of hours.

She cracked areas of my back 4-5 times and it was a constant shift between soothing and sheer pain.  I was wondering if I would be able to stand up when it was all over.  If it wasn’t so painful I think I would have fallen asleep a couple of times (maybe that’s why she kept hurting me).

Eventually the voluntary torture was over and I was releived to find I could stand up and was not paralised as I feared after all the back cracking.

As I walked out onto the street I realised it was now 2:30am and I had a missed call from my wife wondering where I was.

Lost In Translation…

I knew the massage place was close to the hotel but I wasn’t sure in which direction rather than wander in circles again I grabbed a taxi to get home ASAP.

I jumped into the Taxi, gave him the name of the hotel and sat back for a quick ride… a minute later I realize he’s pulling into the harbour tunnel to Kowloon and it was too late to turn around, even at 2:30am the traffic is busy and we had to go though the tunnel before we could do a U-turn and head back to Hong Kong Island.  Luckily taxis are extremely cheap in China and Hong Kong so it still only cost about $9 for the 30 minute trip.

I finally got back to the hotel just after 3am to find my wife packing our suitcases.

I told her everything Ijust told you and she just looked at me and shook her head.  I’m a lucky man to have such a great wife!

The Morning After…

After a couple of hours sleep it was time to jump in another taxi and start the journey home.  i didn’t think we were going to fit in one taxi with all the luggage we had after a week of tavel shopping.

While sitting in the airport waiting for our plane my friend was looking through his collection of photos on his camera when he stops and turns to me and says “When did we meet Elvis? I don’t remember that!”

We were staying in Wan Chai (Red Light District) on Hong Kong Island so we walked down to the ferry terminal and got a ferry across to Kowloon.

Kowloon is the city where Bruce Lee grew up, learning martial arts, fighting on the roof tops of old buildings.  I’m sure the city has changed a lot in the past 50 years but it was still great to walk around and get a sense of the place.

Being a tourist and a Bruce Lee fan I had to see the statue at the waterfront and get some photos with Bruce Lee while wearing my Raining Bombs MMA t-shirt.  As you can see from the pic, I couldn’t resist posing for the camera… YES, I felt a bit silly but it was a chance of a lifetime so it had to be done.  the hardest part was getting a good photo without having too many other people standing next to the statue.  Sometimes being bigger helps as people seemed to be happy to give me some space for a few quick pics.

The ‘Walk of Stars‘ was like walking through my childhood of watching chop-socky movies on VHS whenever I could get my hands on them.  Seeing names like; Sir Run Run Shaw, Raymond Chow and Jackie Chan but strangely I couldn’t find a star for Sammo Hung which was disappointing.  I hope I just missed it because it’s crazy if he’s been overlooked by whomever makes those stars.

To The Markets…

We walked deeper into Kowloon and found the Ladies Markets which is a couple of streets worth of market stalls selling mobile phone covers, knock off shoes, clothes, belts, jeans, handbags, watches, etc.  I’m not sure how they get away with it but it’s a great place to get a bargain.

I had forgotten how much fun it is to haggle on price things and enjoyed playing the game with the stall owners to get everything as cheap as possible.

My wife is a shopping machine and after 7 hours walking around the ladies markets we finally had a break to get some food before discovering the night markets and spending another couple of hours looking at all the same stuff again.  By the time she was finished my back was killing me and I felt crippled.

We got a taxi back to the hotel and I was glad it was all over but as soon as we put the bags of shopping down she dragged me back out to go find some food.  When she’s on holiday she refuses to sleep, I don’t know where she gets the energy from.

If you find my recap of Hong Kong interesting then check out… Hong Kong Part 3 as I recount my last day in HK.

I’ve felt in need of a holiday for a while and going to Asia is the perfect way to take a break from normal life (especially in Hong Kong).

My friend made all of the arrangements and bookings which I trusted him with.  He said he got a great deal on a hotel in Hong Kong where rooms are normally very expensive… this should have been a clue.  We arrived in HK and got to the hotel at about 10pm but my wife was eager to head out and see the city so we went for a walk to get some food and soak in the atmosphere.

As we started walking towards the shops, restaurants, bars, lights and noise I noticed there were a lot of pubs and clubs bunched together (very different to what I saw in China) and then I noticed how many Englishmen there were, then I noticed all the young asian girls in short skirts, then I noticed the strip clubs and massage parlours… That’s when I realised my friend had booked us a hotel in Hong Kong’s Red Light District!

While walking down the street looking for food we walked past one strip club and when the women at the front saw me (the big white guy) walking past she literally sprang out of her chair to grab me by the arm and drag me inside… she was half launched from her chair when she spotted my wife and stopped dead in mid-air with a look of disapointment on her face.  We both cracked up laughing while she sat back down muttering swear words in mandarin, some of which I know haha.

After an hour walking around we wound up back in the hotel with my wife eating a packet instant noodles and I ate one of my emergency ration protein bars.

A New Day…

We went for a walk about to see more of HK and decided to go up to the peak and overlook the City and across to Kowloon but we managed to do this on the most overcast day of our whole stay.  It was still a great view dispite the limited visability, as you can see from the photo.

I was amazed how many buildings and houses were up at the top of the peak.  We spent hours up there looking through the shops and had a drink at Bubba Gump’s.

Later we went to Soho and found an English Pub/Bar that served Bacardi 151 for about $7 Aussie dollars so the girls went of shopping while my friend and I sat in the bar watching people coming and going on the streets escalators… it’s a long steep street.

The rest of the night got a bit blurry but included a pizza smothered with chilli oil and a massage in a tiny little shop in an odd little street somewhere in Soho.  It was a great massage for about $15 but we couldn’t find the place again when we tried a few days later.

I’ll share more about Hong Kong in another post so I can explain about visiting Bruce Lee and my lucky night Meeting Elvis…

I have been involved in a several martial arts styles over the past 21 years and have been building my own and other peoples businesses online and offline for the past 9 years.

I love martial arts and all the various styles; each has their strong and weak points and I’ve always believed it’s a great idea to learn at least a few different styles to strengthen all areas of your personal fighting skills.  Having trained with different instructors I noticed that all of the people I met lacked the skills for marketing their martial arts school. 

It never bothered me personally because I prefered training with a smaller group to get more one on one time with the instructor.  But I did feel sorry for the martial arts school owner as they seemed to be putting in a lot of effort and still struggling to meet the overheads every month.

Internet marketing for martial arts schools is still uncommon territory for most school owners.  The best martial arts websites are owned by martial arts suppliers and martial arts organisations like UFC or NAPMA.  This is because these groups treat their business like a business.  They know that internet marketing is powerful and cost effective when it’s done properly so they invest in getting it set up.

For small martial arts schools and older instructors it seems like too much time and money to even start walking down that path and joining the already established.  But right now is actually one of the best times for local marketing online.

A powerful combination has emerged in the past 12 months. Web 2.0 websites such as twitter and facebook have made networking with like minded people easier than ever before while at the same time Google, Yahoo and Bing are working to provide higher value to small local businesses online.

It will take a lot of effort to get your martial arts school ranking highly around the world on any search engine…

BUT, it takes very little work to get your business appearing on the first page of google for people searching in your local area.  These are the people you want to find out about you.  You can quickly and cheaply get your website and your martial arts school appearing on computer screens within a couple of miles of your business location.

Forget about trying to reach around the world and focus your online marketing to your local area. 

If you wanted to place a traditional print ad in a newspaper to attract students would you spend huge money to have the ad run all across the country or would you spend a fraction of the cost to have the ad appear in your local newspaper that is delivered to people that live just around the corner from your martial arts school?  Obviously the local approach is going to work best and this is exactly the same way you need to approach internet marketing for martil arts.

The games are specifically designed to increase the learning ability of young students.  They can quickly improve co-ordination, balance, strength, reaction speed and focus in young students.

Martial Games for Kids was first published in 2005.  Since it’s original release I’ve updated the Manual several times and recently released the newest 2010 issue.

The martial arts games are now being used by Instructors of different styles all around the world with the same fantastic results.

Due to the ongoing success of these games I have also started a members monthly newsletter to help keep Martial Arts Instructors supplied with new martial games for their lessons.  The newsletter also discusses current topics and viewpoints about teaching and provides fresh ideas and insights into Martial Arts Marketing Techniques.

For more information about the Martial Games for Kids manual and monthly newsletter click on the image below…

When I got married a few years ago I kept joking with my wife that her ring was like wearing a jetski on her finger.  I was joking but she got fed up with it and when the opportunity to buy a second hand jetski fell in my lap she bought it for me to shut me up.

I learned three things from this:

1.  Having a sense of humour is a good thing

2.  I married the perfect woman (sorry guys she’s all mine and i will fight to keep her)

3.  Jetskis are Awesome!

I grew up at the beach in NZ and moving to Australia just means the water temperature is better all year around for playing in the surf.

I’m putting this post up here because I want you to know that work isn’t everything.  Definately work your butt off 100% to get ahead and provide the lifestyle you want for you and your family but also remember to take out the time to enjoy what your working so hard for.  I spend a lot of time on internet marketing for martial arts but I also know how to relax and unwind to keep my life balanced.

There’s no point working yourself into the ground for your family if you ruin your relationship by never being around to spend time with your wife.

Having said that, the jetski is a selfish way for me to cut loose with a few friends.  We head out at 6am and spend 3-4 hours jumping the surf on South Stradbroke Island on the Gold Coast, Queensland whenever the conditions are good.  It’s a huge bonus to go out during the week when most people are working and we have the beach to ourselves.

Whatever your passions are make sure you fufill them.

Train Hard, Live Well

Cheers

Aaron J Perry

I first travelled there with my parents when I was a 7yo and fell in love with the Hawaiian Islands.  Ever since then I’ve pictured living there, enjoying the beaches, the great food and the friendly people.  Sometimes I think I was mistakenly born in the wrong country.

I’ve been lucky enough to visit the Hawaiian Islands every few years and still plan to buy property there in the very near future.

When I got married in 2007, my wife and I celebrated our honeymoon in Waikiki, it was her first visit and thankfully she loved it almost as much as me.  A return trip for my birthday was a personal reward for things going very well in my Martial Arts Businesses.

If you’re ever in Hawaii there are certain things you just have to do…

1.  Get the Prime Rib at ”The Duke” – Over a span of 30 years they still do the best Prime Rib I’ve ever eaten and booking a table at that restaurant is one of my first priorities when I arrive.  

2. Pick up a couple of packs of chocolate Macadamias from any one of the million ABC stores.  I’m starting to think I should import these to Australia.

3. Be a tourist and rent a big mal surfboard or do the surf canoes.  There is a guy there on Waikiki called Pat that I insist was the inspiration for Rob Schniders character in “50 First Dates”.  the guy is awesome, he is Mr. Hawaii to me.  I still can’t believe he took a break from the beach to go and drive trucks across mainland America.  thankfully he came to his senses and is back living the good life.

4. Go to Hanauma Bay and snorkle with the fish and turtles.  It’s cheap and a taste of what the Hawaiian sealife was like before all the visitors turned up.

5. Rent a convertible and drive around the North Shore.  Unfortunately I always seem to visit in our winter which is the Hawaiian summer so the surf is always small, but the drive is still amazing with the lava mountains on one side and the beautiful beaches on the other.

6. Walk up to Diamond Head.  It took me nearly 30 years to do this and I wish I’d done it sooner.  The view is awesome and it’s a great way to exercise after eating too many huge meals while on holiday.

I could go on and on but that was just the start of my Birthday trip.  From Hawaii, we went to Vegas to catch up with some UFC Fighters.

A couple of visits to Xtreme Couture was a highlight.  meeting Ray Sefo, Shawn Tompkins and Kevin Randelman was something I hadn’t really planned on.  All great guys, they took time to talk with me about my Australian MMA brand “Raining Bombs” and my plans to help get Aussie fighters over to the U.S. to train and have a shot at the UFC.

My interest in the Martial Arts has definately molded my life and I hope to help others reach their goals in the sport of MMA.  While I was having a working holiday in Vegas my wife managed to beat the odds and actually win money on the tables so we were both happy.

We also caught a couple of shows… “O” and “Ka” were amazing, the dodgy Adults Only hypnotist was hilarious and the tour of the Grand Canyon was a long day but a great side trip tha I’ll remember for a lifetime.

I’m an ambitious guy that is always looking to move ahead and to reach another goal so it is great to take the time to kick back and relax and be thankful for how my life has turned out.  I’ve had some serious struggles in my life but all the things that seemed like shit at the time were linked to the things I now treasure most.

One of my mottos is “Train Hard, Live Well” and ias time goes by it seems to me to be more of a fact.

Life is good, just never give up.

Cheers,

Aaron J Perry