One year ago, the government announced the end to most of the COVID restrictions which governed everyday life. Thecity.ie explores what’s changed and what has stayed the same since then for a Swords based karate club.

Washido Karate, a club with roots in Chinese Boxing and Wado Ryu Karate, were one of many clubs around the country that limited or closed down their training activities after COVID, now with society wide open, how have they fared?

“We experienced a reduction in our numbers, a few people went away. But I suppose you get that anyway during the course of training,” admitted the club’s Black Belt and instructor, Brian Ennis. 

When the club was first allowed to train indoors again, Mr. Ennis said that due to restrictions in place at the time, the club could only have a certain number of people and training had to be done in pods.

Sensei Brian Ennis observes a flying kick at the club’s 2022 Black Belt Grading (Image by Ervin Vucaj)

As a result, the martial arts instructor had to choose and “gave preference to existing members” for training.

The karate sensei also reflected on the limitations of the transitionary period, when things were half open and half closed due to uncertainty regarding Covid: 

“There’re only certain things like Kata and floor technique that we could do, and people need a little human contact you know, it is a semi contact sport. It was great to see those restrictions lifted”.

However, things have turned around for the club since then, as Mr. Ennis explained that there was a resurgence in the club’s numbers after the full reopening a year ago:

“People just had an appetite for training, so I think our numbers now are stronger than they were before Covid.

“I think people came back looking for stuff, they had an appetite for training because they’ve had maybe two years of not doing anything…”

Beyond just a recovery to pre-covid numbers, Mr. Ennis went on to describe that the increase in members actually exceeded the club’s pre-covid numbers:

“I can’t explain it, we haven’t done a recruitment drive or anything like that, but we’ve seen people coming through the website or looking at what’s in the centre and coming to us like that.”

Inflation has had some impact on the club financially, Mr. Ennis revealed, with rental fees for the hall the club trains in increasing. 

The martial arts instructor has refused to pass that cost on to club members, instead opting to use the increased revenue from new membership and the increased rent to “cancel each other out”.

“It’s just the world we’re living in, it is inflation. But it hasn’t affected the club or its members”.

The same could not be said for the martial arts field, as Mr. Ennis lamented that “There were some clubs I know of that didn’t survive Covid and hadn’t continued training.”

Asked about his hopes for the club now that Covid is a distant memory, Mr. Ennis expressed hope that the local club will experience sideways growth through new black belts.

“We have our first black belt gradings in a while, and my hope is to grow from that, to see some other senior students go further in their black belt gradings.

“Hopefully moving forward, we go from strength to strength, but I’m not looking for world domination or anything like that,” Mr. Ennis added with a wry laugh.