All About Opening a New Phoenix and a New Future

It is an awesome facility with everything I ever wanted for great classes, great energy, and a place everyone can be proud of and wants to turn up to train and see their mates. 26 years into the adventure and this is the 5th location we have had to move into, renovate and get set up. It is Phoenix 7 including the AIS and in place expansions and should be our last move and a home for another 25 years.

Moving sucks, closing the club for 2 months while you do it is risky. Moving to the smallest location I have had in 20 years was a challenge and the most expensive club we have opened. It is what Tracy and I decided we love and want from our life. The thousands of good people who come into our lives through Phoenix Muaythai & kickboxing are why we keep doing it. Seeing people transform, forging them with purpose and something hard that they can be proud of is why we do it.

 

The AIS was great, but it wasn’t home and now we have a specialised place with a chilled bubbler and air conditioning, you couldn’t find a better set up place. It has everything I ever wanted for my perfect club house. Post covid, post awful landlord, losing some critical members of the team and the hard challenges in life you don’t get to choose. From 1000sq meters and 800 members to 240 sq meters and 200 quality members that we can directly focus on. Lower overheads, not counting numbers to pay the rent and wages. Back to optimum quality vs quantity. I decided to focus more on what I do and had to let Boxing, Fitness and other classes go, to specialise in what I love, hard paced all action Muay Thai in a serious training environment.

 

I have the dream problem now we are open, how to fit everyone in. Phoenix is growing faster than ever, and everyone loves the new place, the new faster pace and harder, serious training style. Improved coaching methods but back to the glory days when everyone knew everyone, and every coach interacted with everyone as one club. For those long-term coaches out there, you know what it is like to feel fresh again and take beginner classes packed to the brim. It is that energy that grows everyone involved. Muay Thai is unique, Phoenix is unique in that world, but there is a scale to it that you need to keep below and not get so ambitious your success forces you to forget why and only focus on the numbers.

 

I must thank everyone that has stuck by Phoenix, to everyone that trained at the AIS and for everyone now coming back, that we are open again. I must give a special thanks to everyone that has hurt me the most and nearly broken my faith in people over the last few years. You can only truly be hurt by the people you love, and that hurt showed me I do love what I do with a passion. It is what forges you to be who you are. That love for Phoenix, for the people and the club is what keeps Tracy and I doing it. The people that hurt you are part of the process of growing and life. ‘Everything is good’ and you are better at what you do because of it and can give more to those that are there.

The amazing thing about the renovation and build was everything single thing done was a contribution from a previous member or current. That’s a good legacy. Young men who started as young tradies and now run their own businesses. They fitted Phoenix in before Christmas at their busiest time of year. Sincere thanks to Joe Baird (Baird demolitions), Jared Reece (ACT Gyprock), Rob Vukovic (Fusion Painting), Damien Lakin (That’s Plumb), Adam BodyCott (ARB Joinery), Merladin (Modern Electrical) who all gave a lot of time and skills to make Phoenix great. We couldn’t have done it without you.

Now onward with the next 25 years. The front sign says, “Once you have Trained at Phoenix, everything else is easy”. Like everything we do, this is no boast, not marketing but the reality of the training style, the discipline, the hard work, the true character development of what a martial art should be.

 

Not a ‘safe’ place, but ‘hard’ place everyone needs in their life to be forged into something they are happier with.