Here they are, the last ones

See here then here for explanations of why Zen-Do is closing.  You can see the photos for the gradings here.  Thanks for watching and for your support.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8wfbDx3plc

www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJOK5L9WhZY

The first test took place last Thursday the 3rd.  Congratulations to Senseis Vinod Joseph, Alaa Al-Alawi and Faris Algosaibi (my brother) for getting their second degree (2nd Dan) Black Belts!  You guys did a fantastic job and I’m very proud of you!  Master Rafael was very impressed with their standards and had no hesitation of passing them.

The second test was for younger students and took place on Saturday the 5th.  Congrats go to Nouf Al-Khan, Abdulrahman Al-Khan, Dina El-Masri, Khalifa Al-Khalifa, Essa Shamlan, Mohammed Al-Qassimi, Isa Al-Khalifa, Junaid Mahmood, and Sultan Mashood!  Again, a really fantastic job!  Well done guys.  I’m so proud of you!

Special thanks to Sensei Vinod Joseph for his great effort in preparing all of our Youth students for their Black Belt test.  He was very worried about them and he’s extremely proud of their achievements.  Thanks Vinod and well done and again guys!

Hope you like the photos.

I wrote a blog post a couple of weeks ago announcing that Zen-Do is for sale – assuming a buyer would be found.  I have offered my Black Belts the chance to buy Zen-Do, but unfortunately none of them could commit any time to keep it going.

Further, we’ve been approached by different investors, but the main problem is that the Zen-Do Team does not plan on staying.  You can’t really buy the Zen-Do brand without Sensei Vinod and the Team.  So this option is closed.

Zen-Do will remain open for another month.  We want to give our Black Belt candidates the chance to grade for their Black Belts, which will be in the first weekend of March.

After the Black Belt tests we’ll remain open another week to allow all other students to do one more grading.  Our last day of class will be Saturday the 12th of March.

I thought I’d share that with you.  Thank you all for your continued support.

For those of you who’ve been following me for some time, this will come as quite a shock.  I have to tell you, it took me a long time to make piece with this decision, I did not make it lightly.  Let me share the letter I gave to all our students:

———

Dear parents and students,

I have some very difficult news to share with you.

After much soul searching and agonising deliberation, I have decided to sell Zen-Do.  I know this will come as a shock to most of you, but with all the new responsibilities that I now have since my father passed away, I cannot give Zen-Do the attention it deserves and needs.  I barely have enough time to make it to the instructor training sessions.  I feel I am constantly struggling to balance all my responsibilities, and if I don’t let one of them go, I’ll end up doing nothing properly.

This was one of the hardest decisions I’ve ever had to make in my life, and it took me a long time to decide.  And it took a while to make peace with myself after I’ve made the decision, but I know it’s for the best.  I’m sorry to let you all down.
I’m not even sure if another martial artist would be interested in buying the school, but if so, it would have to be someone I know will take good care of our students. If anyone is interested in purchasing Zen-Do please get in touch.  The price will vary significantly on what is bought (just the location vs. the name, the systems, manual etc.)

If a suitable buyer for Zen-Do is not found, then Zen-Do will be closed.  As far as timing is concerned, everything will stay as normal until Master Rafael comes for the Black Belt grading, tentatively slated for early March.
Of course anyone wishing to stop their membership they will be able to do so.  Alternatively, their membership can be transferred to the DreamBody Centre .
There are obviously a lot of details that need to be sorted out over the coming weeks.  We’ll keep you posted on developments.

I’m Sorry…

I want to offer my deepest apologies to everyone.  For those who’ve been with us for a long time, I know how difficult this must be for you.  Believe me this was not a decision I took lightly.  When I told my children they cried and it took me a while to console them.  But I’ve been thrust into a new role in my life with new responsibilities, and I have to give those responsibilities the attention they deserve.  I never planned for this to happen.  I thought Zen-Do would last for ever and that we’d take over the world.  This was probably the most difficult decision I ever had to make.
I’d like to also apologise to the students who joined recently, I know how frustrating it must be to join a place and then find out it’s being sold or possibly even closed.  As I said, I never planned for this.

We will now work on refund and DBC transfer procedures (for those interested), and we’ll announce this as soon as we have a mechanism in place.  In the meantime, all students are welcome to continue training if they wish.  Like I said, nothing will change until the March grading.

Thank you for taking the time to read this, and for your understanding.
Kind regards,

Sensei Suhail G. Algosaibi
——–

To be honest I don’t have much else to say about it.  I have thought long and hard about it, and I know this is the right thing to do.

Thanks for reading and talk to you soon.

First of all, Happy New Year to you and yours!

This new year’s day marked the third anniversary of our annual new year’s morning Zen-Do workout.  To see the previous two years’ blog posts click here and here.

This year we had the biggest turnout ever, with 20 people attending!  It was tiring but fun too.  What a great way to start the year!  It started at Zen-Do, after which some people left.  We then went to have breakfast at Costa’s in the Country Mall.  After which most people left.

The people remaining after breakfast were myself, Sensei Vinod, Saba, Hussain, Angela, and Noora.  From Costa’s we went horse riding.  We went to the same place we went two years ago.  And like last time, it took us 10 minutes of convincing to let the guy open the place up and give us horses.  I was given quite a tough horse, who I later found out -- after we were about a quarter through our outing -- was an endurance racer.  The horse was amazing, but we had quite the battle of wills.  He wanted to gallop and I certainly did not want him to gallop.  I did loosen the rains once and he took off.  I enjoyed it but once is good enough, thank you.  I used to ride a lot as a child and still know the basics, but these days I only ride once every few years.

Anyway, after horse riding we went all the way to Jazayer beach and went quad biking, cool!  Then we hung out at the beach for a bit, and then we finally went to Seef Mall and hung out in Magic Island.  We went on one of those 3D rides that was actually much better than expected.  By then it was 1 pm, and it was time to catch up with my family again.  There was talk of the rest going to see a movie, but I don’t know if they did.

As I write this I am thoroughly sore, but feel great!  I look forward to 2011 being, God willing, a great year.  Here’s a video and some photos of the morning.  Hope you like it and talk to you soon.  Have a great year!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=AVqnFTTXyk0

Phew! It’s been over 24 hours, but I’m still exhausted!  We had the much awaited, eagerly anticipated Zen-Do Fun Day yesterday!  It started at 11 am and didn’t end until 6 pm!

And boy did we have fun!  The day started with a Nunchaku weapons demonstration with Sensei Vinod and some Zen-Do Black Belt Club students.  This was followed by games, a dodgeball tournament, more games, a Zen-Do “puppet show”, an anti-bullying workshop, a kickboxing padding demonstration, an amazing choreographed “fight” between me and Sensei Vinod, a massive kickboxing class, a talent competition, and more and more games!

Everyone had such a good time!  My kids Selma and Laith were on such a high all day!  The feedback from the parents was just amazing.  It was such a fun day, true to it’s name really.

My sincere thanks to the Zen-Do Team Vinod, Angela, Leo and Ara for their great efforts.  Also, special thanks go to Saba for sorting out all the logistics, and to DBC GM Mark and Falak Admin Manager Gemma for helping out on the day.  Great job everyone.  My sincere thanks also go out to Zen-Do students and Black Belts Alaa Al-Alawi and Hussain Al-Fardan for their help.  And to my brother Faris for his cameo appearance.

Most of my sincerest thanks and appreciation go out to the parents and kids who came on the day and made it so special!  Thanks everyone.  I can’t wait for the next one!

Here are some photos, courtesy of Angela De Guzman.  Talk to you soon.

You’re invited my friend!  I’m happy to announce that we’re having a Zen-Do family fun day!!  This is a day for fun, games and activities.  There’ll be kickboxing and weapons demonstrations, a dodge ball tournament, a special Zen-Do “puppet show”, face painting, and an extreme padding session -  and more!

I’ll also be doing a special anti-bullying class for all the kids.  Oh and don’t miss the ultimate finale: A full-contact, no-
holds-barred fight between me and Zen-Do Head Instructor Vinod Joseph!  Who will win?? The young, upstart Head Instructor, or the older but faster, wiser, more good looking and deadliester Chief Instructor? (I’ll be using my secret death crush technique)  You have to come see for yourself!!

Mark your calendar:

Date:     Saturday the 22nd of May 2010

Time:     11 am, and all day

Where:    at the Zen-Do Bahrain Kickboxing Club in Hamala

This event is absolutely FREE!  Bring the kids and have a great
time!

From left, Financial Control and Admin Manager Gemma Austria, Suhail Algosaibi, Zen-Do Head Instructor Vinod Joseph, Marketing and Operations Manager Saba Saleem and DBC General Manager Mark Salvador.

If you recall, last week we had our annual Big Bang event.  I shared some photos with you.  Well, the video is finally ready.  Hope you like it.  By the way, if you know of any young, awesome, outgoing guys and girls that want to be part of our multi-cultured Team, then please direct them to our recruitment site.

Wow, wow, wow!  What a great two days we had!  Last Wednesday and Thursday we had our annual Big Bang, and what a Big Bang it was!  The Big Bang (a term I borrowed from EO) is our annual training, motivation, fun and games, team building, and bonding event.  It’s an exclusive event just for our Team Members.  We actually close all our locations during these two days and focus exclusively on our Team Members.

What an exhausting two days! Day One started with a group circuit workout in DBC Hamala.  This was followed by an Introduction to NLP presentation given by me.  We then had lunch in Pastarito in City Centre, followed by bowling (which I won again!).  We then made our way to the Royal Golf Club in Riffa Views, where we were given some golf lessons.  I think they call it a golf clinic.  We were taught how to putt, chip and drive.

I discovered I was really – and I mean really – bad at golf!  I did really badly in the driving range.  Zuhair, our company driver – who never golfed in his life – felt sorry for me and started giving me some tips.  “Look Mr. Suhail.  You hold the club like this, and then you swing like this!” he told me, whacking the ball into the distance.  Yeah but I can still kick your backside I thought to myself.  Other people who turned out to be talented in Golf were DBC GM Mark Salvador and Zen-Do Head Instructor Vinod Joseph.  It’s liked they played their whole life!  After that we had dinner in the club, in the restaurant Links.  There we told jokes and just laughed and laughed.  What a great first day!

Day Two started with team building training session with Trainer Extraordinaire Feda Salameh.  We did some fun games like blindfolded guiding, building towers out of flip chart paper, and the egg wrapping and throwing game.  It was a lot of fun.  As a business owner it was great to see my Team Members having so much fun, and bonding so well.  It really brought me a lot of joy and satisfaction.

The team building session was followed by lunch in Cafe Ceramique in the Aali Mall.  Here each Team Member painted a small tile with their own interpretation of either one of our missions or our Guiding Principles (values).  These will later be collected, framed and hung on our wall.  Cool idea, huh?  Again we had a really good time.  And I discovered how artistic some of our Team Members are.  And it just reaffirmed how artistically untalented I am…

Anyway, this was followed by our much awaited talent competition!  This was extremely popular last year, and so we made a point of doing it again this year.  And boy did we see some great talents.  We had juggling, rope-skipping, chili eating, singing and dancing, make up applying, creating things out of junk, a puppet show, martial arts choreography and painting!  It was just so much fun.  At the end there was a vote for the best talent, and three cups given out.

I also gave away two Extraordinary Falakonian Awards (all Falak Enterprises Team Members are called Falakonians) to two invaluable Team Members; Marketing and Operations Manager Saba Saleem, and Financial Controller and Admin Manager Gemma Austria.  Two very hard working Falakonians who are an integral part of the company, and are very instrumental in making Falak Enterprises what it is today.

When the talent competition and award ceremony was over we went to dinner in Bang Sai Thai.  We had our own room with a karaoke machine – and boy did we use it!  DBC circuit advisor Mahmood Al-Bahaar really made us laugh with his own rendition of Shaggy’s You’re My Angel.  He even sand a Philippino song.  I thought I was going to burst laughing!

There was just so much laughing the whole weekend actually.  I’m still on a high as I write this!  The second day ended at around 12:30 am when we were politely told by the restaurant staff that the restaurant is closing.  I went home exhausted but exhilarated , and when I slept I dreamt I was still at the Big Bang…

I’ve collected some photos for you below.  You can see us doing the cheesy Big Bang sign in most of the photos.  I hope you like them, and talk to you soon.

Sensei Vinod, Sharon with her new Brown Belt, and Sensei Suhail

I’m proud to announce that Sharon Kaur received her Brown Belt on Thursday.  Well done Sharon!  I really put her through the paces and pushed her hard, and she was really nervous.  But she passed and did well.  Congrats again

Talk soon.