During lockdown, I was pondering about how to make martial arts spaces visibly inclusive. Most martial arts clubs in the UK, and probably in the world, are amateur clubs that are volunteer-led, and they don't own their own space.

If this isn't someone's main job, they're not going to have the funding to come and do a day-long training course around inclusive practice. But they may still be committed to inclusive practice, and want to know more.

How can we put a pride flag on the websites of all the different martial arts of the world? How could we get people to make a basic commitment to being inclusive?

I started Village Dojo, just simply so people could say: this is a LGBTQI+ inclusive space.

A club doesn't have to be run by LGBTQ+ people, and it doesn't have to even have any LGBTQ+ members to be inclusive. But it has to say: “When you arrive here, you won't hear language that would be hurtful to you. You won't receive bullying from other members of the club, or see behaviors that are untoward.”

It's really important that we make environments inclusive for everyone. And that's certainly been part of my mission in my own school – to be as inclusive as we can be, and to acknowledge the different contributions that people bring within a space.

At Village Dojo, you cannot use hateful language in this space and go unchallenged. Our first priority is to protect everyone, and surely that's what martial arts are about: being safe. If you're not safe in the dojo and in the training space, then where would you be safe?

We want people to be able to express themselves. We've had a number of trans young men who have come to training with us, and we have a reasonable size of LGBTQI+ people training.

Traditionally, in England, these environments are dominated by straight, white, cisgender men, so it's great to see those barriers come down.

[As told to Ragi Gupta — to be continued]