 There's a woman called Mary Lynn O'Neill who is from just out the road actually, cool boy. And she made a bit of history on Friday night because she opened up the first woman-run martial arts club in Donegal. Well the first woman-run one that we know about her that we're aware of anyhow. And Mary trained in karate from the age of eight along with her parents and her sister and in fact that's the story in itself. And she did her first black belt grading when she was just 12 and then got her third black belt dan. And when she was 16 went off to England and went to an international course to get a teaching qualification taught by some of the best in the business and I'm delighted now that Mary joins us in the studio. Good afternoon and congratulations. Thank you very much. You're open. I'm open. I was a long haul but we got open. You've been teaching karate for some time but this is your own. So I've been teaching karate on and off since I was about 12. Then I was up in New York for five or six years and was teaching boxing up there. Got involved in the boxing club. There was no show to count up there. So I was just training myself and it was teaching a lot of boys up there. Kept it going and then whenever I came back home I was straight back into the show to count again. Very good. This isn't just for women. It's open to anybody. No. So it's open to kids ideally six plus parents, mothers, fathers, adults. We're going to try and get a senior net going if there's enough interest. So any age. Show to count is not really just for the young and it's for everybody. So at the moment it is literally for everybody and if there's an appetite or if the numbers are right then you'll have an adults only. Yes. At the minute I'm trying to include both age groups so that it opens it up to single parents or anybody that might not be able to get a babysitter. So they can train at the same time as the kids. And I have a separate part in the hall that I'm actually using so the kids can be separated out to give the adults a wee bit of more space if needs be. But ideally I'm opening it to everybody at the minute. Given that it's a woman led, I'd expect that there'll be a lot of women that go, you know why? That's not something I might try. Actually I've been quite surprised at the response because that wouldn't be something that I'd be used to because I've obviously been training since I was eight. And the whole way through it's always been men that I was training. I nearly would have stepped in the ring quicker with a man than a woman because women are harder to fight believe it or not. Why? Oh, girls are just much rougher, smarter in the ring. Men you can take them by surprise. What? They're more predictable? Well, they don't usually expect you to be able to fight them so you have the upper hand. Alright. And if you're smaller. Yeah, yeah, the secret's out, secret's out. But I've been getting responses from both sides. A lot of girls are coming to me now that are saying I would never have took it up, always wanted to but because it was like a man always leading the clubs that they didn't have the confidence or determination even to take the chance and there's loads of people texting me and ringing me even clubs from down the country saying like all the best wishing you all the luck in the world. It's a great endeavour that you're taking on. I do have another guy, a couple other black belts that are coming with me on board too and they're both men. So they have a man on board as well and they're very experienced. One of them is Brian McGlin, he's a second-dan cranny and what I call him is he's my expert in kattas. He was a regional champion whenever he was only nine in kattas, team kattas. So he's also on board for the men that think that there's only women. Okay, okay. And I have men starting as well. So it's everybody, everybody. Yeah, complete mixture. Why would you suggest it as a great pastime or a great form of exercise or a great way of self-impermint? Yeah, well I've done loads of different styles. I've done Taekwondo, I've done kickboxing, I've done boxing. Cranny was always my niche and with all the other styles I do like them. They've built on all of my different techniques. Cranny, I can develop the whole lot together. So if most people cranny is, you know, somebody going howl when they're chopping up wood or cracking a block or something. It's not that, is it? Well, you can do that if you like, but it's only if you're strong enough. I have broken bits of wood before. But it's more like a build-in of your character. So what we always explain is the other sports as good as they are and I would entertain any sport. With cranny, your character has to develop what your sport. So you're not just closing the door whenever you walk out. You're taking, cranny is a way of life. So whenever you do cranny, you start to build up your confidence. You start to build up resilience and you empower the next person or the next part of your life. So cranny doesn't knock you down or doesn't, sorry, cranny doesn't stop you from getting knocked down. But by building on cranny it helps you to develop all the parts of your life that you'll always get up again. We all have issues in our life but with cranny you'll always get up again. So is it as much about building the character as it is about building the character's physique? Yeah, exactly. So it's physical and mental. And you'll find that the more you get into cranny the more of a perfectionist you'll be about cranny. And you'll always be perfect. And I'm still training. I'm still learning. I will be. I learn from my students. My students will be learning from me every single day of the school day in cranny. And I think that's the good thing about it because the bar is always moving. You're always improving and you've always got something to work towards. So you start to get a bit of a want and a need for it. It's built into your daily life and you're always thinking the cranny. And plus it's good too because there's an awful lot of attacks now in homes and attacks in the community. And I mean, if you want to try and protect your family or protect your friends or you're stuck in a bad position your back's up against the wall. You want to be able to, if you can't run, if you can't run, you need to be able to put the hands up and defend yourself and it could save your life. One couple of nick, you know what I mean? In the worst case scenario, absolutely. When I see Judo in particular in competitions and on TV a lot of the moves happen fairly quickly. What it says so much is about, well ultimately it's supposed to be about power but also it's about your centre of gravity and your hip movement. Well cradies are built off everything. So Judo is just grappling and you know like body lock and power throws. Cradie has that in it as well. So the new regional and national championships you're allowed to do throws you're allowed to do body locks because now it's an open cradie stay. So basically everything goes with control. Now you won't be having contact fights at the very start so you don't have to worry about the kids getting hurt but there is an opportunity there if you want to develop that skill that there's skills there. We're going to be doing advanced fighting classes advanced cataclasses which is like synchronised moves and there is an opportunity there. You're kind of involving all of the styles in one with cradie and there is control stances there but the stances are for to build up your legs and I know myself doing field sports whenever I'm doing cradie my legs, my calves, everything are really strong and it helps me being a fast runner in the field sports. So it definitely stands by you in your whole life do you know what I mean? I would imagine it is a great way to build up your confidence because you're working on your fitness and you know it's nothing else it's a defence mechanism and then you become a little more fearless I suppose and more confident. Well the fear is always there but the determination is behind you and it's kind of like a skill in itself instead of not having the fear you embrace it and it's a different kind of way of being so with fear comes goals and with goals comes a new life and you hope. Hang on you're starting to sound like the cradie kid now. Bruce Lee is like my number one fan I'm his number one fan even but there's belts like you get loads of belts so whenever you're starting off there's orange, red, yellow, green, purple purple, white, brown, brown, white, brown, black and black so there's a lot of belts so we always call them like they're the baby steps up to the black belt and whenever you get your black belt that's whenever the cradie begins and whenever you're training and you're always wanting your black belt and you think that's the end point you start to realise there's so many courses open up whenever you become a black belt I myself, whenever I was only 16 it was actually my first down I got I was first down when I was 16 and I got my second down at college my third down last year but whenever I went to England I got to train where we call them Karateka, it's like the experts of karate there were seven top experts there and there was, I think there was two or three hundred black belts but one of them was called Terry O'Neill and for all us older all these, you might remember the movie Predator he was Arnold Schwarzenegger's weapons trainer so I got to spend every night with him crack was mighty with him and the training was outstanding he was just out on his own and he was based in America he was based in the UK he came over to us a couple of times to do courses so like that was in itself that was like meeting the hero so spend time with him, you understand why he made it to the top and why he like he opened another door he was like this isn't the end and he's like this is the beginning and that was at the age of 16 so I'm hoping to get all these guys back again and be like hey lads just remember me whenever I was young yeah exactly what you would like to see is obviously more young people, more women more families yeah adults, you name it you're never too old to start we had a guy, he was 84 last year in Dublin he made karate media and he started karate at the age of 84 and he was actually competing down in Dublin with another two guys in kind of competitions so you're never too old what about if you have dodgy knees karate makes you get stronger so we all have our injuries and I have to ask you about the we yeah this is my mascot Mousley, so my sister it was my birthday on Friday as well and she crocheted this Mousley for me for a mascot for the club so Mousley was introduced and made a star appearance at the opening night too so the kids all like the Mousley Mousley is there a name for the club? Donnie Gauss sorry Donnie Gauss we have an Instagram page and a Facebook page with the same name if people would rather get me in WhatsApp they can get me in 087 7178503 classes are Tuesday and Friday so far quarter day six to seven and it's down in the letter Kenny Glebe rugby clubhouse and for people who don't know that you just take it right after arena seven follow the road around until you see a placard of the lads and swing it right down there and you go in the front door and go up the stairs every Tuesday and Friday Mary thank you very much and the best luck with the club lovely hey thank you so much