thanks for the reply, been reading the forum and thought i should add a little bit to my introduction. I trained in karate as a youngster for a few years with vic charles in london, took up boxing on and off for about 10 years. Practiced shootfighting for about 6 months when the ufc first arrived ( seems a long time ago now). I have recently took up training after being a lazy fat git for years (lost 6 STONE !!!!) have read geoff thompson books and kelly mccann and obviously seen dennis's stuff for the past year or so but want to join somewhere regular for training now as a means for self protection and to get some good quality training as i hate the fitness first type prancing around and some of the krav maga places look aimed at commercial markets, i want to train somewhere where the people have real experience and arent worried about roughing things up a bit, it seems like the only real way to learn and i love the old ww2 combatives stuff i have read.