Zanshin dojo is one of the Maltese clubs that teach Spirit Combat International. The dojo has been in existence since 1996. SCI is a modern Martial Art which is based on different fighting styles found around the world. My dojo has quite an unusual past. It had also seen various instructors before it was passed down to me. The following is a history record of the major events of the Zanshin Dojo. 

The location of our dojo is at the centre of one of the oldest villages on the island, called Zejtun. In fact the premises we use is more then one hundred years old. As you can imagine it has been restored more then once. Once it was the St. Catherine Band Club. The hall we train in was once a  theatre. To the testimonial of this the screen and the park are still present. Also some of the chairs that were used at the time are still in an enough good condition to be used by the families of the students to sit down while they wait for their relatives.

It was founded in November 1996 as a part of School of Sports (Skola Sports), Marsa. This had to be done because the hall at Marsa was getting small for the amount of students that were attending. Also Mr. Damian Spiteri, at that time a student, helped a lot for the developing of the club in it's early stages. So a new facility was opened for those students that lived in the south of the island. An old theatre hall, situated at Zejtun, was chosen for this purpose. The Zejtun SCI club, as it was simply known in the beginning, stayed part of School of Sports for the following two years. During this time the dojo went from about thirty students to about ten. Many were the times that the dojo was almost closed due to various problems. The dojo mats were among the first mats that were used for SCI in Malta, which were donated by Kancho Adrian Axisa himself. They had to be restored to be able to be used again.

The first instructor was Kancho Adrian Axisa who baptized the dojo as SCI Aki-Ju-Jitsu. He stayed teaching there for about five to six months. Due to other activities he had to leave the dojo in the hands of Sensei Alison. Unfortunately the latter also did not stay for long teaching at Zejtun. Again she stayed for about another five to six months. Unfortunately only about half a dozen persons continued coming to the sessions. Providentially Sensei Lyndsey came to the rescue. At the time she was still a higher belt from another dojo. She offered to teach the student's till a black belt was available. She had to do so for about a year and a half till in 1998 Sensei Joanna was assigned from the association as the club instructor. 

The name was changed to Senshin Dojo. Under Sensei Joanna, the club began adding students again. I joined the club as her assistant somewhere along 1999. Sensei Joanna stayed as the club instructor for about two years. Then due to personal commitments she had to give up the club. The club was passed down to me, Sensei Kevin. Again the name was changed twice. First to Zenshin, then to the present name SCI Zanshin Dojo. Zanshin is Japanese for awareness. 

Since then I have been teaching there at least twice a week. At the present time the dojo caters for about twenty-five students which of whom twenty-two are regular students coming to every session. Also in the year 2001, the dojo produced it's first very own Black Belts. These are some of the original students of the dojo. Nowadays the dojo has two classes, one for the children between six to eleven and then for those from twelve upwards.  We have a matted area, three punching bags, a dozen focusing mitts and some Viking combat stuff for the kids. 

Sensei Kevin Saliba Competing in a Weapons Kata Competition

The future seems quite bright for our dojo. The number of students attending regularly is ever increasing. Apart from all this, in the past we had only an adult class, now we have both a junior and an adult one. Hopefully some day we will get a bigger premises so we can double the number of students, till then we will continue to do our best in every grading, competition and seminar.