Michaela Meade
A former Olympian and Epping local is sharing his wealth of judo knowledge with the community’s youngsters, with the help of his wife.
Dennis Iverson and his wife Natalie own and operate iJudo Club, and said sharing his own experience as an Olympian and Commonwealth Games coach to inspire others spawned the idea for the club.
“Dedicating the majority of someone’s life for an Olympic sport, with the vision of making it to the Olympics one day, is no doubt a journey that is loaded with experiences and those experiences we wanted to share with young and aspiring people in our community,” Mr Iverson said.
“We wanted to build not just a club filled with people who were eager to explore the wide variety of possibilities Judo could give them, but a community, a family of people who are passionate about Judo, feel a sense of belonging to something, a safe place to take risks, an environment to learn new knowledge and skills and achieve success.”
Mr Iverson said maintaining the family feel of the club has been challenging during Melbourne’s numerous COVID-19 lockdowns.
“Our journey during the pandemic has been filled with ups and downs, but the one constant is our iJudo community,” he said.
“We tried to maintain the community bond using online tools, reaching out to individuals, catering for their needs and requirements.
“Our members, their families and the love of this Olympic sport are our source of strength and our biggest motivators.”
Mr Iverson said the community at the club had found ways to stay “strong and connected” through the lockdowns.
“You harvest what you sow, despite our relatively young age (as a club), our investment in the community has paid off in these tough times,” he said.
“Despite being through six lockdowns, the day we are allowed back, we always had all our patrons back.”
