My name is Mark Mikita. I am the owner and chief instructor of The Mikita School of Martial Art in Los Angeles, California. While the school has moved around a bit over the years, it has been in continuous operation since 1978... even during the recent unpleasantness.

As an acknowledged master teacher and ambassador of the Filipino martial arts (FMA), teaching is not only my profession, it is my calling. I care very deeply about students. They are the future of FMA and, as such, I take it as my duty to raise the bar and give them the very best educational experience I can. It is a debt I owe to my teachers who did the same for me.

My beloved father, Robert Mikita, was a lifer in the military and fought in the Philippines during WWII. When I became interested in the martial arts as a boy, it was he who steered me to seek out and train in the fighting arts used so effectively by the intrepid and often barefoot Filipino guerrillas that led him and his fellow soldiers into the jungle, in pursuit of the Japanese. As my first true teacher, he taught me that teaching was, first and foremost, a tremendous responsibility.

So, it is in that spirit that I appeal for help in creating a new school.

After nearly two years of searching and touring potential school spaces, with the much-appreciated help of my dedicated students, we have finally found a modest little space in Culver City, a suburb of Los Angeles, that will serve very nicely as a school.

Over the years, I’ve found that I actually favor relatively small schools as I prefer to teach in a speaking voice. Moreover, the Filipino martial arts are often referred to as “direct-transmission” arts, meaning that, to learn them properly, you really must touch hands directly with the teacher. It’s all and only about quality.

On a side note, many martial arts instructors will be quick to point out how many students they have, as if enrollment numbers equate to the quality of their teaching skill. I rather think a better Litmus test of quality teaching (not to mention depth and breadth of knowledge) is to see how many students they have that have been training with them for twenty years or more. In my school, there have been many... perhaps the most well-known of which was author Joe Hyams, a former private student of Bruce Lee.

Back to the point, the students have pulled together to make it possible for us to move into this new space. They’ve pooled funds to cover move-in expenses but there’s still some build-out to be done to make it a functional training space.

That’s where a gofundme fundraiser came up as an idea.

By the way, for those of you who felt my pain when I had to paint over the extensive mural I did in the old school space, this new space has a perfect wall for a mural, so expect to see one evolve as we go forward.

Raw numbers... While we could certainly use more, after getting estimates from contractors, I’m setting the goal for this campaign at $9,000.

Not a penny of that will be spent on training equipment.

I have plenty of equipment stored in my garage from the old school. My veritable museum of historical and cultural artifacts will go to the new space as well.

This fundraiser is all about getting the very minimal build-out done so we can get to training.

I humbly ask for your help.