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.

If there was any semblance of a silver lining to the Covid-19 pandemic for my school, it was that my lease came up for renewal the same week the pandemic hit. We had been in that particular space for nine years and I was all set to sign on for another 3-year term when, as it most likely did for you, everything just stopped.

As it became clear that the restrictions and lockdowns that prevented us from using the space at all weren’t going to be lifted any time soon, my landlord (a terrific old guy whom I remain in contact with) informed me that he was going to sell the building and that, if and when we could get back into the space, it would be on a month-to-month agreement.

While that might seem acceptable and even preferable to some, I knew that, in the nine years I was there, the commercial rental rates in the immediate vicinity had shot up significantly and were much higher than I was paying. The looming probability that a new owner would want to “adjust” my rent accordingly combined with the fact that we were, at the time, training outside in the parking lot (in February) prompted me to go searching for a viable alternative.

Of course, with the pandemic raging, no commercial spaces were being leased. Everything was shut down. So, I adjusted my sights and went looking for a house that might have a garage or an addition of some sort that I could turn into a school. As luck would have it, I found one that was less than a mile from the commercial space.

To be sure, the ceiling height in the addition was far from optimal for weapons training (I can put my palm on the joists without needing to stretch at all). And at just slightly over 300 square feet, class size was going to be severely limited.

Still, we made do and I spent quite a lot of time and energy turning that very minimal space into a pretty great little school. I’ve had many a class in that little room with 12-14 people training. Everybody got that it wasn’t perfect but we were all in the same boat, so the group pulled together and made the best of it.

In fact, I must say the experience and the relative hardship of essentially losing the old space and having to literally compress our classes into a little low-ceiling box actually brought the students much closer together as a family or tribe. That unexpected benefit has truly been the most gratifying silver lining of all.

Anyway, why am I writing this gofundme fundraising appeal? Good question.

My students and I made the best of a lousy situation, as millions of people had to do. It’s been five years since we moved into this little space, though, since 2020, and it’s high time we got back into a commercial space with enough square footage and ceiling height to really train to our fullest. The small (read: microscopic) space in the back of the house has served us well but the curriculum was necessarily limited. I couldn’t have people smashing into the walls when they held a kicking shield and long staff training was never even an option.

Most importantly, though, the educational experience for the student was... narrowed, constricted... if not nearly suffocated.

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.