JudoCrazy E-Mag (December) | Page 36

Life after competition

Neil retired from judo competition after the 1988 Seoul Olympic Games. After several years working outside the judo scene, in 1995 he took on the role of British Junior Men’s team manager. It was also around then that he started doing art seriously.

Norway

In March 2014, Neil unexpectedly received an e-mail from a friend asking him to apply for a judo position in the west of Norway. At the time, Neil had again drifted away from the judo scene – he was working for children’s services in Cumbria – and was itching to get back into it.

Neil is currently head of the regional program in Judoregion West in Norway and is the coach at Sandnes Judo Club. He also works at a sports school called WANG in Stavanger.

“What interested me was the fact it was both a club and regional level position,” he says. “It’s given me the opportunity to develop my own program which has been successfully implemented over the last two years. We now have cadet, junior and senior programs that links nicely into the Norwegian national programme.”

Art

Neil has been doing art professionally for two decades now, although his interest in art dates back from when he was a kid. “Due to my dyslexia I was drawn to art at a very early age, it allowed me to express myself without the constraints of the written word,” he says.

As an international competitor he travelled to many places for competition or training. On his days off, he would always make a point to visit art galleries wherever he was. “Visiting the galleries was a kind of relief from the day-to-day pressures of being an elite athlete,” he says.

Neil became serious about art when his family experienced the tragic sudden loss of his elder brother. It was a way for him to cope with the grief and to create something positive after suffering a personal tragedy.

Today he is part of an organisation called Art of the Olympians (AOTO) which uses the art to express Olympic ideals and value. Its members consists of former Olympians and Paralympians. Neil has held successful art exhibitions in the UK, France, Norway and most recently, in Hong Kong.

Neil Eckersley gets his 7th Dan in 2015. With him are 10th Dan George Kerr (left) and World Champion Neil Adams (right).