Author Archives: Massimo Gaetani

CUKBS wins Varsity Kickboxing 2013

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(L to R) Kostas, Charlie, Tim, Maeve, Ollie, Konstantin, Phil and Massimo

CUKBS Varsity Team 2013

Yesterday we had a very exciting day when the Cambridge University Kickboxing Society (CUKBS) won, once more, the Varsity Kickboxing tournament against Oxford University Kickboxing.

After a smooth and relaxing trip to Oxford and a quick warm up we found ourselves with a bad start as two of our fighters were considerably over their stated weight and requested to forfeit by the organisers 🙁  We managed to compromise and get to an agreement by shuffling around a couple of our athletes to accommodate their requests.  So we started with one loss without even throwing a single punch that is less than ideal for morale and motivation.

The show started with two a demo fights; one between two Oxford University Kickboxing girls and one with our Maeve Doherty which resulted in a draw and did not contributed to the result.

The two opening fights were however a boost for morale for us all as they saw Tim Williamson, after a shy start, quickly developing a winning strategy based on many front kicks and good combinations of punching securing the first victory.

Charlie Samson also managed to impose his strategy based on long leading hook punches and nice kicks, winning the second point for Cambridge.

Phil Richardson, fighting an opponent 9 Kg heavier, as part of the rearrangement previously mentioned, managed to put together some nice combinations of punches but was simply outscored by an opponent whose strategy relied heavily on his weight advantage.

Kostas Ziovas, at his first external fight, managed to have a fairly balanced fight where his opponent had a reach and height advantage but Kostas compensated with footwork and good guard; at the end of the fight it was difficult to say who the winner was and the judges were of the same opinion, concluding this match with a draw result.

Konstantin Semeniuk, the most experienced fighter in the CUKBS team, took part in this Varsity match following a long period of absence from training due to illness and his performance were not as brilliant as we saw him in the past.  He began fairly slowly allowing his opponent to score a few times but then he increased the pace, started to impose his unique strategy based on fast double kicks with the same leg and scoring many times securing the third point for CUKBS.

Ollie Osunkunle, current vice-president of CUKBS, was in great shape and well prepared for the fight but a slightly taller opponent with an unusual style managed to score more points to Ollie than he managed to score back.  Ollie had a great control of the ring and offered a show that was very pleasant to watch but did not secure a victory.

Draws are no fun; both teams agreed on that.  After a long debated last minute decision we agreed for a rematch for Charlie against his original fighter, 5 Kg lighter than him.  Charlie previously fought over an hours before, all the adrenaline was gone and felt visibly tired; it took him lots of courage to step back into the ring for a deciding match but it was worth the effort.  Following an initial setback where Charlie got a couple strong punches that momentarily put him on the floor (and an official warning was issued for his opponent) he started to reapply his strategy based on long leading punches and kicks while putting maximum effort and concentration in holding a tight guard. Charlie managed to brilliantly win the final match and achieve the victory for the whole team.

It was great to receive, one fight after the other, compliments from both referee and judges about good style and consisted level of control demonstrated by all CUKBS fighters.

Yesterday we saw a great team work that brought the 3rd consecutive Varsity Kickboxing victory for CUKBS.   Congratulations to Maeve, Tim, Charlie, Phil, Kostas, Konstantin and Ollie that together contributed to this victory.  A great thank you to all members of CUKBS, ARUKBC and CARISMA which helped with training and preparation for these fighters as training sessions over the last few weeks were really much geared around this very event.  A super special thanks goes also to Duncan, Georgios, Heley, James and Jarek which all helped and contributed, with their expertise and efforts, to train and prepare these fighters.  Videos of the fights will follow in due course.

My fourth Dan grading

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Massimo4thDanHaving started practicing kickboxing in 1981 I could say that my approach to grading has been quite relaxed. Last Thursday, 21st Feb 2013, I finally passed my fourth Dan grading, a rank that many people achieve in their late twenties or early thirties and within 15 or so years of experience in one martial art. To some extent I was never too rushed into the next rank: it surely is a good recognition of personal achievements but it doesn’t bring to the bearer any better martial skills. In my opinion a rank is just a title and a way of comparing your experience and achievements with others. At the beginning of my experience I initially managed to skip a couple of ranks and qualified 3 Kyu (3 ranks from first Dan) within two years but it was not until 6 years later when I got my black belt I 1989. In my experience of late while the first and second Dan grading are still very much based around one’s personal performance there is a substantial shift in expectations from the third Dan and above.

The examiner, represented by Neville Wray (pictured on the right) current vice president of Wako GB and one of the top ranked kickboxers in UK, wants to see you running a class, the quality of your teaching and consequently the quality of student’s style, knowledge of technique and individual preparation. To some extent it is quite natural to expect that a person ranked third rank or above would be running a club or at least a class so the quality of their technique, as well as their teaching abilities can be measured by how well their team performs. In my case I was very pleased of having a nice and varied class of 36 people ranging between beginners with just a few weeks experience all the way to 4 black belt and 5 instructors. I did run our usual warm up, then split the class in two groups; I run the advanced group while one of my instructors took care of the lowers grades and beginners. During the first 40 minutes of techniques we displayed some combinations that are typical of the CARISMA curriculum, like fast double kicks with one leg, various applications of the axe kick and various situations of attack and defence. I then switched group and demonstrated how I teach some of the most basic techniques and postures to beginners. The whole class behaved, very much like in most classes but with a bit of extra discipline, like a single organism with people pausing and listening when I was explaining new techniques and then immediately performing the various combinations on my command. Naville first congratulated with me privately mentioning how good the class he saw was. He then announced to the class the successful result pointing out the quality of teaching and techniques he saw, how well everybody behaved and the fact that on a scale of 1 to 10 he would rank the technical skills at 11 🙂

I am very pleased of having finally reached my fourth Dan; it was particularly interesting to see my pictures tagged on Facebook receiving many congratulation comments and a large number of Likes from friends located all over the world. I do not feel I am a much better martial artist then I was on Thurs morning… but it surely feels good 🙂 Now it’s time to start thinking fifth Dan.

CARISMA Town vs. Gown 2013 – the results

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TG2010We had a great show on Saturday 16 February at the CARISMA Town vs. Gown Kickboxing 2013; I was particularly proud to see the variety of experiences and ages in the show that all contributed to a great result.  Here is the summary of fights and club scores:

ARUKBC: 0 win, 3 loss: 3 points
CARISMA: 7 win, 6 loss: 27 points (winners)
CUKBS: 6 win, 7 loss: 25 points

And here the list of all fights with respective winner:

Club Fighter Club Fighter Winner
CA Yiwen Hon vs. CA Natasha Taylor Natasha
CA Ksenia Titorenko vs. CU Maeve Doherty Ksenia
CA Saniya Patil vs. CA Penka Petrova Penka
CU Tim Williamson vs. CU Kostas Ziovas Tim
CU Naz Paudyhal vs. AR Andy Martin Naz
CU Charlie Samson vs. AR Pavel Solomein Charlie
CU Raz Jabary vs. CA Simone Masiero Raz
CU Samuel Dahan vs. CA Alex Kaus Alex
CU Isaac Elliott vs. CA Theo Morton Theo
CU Joe Bates vs. CU Anton Marusenko Joe
CU Matt Clarkson vs. CA Alexey Kravets Alexey
CU Alex Elliott vs. CA Felix Schmitten Felix
AR Yasmeen Mansour vs. CU Francesca Benzi Francesca

Many of the fighters entering this competition had just a few months of experience as they joined their respective clubs in September or October 2012.  All fights were well balanced and a few of the athletes have surprised us with performance beyond their usual standards.  It takes a lot of courage to train, get ready and step into a ring for the first time so a big well done to everybody fighting in this edition of Town vs. Gown, particularly those at their first experience.  Videos and pictures to follow.

Training kickboxing while maintaining low injury rate

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Image courtesy and copyright Duncan Grisby

Image courtesy and copyright Duncan Grisby

Martial arts are mostly designed and conceived as fighting systems. Fighting is about hurting other people so it is about delivering intense blows to another person; anybody training realistically risks hurting or getting hurt during sessions. Some styles like Judo were in fact conceived to reduce the risk of injuries by removing the most dangerous techniques from its ancestor: Ju Jitsu. Other styles limit the teaching and practicing of dangerous techniques to advanced students or simply avoid full contact training or sparring. Realistically speaking training with a certain level of contact and impact is necessary for anyone competing at full but also light contact level.

Training “full on” and maintaining a safe training environment creates a dilemma that troubles many martial arts clubs and some of them take one position in the spectrum of the impact vs. safety curve: some on the safe and sometimes unrealistic, particularly for those who want to use martial arts for self defence while others take it to an extreme and have a very high number of injuries some times serious ones. Kickboxing and many other styles that are practiced wearing pads offer the advantage of covering some of the “weapons” like fists and feet so that they ensure a safer training practice. In my experience of over 3 decades of training Kickboxing I definitely seen many incidents but, considering that we spend several hours per week kicking and punching each other, often at full power, the number of serious damages is negligible. In the over 13 years I have been running CARISMA, I can remember very few (3-4) broken noses, a few broken or cracked ribs (less then 10), a couple of swollen feet and very recently a broken foot. We obviously have the occasional, once per month or less, black eye and regular bruises, mostly on the arms when people receive attacks and block with their guard. All in all I am sure we are safer than most football or rugby club.

Some Kickboxing clubs spend most of their times hitting focusing mitts and Thai pads; that a great way of practicing power while minimising the risk of injuries. Personally I am a strong believer in one-2-one training combining attack and defence techniques and combinations that emulate the sparring environment. I find that pad work is mostly conditioning body and mind to simply face a passive opponent that invites you to hit a target. The pair training also helps improving defence reflexes together with blocking and parrying skills.

In my experience a proven formula to ensure a safe full contact training environment is to teach people to actively block the attacks they are subject to by using active blocks and parries rather than passively accepting blows on their guard. This last strategy is taught as the last resource that people should use when in extreme difficulty. When teaching blocks to beginners we always start from the technique with bare hands to show the exact mechanical movement involved and how to minimize the impact on one’s body while deflecting as much and possible the forces rather than absorbing them onto his/her own body. Then, when gloves are worn, they add extra safety to the whole situation and further minimise the risk of bruises and scratches. Many thousand repetitions later all movements become instinctive and automatic and they can work even at full speed and power. Sparring obviously increases the risk of incidents and injuries but, once more, if students have very clear ideas about precise blocking the whole process becomes as safe as it can be although never 100% incident free.

Training when injured

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Alex training with a broken footThere is quite common saying, in traditional martial arts schools, when you hurt one of your hands or feet: “you have another hand and two feet, you can still fight!”

In today’s world of health & safety regulations and “better safe than sorry” attitude many people in position of responsibility, like doctors, instructors, teachers or lawyers tend to default toward a safe behaviour when unsure: stop training and rest until healed.

If I followed this rule I would have probably trained about a third of the total time I actually did.  When training martial arts (but also other contact sports) injuries do happen, however careful and safe you play.  Injuries sometimes occur even during simple drills or exercises, not necessarily during the toughest part of training such as sparring.

Pain exists to remind us that what we are doing is not right for our body and we should really listen to our body; training while ignoring pain could be dangerous and deteriorate the injured part with the risk of causing permanent damages.  At the same time there are safe ways of training when injured by using the body parts that don’t hurt so that you keep training them and avoid contact with the injured part.

An extreme case of this behaviour is Alex who recently broke a bone in hit foot by slipping while sparring; although with the foot in a hard cast he kept attending our classes doing stretching, press ups and abdominal exercises so to keep up with fitness and flexibility.  At some point as you can see in this video below he was even punching the bag while seated.

In over 30 years of training I was lucky enough to avoid any seriously broken bones (apart from a little toe a couple of years ago) but every time I bruised, mildly dislocated joints or strained muscles on one side of my body I kept training with the other side improving the total symmetry of my techniques.