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A dozen reasons for training at CARISMA

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rp_busyclass-300x203.jpgCARISMA has been around for over 16 years and over this long time we have been training thousands of people from all walks of life, both male and females aged from early teens to mid-sixties.  Many of the people who moved on, for one reason or another, keep writing back about how much they miss CARISMA and how unique this Cambridge based club is.  I thought it’s a good idea to list, for those of you who don’t know us yet, why you should join us at your first chance:

  1. Wealth of knowledge and experience: CARISMA is run by 7 instructors between head coach, instructors and assistant instructors. Most of them have been with the club 10 years or longer and they currently have combined martial arts experience of 100+ years.
  2. Four classes per week included in your monthly fee allow great flexibility for training very busy people as most of our members are.
  3. Calculated on 4 sessions per week our fees cost you between £1.61 and £2.19 per session.
  4. We specialise in American kickboxing as well as we understand, know and teach basic concepts or other martial arts and self-defence.
  5. Beginners are taught, nurtured and taken care of, allowing them to learn in a very safe environment.
  6. While we are constantly encouraging people to push their training beyond their comfort zone we do respect and accept that not everybody wants to be a fighter.
  7. The considerable number of advanced people we have in house is enough to match the more experienced new comers who are looking for a real challenge in their training.
  8. Our equal opportunity policy is encouraging the less skilled ones while rewarding the talented and committed.
  9. Members of CARISMA belong to a great variety of age range, weights, body sizes, experiences, nationalities and genders: you are likely to meet several people who match your style and preference of training.
  10. Apart from training many local residents who work in Cambridge we are the official coaching body for both the university of Cambridge kickboxing society (CUKBS) and Anglia Ruskin university kickboxing club (ARUKBC).
  11. We are a non-profit organisation so our fees keep the club running rather than paying salaries.
  12. CARISMA is a fun bunch and there are frequent informal events like drinks after training as well as regular social events like summer BBQ and Xmas dinner.

Just to conclude: CARISMA is the place for you to train in Cambridge.  Whether you are a beginner interested in learning the basics or an advanced looking for your next fighting challenge you should join us and you will find a stimulating environment to foster your passion.

 

Slow start after long breaks

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With 15+ years of history CARISMA has trained thousands of people which joined us, trained with us for some time and then, for various reasons, left us. It happens once in a while that somebody who left months or years before decides to come back which is always appreciated from our side.

I decided to write this post about prescribing a slow start for people who rejoin a martial arts club in general, CARISMA specifically. It was inspired by four former members of our club that during the last year have decided to re-join us and, not following my suggestions, gave up within a few weeks. The idea of slow start after long breaks is something that everybody should apply, whether you have been on a long holiday, took a sabbatical or moved temporarily away from training.

Let’s start from the beginning of someone’s training history, which might be similar to yours; you were feeling unfit or looking for a new challenge and decided to join our club. At CARISMA we welcome beginners from all walks of life, within a very broad range of ages and backgrounds. The majority of people joining us are not as fit as they would like; most of them are not as fit as they should be in order to perform at our average level of expected speed, power and accuracy. Upon joining most people experience a more or less steady progress toward fitness and proficiency which may be eventually reaching a peak or a plateau within a few years.

At that point you feel nicely fit, able to perform most exercises without struggling too much; if you are never struggling you are not pushing hard enough. Some training might be more challenging on power, others on endurance; others might push your skills to their limit. I hope it sounds familiar because that’s the way our training regime is designed to deliver. A continuous challenge that explorers all aspects of training martial arts, with the aim of creating a well round martial artist.

Imagine now that for some reason you stop training martial arts; if you are reasonably active person you might keep running, swimming, cycling or going to the gym. Your physical and cardiovascular fitness perhaps doesn’t drop that much and you still feel you can go back and pick up your martial arts training where you left it; here is where disappointment starts, for three main reasons:

  • Your mind still remembers pretty well most moves as they should be performed. Your muscles might have lost some reactivity or that level of flexibility which allowed you to block a fast attack, punch somebody and surprise them or kick to someone’s head.
  • Some of the people you still know at the club have progressed a great deal; some of them were just beginners when you left a year or so ago and now they are fit, fast and wining fights. You were used to nearly play with them, now they do the same with you and that’s very frustrating.
  • The two above reasons cause you to get hit more than you were used to and when you get hit it hurts more than you remember. That escalates de-motivation and often causes people to leave within weeks.

The simple solution to the problems described above is to manage your expectations and adopt the “slow start after long breaks” approach that is far from super scientific but it helps to avoid the above described situations.

Never mind you were an intermediate or a black belt: accept it will take some time to get back into shape by following these rules:

  • Give yourself 4-8 weeks; during that period you will accept your performance will be suboptimal
  • Approach each exercise at 50%-70% expected performance; don’t even try to achieve full 100% so you won’t be disappointed by the fact that you cannot
  • If you are training with partners try to find people which are either less experienced than you, lighter than you or both; training with them will not push you beyond a threshold that will show your reduced performance

Depending on your specific genetics you might catch up in a shorter time or perhaps a bit longer but managing your expectations and be realistic with your achievements will help you to get back in shape and keep enjoying your training.

A dignified approach to sparring beginners

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Image Copyright and courtesy of Duncan Grisby

Image Copyright and courtesy of Duncan Grisby

A couple of weeks ago I was having a chat with a friend who started white collar boxing in a local Cambridge club late last year.  He described his first day in that club in a way that many would depict as a horrifying experience. He was asked to enter the ring to spar with 5 established, fit and trained athletes from that gym, just to see “what he’s got”.  Result was, unsurprisingly, that he had a black eye and bruised nose.  In my opinion the above described event could indeed be a good approach to check who really has the guts to step into a ring without necessarily being prepared for that kind of confrontation; it’s also a great way of losing, by the dozens, potentially good students and future promising fighters, by discouraging them to continue training.

As a martial artist and a coach I find this kind of attitude very much old school and outdated; I like to teach, instil and apply what we could define as a dignified approach to sparring beginners, a methodology that encourages a novice student to starts her first steps into sparring without unnecessary risks of getting hurt.

Sparring is about putting in practice what technical lessons are teaching: techniques, combinations, foot work, attacking, defending and blocking; it all gets mixed together at fast pace and without precise order.  At first this is all very confusing and often overwhelming; for some people sparring triggers nearly irrational violent instincts while others simply freeze and get frustrated, feeling incapable of delivering decent performance.

We must assume that any decent martial arts club will have a bunch of senior students and members who are skilled in sparring and fit for fighting.  Some of them are perhaps competing at local, regional or national level.  These people have both the skill and the fitness to potentially hurt, seriously hurt, a beginner if just they wanted to.  However it makes very little sense to do that; I educate all of my students to avoid exploiting the advantage they have on beginners.

A dignified approach to sparring beginners is simply about setting your skills at a level that is slightly better than the beginner you are training with and showing her how you can score on them starting from a fairly soft level of contact.  Pressure of contact can and should be increased as and when applicable.  This methodology ensures that the advanced student is winning the round and maintains its technical superiority while it offers a list of advantages to both people sparring:

  • Better control of the fight
  • Reduced risk of injuries from both sides
  • Fostering an increasing self confidence for the beginners that ultimately helps to improve her technique and sparring skills

In some cases the dignified approach to sparring beginners becomes difficult to maintain because:

  • The beginner is learning and progressing a lot faster than expected and her techniques from one session to the other improves to a much better point
  • The beginner builds up a false illusion that her sparring skills are now sufficient to put in difficulty the advance student
  • The beginner gets enraged and starts hitting without any control

In the above cases we usually approach the problem with a few words of advice; if the beginners still misbehaves out of logical control we suggest increasing the pressure until it is enough to win the round and educate her.

So if you are a beginner you can be assured that your first sparring sessions will not be traumatic and testing what “you have got” but be aware that there are usually many people in the club that can potentially harm you so respect for your opponent is always a must.

Enjoying the British weather so far

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2013-07-21 18.50.27When CARISMA started, back in 1999, we were very often training in the beautiful parks of Cambridge, mostly Jesus Green.  That kind of a tradition has been kept over the years and we sometimes use parks when, for random reasons, some of our venues becomes unavailable and the weather is nice.  We also book all Sunday lessons for the summer (usually the whole July and August) to be run outside in one of the parks and, just if the weather is not good, we book at the last minute an available room for the day.

This year we have been lucky: so far all of the (5) Sundays we managed to train outside, enjoying the lovely weather and the sun.  If you have not tried yet please make sure you join us at one of our next Sunday lessons before end of August.  Here are a few pictures of the lessons we run:

Kickboxing for stress and exams

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OllieOsunkunleOlaoluwakitan ‘Ollie’ Osunkunle (pictured here with his belt representing the national title he won in May 2013) is a CARISMA member who is leaving us this month after training very hard and regularly for 6 years.  Ollie joined us when he first started studying at the University of Cambridge for his medical degree which he achieved last month.  In 6 years with us he won several fights against various university teams as well in open regional and national competitions and he was awarded a 1st Dan black belt just a couple of weeks before his medical degree.  In his latest fight, weeks before his final exams, he won a national title.

One thing I often pointed out as a remark to his dedication was the consistency of his training regardless of the time of the year; he was one of the few university students that kept training during exam terms so I asked him to write a short article where he describes in his own words the experience of studying hard for a very demanding degree and, at the same time, train hard to be ready to fight at national level.  Here is his article:

            7 am. I fling myself bolt upright in bed. Letting out a great yawn, I do some simple stretches as I try to clear my mind for the day ahead. One day left. This is it. After six years of medical school; dissecting dead bodies; chemistry practicals and endless exams. This is it. My final exam before I hopefully earn the right to call myself doctor.

I sit at my desk and read through my list of tasks for the day ahead, there is only one decision left to make. “6.30pm → Kickboxing – sparring training”, can I make it? Of course, now let me explain why.

I studied medicine in Cambridge University. During my exam periods I kept my exercise routine as near to normal as possible. During the couple of months prior to my exams, I took part in the Oxford vs. Cambridge varsity match, won a national kickboxing competition and achieved my black belt in kickboxing. These achievements are by no means out of the ordinary and I know many other students that have kept up far more extensive sports participation.

I believe that there are a few key reasons why people give up on their exercise routines in the run-up to a major exam. Firstly, the threat of the impending exam causes the body to enter into a state of stress. In this state, people stop working to achieve their goals and instead struggle desperately to relieve themselves of their stress. Spending hours sat in front of study books is one such technique to relieve stress. However, those hours spent are often in excess of what is productive. A change is as good as a rest.

Secondly, with a prepared study plan and objectives to achieve before the exam, one might believe that there is simply not enough time to study and exercise in the same day. The disease of “time excusitis”. However, for most people, this is simply not the case. Working more efficiently: smarter rather than harder allows ample time for exercise in one’s day. Application of key principles such as Pareto’s law, commonly known as the 80/20 rule allows one to reduce the amount of material to learn. After all, 80% of the key information to learn will be covered in 20% of the available materials. Combined with Parkinson’s law, known as the law of forced efficiency, reducing the amount of time you have available to study forces you to focus on only the most relevant and high-yield data. Taking time out to kickbox helps you study smarter.

Thirdly, there is the worry of the biological effects that kickboxing may have on your body. After all, you may worry: “won’t I be too tired to study if I spend all my energy exercising?” Fortunately, the reverse is usually true. Exercise acts as a great stress reliever. Whilst a small amount of stress improves performance, large amounts have been shown to be detrimental to performance (1). In addition, exercise has been shown to improve memory, a great benefit prior to exams! (2)

So the next time you’re contemplating spending an extra hour in front of the books or heading to class, pick up your gloves and remember that there’s really only one correct choice to make. Punch away.

1.    L P. Emotionality and the Yerkes-Dodson Law. J Exp Psychol. 1957;54(5):345–52.

2.    Stroth S, Hille K, Spitzer M, Reinhardt R. Aerobic endurance exercise benefits memory and affect in young adults. Neuropsychol Rehabil. 2009;19(2):223–43.