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CUKBS wins against Loughborough University

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Another great result for the Cambridge University Kickboxing Society (CUKBS) winning 6-2 against the Loughborough University Kickboxing club.  Held in Cambridge on Sunday 18 November the challenge saw a display of great skills and sportsmanship with an undisputed victory for the Cambridge team.  All bouts were 3 x 2 minutes according to the WAKO Light Continuous rules, with 1 referee and 3 judges from the Wako GB team. Here is a breakdown of the fights:

  • Cenan Djenan (CUKBS, 66Kg) vs. Max Meisterman (65Kg) was an unfortunate opening bout for Cambridge; Max started very aggressively scoring several points. Cenan, already in a disadvantaged position, managed to injure his ankle by the end of the first round and was forced to stop the fight as he could not stand on the very painful foot.
  • Tim Williamson (CUKBS, 68Kg) vs. Steve Millward (70Kg) was the first win for the Cambridge team; Tim, at his third fight, managed to pace himself with good combinations of both punches and kicks and simply outscored Steve.
  • Daphne Tsalli (CUKBS, 60Kg) vs. Daniela Bright (58Kg): Daphne, strong of her footwork and boxing skills, managed to spot a few weaknesses in Daniela’s guard, particularly at short range fight and secured the second victory for CUKBS.
  • Charlie Samson (CUKBS, 67Kg) vs. Zen Lee (70Kg): here we saw Zen immediately showing great skills and broad variety of good punches and kick that was quite obviously outscoring Charlie, who was at his first fight.  The fight managed however  to be well controlled and finished with a clear win for Zen bringing the second and last victory for Loughborough.
  • Samuel Dahan (CUKBS, 72Kg) vs. Andrew Smith (68Kg): this was a debut fight in kickboxing for two very experienced Tae Kwon Do (TKD) practitioners.  Samuel is 1st dan black belt in TKD, with over 10 years experience; Andrew is 2nd Dan in the same discipline so we expected a fight mostly based on kicks.   By the end of the first round it was pretty obvious that Andrew was not handling well pressure from punches so Samuel adjusted his strategy and managed to dominate his opponent with a close range strategy.  Being Tao Kwon Do a full time sport this bout attracted many warning and a near disqualification for excess of contact.
  • Ollie Osunkunle (CUKBS, 87Kg) vs. Rhys Morris: a very well matched bout with both fighters having similar weight and experience.  Ollie managed to dominate Rhys with very effective footwork, control of the ring area and good combinations of punches and kicks.
  • Alex Kaus (CUKBS, 77Kg) vs. Christopher Radcliffe (75Kg): in this bout we saw at the beginning Christopher landing quite a few punches through Alex’s guard.  At the same time it was obvious that Alex’s kick would land and score points most times so changing strategy toward a long range fight helped Alex to secure the match point.
  • Konstantin Semeniuk (CUKBS, 83Kg) vs. Martin Morgan (78Kg); another fight between athletes with over 10 years of experience.  Martin had a very aggressive start charging Konstantin and pushing him around the ring.  Within a few tens of second Konstantin started to ramp up his pace putting together some of his super fast combinations with double kicks from the same leg.  Then, in a blink of a eye, he threw a very controlled right hook that hit Martin in the right (or shall we say wrong) spot on his jaw, putting him KO.  The referee declared Martin unable to continue the fight and confirmed the final victory for Cambridge setting the score to 6-2.

Once more CUKBS, coached by CARISMA’s team of instructors and coaches, has gained another victory against a fellow university club, displaying a clear technical expertise and in depth preparation.  More pictures of the fight (courtesy and copyright of Duncan Grisby) are available at this page.  Videos of the bouts will be available soon.

 

Varsity 2012: winners!

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(L to R) Front Row: Daphne, Cenan, Isaac, Omar; Mid Row: Alex K., Tim, Konstantin; Back Row: Heley (Varsity Coach), Alex E., Massimo (Head Coach), Ollie

Cambridge University Kickboxing Society won yesterday the 5th Kickboxing Varsity match vs. Oxford University Kickboxing Club for a final result of 5-4!

Here is the final fight card with the winners:

Club Fighter Club Fighter Winner
CU Cenan Djenan vs. OX Ben Todd Cenan
CU Daphne Tsalli vs. OX Leah Atherton Daphne
CU Tim Williamson vs. OX Salomon Roberts Salomon
CU Konstantin Semeniuk vs. OX Pawel Grzechnik Konstantin
CU Ollie Osunkunle vs. OX Chris Hinchcliffe Chris
CU Alex Kaus vs. OX Felix Brown Alex
CU Isaac vs. OX Dan Osborne Dan
CU Alex Elliott vs. OX Alistair Mitchell Alex
CU Omar Hussien vs. OX Stefane Roux Stefane

I was proud of the final result although the Oxford athletes performed well and in this occasion demonstrated a distinct improvement of their technique pushing our athletes into some seriously tough fights.

It was a pleasure finishing the day in a very friendly way with the whole Oxford team and good part of our fighters at a local bar for some well deserved beers.

More details, videos, pictures and so on will follow in the next few days.

Christmas Dinner 2011

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Another year is about to finish and again many of us thought it was a good idea to go out and celebrate.  Here are some of the pictures that Duncan (who has full copyright on these pictures and let us kindly using them) took on the night; more are available on his site:

CARISMAtic Cambridge Kickboxers enjoy victory over Bath

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A combined team from Cambridge University Kickboxing Society (CUKBS) and Anglia Ruskin University Kickboxing Club (ARUKBC) defeated Bath University by four fights to three with one draw on Thursday evening; both teams are coached by CARISMA a martial arts club established in Cambridge for over 12 year, represented by its head coach Massimo Gaetani.

The event, held in Bath, was attended by approximately seven hundred spectators, and included half time entertainment from Bath University dancing groups and a pre-event cheerleading display.

The first fight was between Nikos Konstanidis (ARUKBC) and James Boxall (Bath). Konstanidis counterpunched well against a determined opponent, landing a number of good shots to the head. In the end he was unlucky to only be awarded a draw by the judges.

The next three fights all went to Cambridge with wins for Julius Bušauskas (CUKBS), Daphne Tsalli (CUKBS) and Georgios Evangelinos (ARUKBC). Fighting against Bušauskas was Dom Parfitt, a Cambridge local (and CARISMA student during summer months) studying at Bath. Parfitt did well in the opening exchanges, troubling Bušauskas with some good punching combinations. As the fight went on however Bušauskas’ speed and kicking ability began to tell as he landed a series of impressive strikes to the head. Daphne Tsalli performed particularly well in what was her first fight, dominating her match throughout with some excellent punches. Evangelinos also did well in his fight against Robert Dinsey, Bath’s most experienced fighter. Dinsey worked hard but was mostly unable to find a way through Evangelinos guard and had no response to some excellent punching combinations.

Bath fought back however and won the next two fights against Cambridge kickboxers Tim Williamson (CUKBS) and Alex Elliott (CUKBS), both of whom were fighting for the first time. Williamson fought bravely but couldn’t quite do enough to take the decision against a good opponent. Taking on Elliott was Bath Captain Chris Harvey. Elliott struggled early on in the fight, finding it difficult to deal with the speed and movement of his more experienced opponent. He did have some good moments as the fight went on however, getting Harvey against the ropes on a number of occasions with some determined boxing. Unfortunately in the end that was not enough and the judges’ decision went the way of the Bath fighter.

Next in the ring was CUKBS vice-president Ollie Osunkunle (CUKBS), taking on Bath University Kickboxing Club Chairman André John. Osunkunle fought an impressive fight and emerged as the clear winner, with John unable to deal with his speed and power.

Last up for Cambridge was Alex Kaus (CUKBS), fighting against Ahmed Suleiman. This was a closely contested match with both fighters landing some good shots. In the end it was the Bath man who came out on top however, after doing just enough to secure the judges decision.

Overall the night was very successful for the Cambridge team; for the first time CUKBS and ARUKBC were joint against a third opponent and all fighters performed well and gaining valuable experience in the ring.

Change of venue from November 16th 2010

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From November 16th 2010 all Tuesday and Thursday training sessions will change location to the Fenners Gallery, Kelsey Kerridge.

Those who train on Sundays will be familiar with the Fenners Gallery as the winter-time and “bad weather” venue for Sunday training. For those not familiar with the Fenners Gallery, it can be found on the floor above the reception area.

The Fenners Gallery is considerably larger and better ventilated than the two rooms we presently use, and is equipped with full-length mirrors along one wall, which are useful for solo technique training.

CARISMA at The Martial Arts Show 2010 – video

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CARISMA was invited to take part in two demonstrations of Kickboxing and Multicombat at the The Martial Arts Show that was held at the NEC in Birmingham on 22 and 23 May 2010.

TMAS, one of the most important exhibitions of martial arts in Europe, was a great celebration of all martial arts with many workshops, demonstration, competitions and exhibition stands. CARISMA had the opportunity to run two demonstrations at TMAS so a group of members was selected to prepare and perform the short demonstrations that could synthesize the whole essence of our training in just a few minutes and a handful of combinations.

Please have a look at the video:

A big thank you to Georgios Evengelinos, Aaron Lewis, Philip Richardson and Marcia Spoelder for their time and effort to help with the success of these demonstrations. A video of the event is being edited and it will be available soon.

Former instructor of CARISMA win her first full contact fight

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Rebecca Strange, former member and instructor at CARISMA moved to Italy in 2007 after spending five years training and teaching with the club.

Rebecca, 32, managed to continue her training after moving to Milan and kept progressing in her skills until she was recently offered to fight in her first full bout that we won last Saturday 4 June.

Given her high standard of proficiency she was allowed to keep her original grade of 1st Kyu gained from CARISMA in 2006 and she also was offered to grade for her 1st Dan black belt that she completed over the same week end.

Rebecca was very happy for the results and she commented “I am obviously really pleased to have won my first fight here in Milan, particularly since my opponent put up a great fight. The black belt the following day was really the icing on the cake and something I have been looking forward to for a long time. However, the EU championships will be the really big test and I certainly have a lot of training to do before then!”.

Massimo Gaetani, Head Coach and founder of CARISMA added “I am very proud the complete recognition that one of our martial artist managed to receive in a different school and country: Rebecca was a promising student with lots of determination and natural talent when I first saw her in 2002 and I am delighted of her great achievements”.   Rebecca added “although I have been focussing my training more on the full-contact style recently, Massimo Gaetani and Chris Home from CARISMA take a very large part of the credit for having got me this far. No other club I’ve trained at seems to concentrate so much on the essential technical kicking skills.”

The whole of the CARISMA club will be happy to celebrate Rebecca’s achievement the very next time she’ll be visiting Cambridge that we hope will be soon.

CARISMA at The Martial Arts Show 2010

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CARISMA was invited to take part in two demonstrations of Kickboxing and Multicombat at the The Martial Arts Show that was held at the NEC in Birmingham on 22 and 23 May 2010.

TMAS, one of the most important exhibitions of martial arts in Europe, was a great celebration of all martial arts with many workshops, demonstration, competitions and exhibition stands.  CARISMA had the opportunity to run two demonstrations at TMAS so a group of members was selected to prepare and perform a short demonstration that could synthesize the whole essence of our training in just a few minutes and a handful of combinations.

Massimo Gaetani, president and Head Coach of CARISMA (in the this picture, on the left, with Kwoklyn Wan the organiser of TMAS) commented the event: “we are very pleased to have the privilege of being among the clubs running demonstration at TMAS and thanks to our joint effort we delivered a good show”

A big thank you to Georgios Evengelinos, Aaron Lewis, Marcia Spoelder for their time and effort to help with the success of these demonstrations.  A video of the event is being edited and it will be available soon.