CARISMA at MAF-UK 2009

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CARISMA has been invited to take part in two demonstrations of Kickboxing and Multicombat at the Martial Arts Festival UK that will be held in Leicester on 4 and 5 April 2009.

The Festival will have a section with exhibitors presenting their own products and services as well as running a number of workshops and demonstrations from martial artists all around the country and personalities such as Alan Gibson, Gok Wan, Silvio Simac, Chris Crudelli and many others.

A small group of CARISMA member will be selected to represent the club in the 2 half hour shows to be held on Sat 4 April. Please express you interested in being part of it (minimum technical standard and rank required) or if you would like to visit.  Those intending to be part of the show should consider to be busy for the whole of Sat, leaving Cambridge at about 8am.

If you just want to sweat go for a run

Some times at the end of those intensive lesson when everybody is pushed to the limit some of my students come to me and congratulate or thank me for how good the lesson was.  Curiously this happens more often when I happen to run a “low tech” lesson with simple and immediate techniques that simply require intense and fast workout.

Kickboxing can be a hard and sweaty job: repeating many times sequences of punches and kicks at a fast pace can surely be a physically demanding task.  At the same time those who feel that a good lesson should be just the one that makes you sweat profusely I suggest to go for a run, do a round of circuit training.

My main goal as a coach is surely to prepare students in most aspects of performing martial arts, including teaching and improving techniques, combinations, balance, foot work, guard, strikes, defence and so on.  When sparring there are also aspects like release tension and being relaxed while having another person in front that is there to punch and kick you.  In certain cases an individual gets stuck in a situation where a certain kick or punch doesn’t work or it is not as efficient as it could be.  These are the times when the expert teacher or coach can really help to  get things working.

To some extent when I enter more complicated areas of training, explain or practice a difficult set of combinations it seems that a smaller number of students find it useful: is it perhaps because the others don’t really grasp the full essence of the lesson?