Author Archives: Massimo Gaetani

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As a martial artist and a coach I find this kind of attitude very much old school and outdated; I like to teach, instil and apply what we could define as a dignified approach to sparring beginners, a methodology that encourages a novice student to starts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.

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.

CARISMA running a demonstration for PACT Summer Event 2013

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2013-06-22 12.14.36Last Saturday 22 June 2013 PACT was running their traditional Summer Event and CARISMA helped entertaining some of their guests with a demonstration of kickboxing, multicombat and self defence. The weather was not helping a great deal and it rained, even if just a few minutes. The grass was slippery and uneven so we practiced with shoes but it went very well. Big thank you to Natasha, Simone, Tim and Jarek that offered their time and expertise for this demo.  We also have a video of the event that will be published soon.

pact-logo-bannerPetersfield Area Community Trust (PACT) was founded in 1997 and aims to organise supportive structures to foster local community spirit in the Petersfield area of Cambridge. We are a forum which seeks to further the interests of residents and to fulfill community needs. As Salus Wellness is located in the heart of Petersfield we are more than happy of getting involved and helping PACT in any way we can.

Three key strategies for winning a kickboxing fight

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Image courtesy and copyright of Duncan Grisby 2013

A kickboxing bout can be regulated by different rules and levels of contact; what seems to be growing fast and well applying to amateur athletes is the so called Light Contact or Light Continuous.  In my experience the term light probably had a different meaning when this style was first defined 20 years or so ago. Light contact was originally created as a softer version of a continuous full contact bout but, in 2013, light contact kickboxing is not as light as its name suggests.

To the contrary to what inexperienced people might assume winning a light contact fight is not about knocking somebody down but applying a strategy that aims at scoring more points than your opponent.  In fact a KO victory is just possible by accident and anybody trying to finish a fight early by KO, as it could be applied when fighting in other styles, will be subject to disciplinary actions.

In light contact the winning strategy is about keeping a nice level of pressure with attacks that actually score and a guard/defence that avoids much scoring from your opponent.  Judges will score all attacks landing in scoring areas but also take into account who is actually attacking most and who is dominating the fight.  It is always preferable for you to set the pace and the style of the bout you are fighting but, if your opponent starts very aggressively since the beginning and tries to impose his/her strategy, you might need to quickly control his/her enthusiasm.

As we are talking about kickboxing fight we should remember that a good looking fight should have attacks that combine and alternate both punches and kicks.

Here a few strategies that could help you winning:

Machine gun attack

If you have lots of stamina you could simply keep attacking and putting positive pressure on the opponent; if you are facing a less fit opponent he/she will soon close into a defensive guard and you’ll have an easy victory. If your opponent is as fit as you or more you might need to adapt your strategy to one of the next ones.

Blitzing

It a simple strategy based on keeping the distance and launching attacks based on combinations of kicks and punches; you blitz into reaching distance, hit a few times possibly scoring once or twice and get back out of range.  If you manage to impose your own attacks and force the opponent to accept your strategy you will look as the dominating fighter in the ring and, as long as you land a few scores per round while keeping a decent guard, you will win.  This second strategy works well if your fitness is good but not enough to implement and maintain the machine gun attack

Wait and counter

This strategy requires excellent timing skills so that you can intercept or anticipate your opponent’s attacks and score while he/she is attacking you.  You should have enough speed to catch them unprepared and enough power to disrupt their strategy when they are trying to implement a machine gun or blitzing attack.  This strategy could be the one requiring the least amount of stamina but you should never underestimate how fit and powerful your opponent might be and where he/she will be pushing the fight.

I cannot think of a fight where just one of this strategies could be applied on its own; also you can make all plans of this world but if they do not fit with your opponent you must be prepared to have a plan B.

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.