Sunday Training 2 July

CARISMA training outdoors, Sunday training summer 2017

CARISMA training outdoors, Sunday training summer 2017

I love training outdoors. When CARISMA started we were just training on grass in various parks and greens in Cambridge city centre.  It was lovely but we knew it could not last too long… this in England after all.  However we try to keep the tradition by (aiming at) training outdoors during all Sunday training in July and August.  I remember having summers when we manage to spend all Sundays outside, others when just one or two happened but we keep at it.  Yesterday was the first of hopefully many Sunday outdoors training and we started with a bang: a record number of 12 people attended which is a great number for a Sunday outdoor training.  It was a busy and fun lesson with members ranging from total beginners to advanced and instructors.  The temperature was just perfect in the low twenties, with a nice breeze. Way better than training in a gym on such a lovely day, it was very enjoyable; I am already looking forward to the following ones.

Great start for CUKBS 2014

CUKBS 2014 big groupThe Cambridge University Kickboxing Society had a great fresher’s session last night with about 70 people attending which was following a very successful fresher’s fair when the committee received an unprecedented level of interest for the highly successful sport society.

in line with previous years the lesson attracted about 40 total beginners sowe started with a brief explanation about what CUKBS is, does and why people should stick to it.  CUKBS is the place for people interested in a challenging discipline which will make them stronger, faster, more agile and capable of fighting.  It’s also the place to train because:

  • it recently achieved a half blue status;
  • it has a track record of 4 consecutive Varsity victories and its team is simply undefeated since 2010;
  • in 2014 it was one of three only sports which won a Varsity match: the other two were orienteering and cycling.

After the short intro there was a usual warm up activity for the whole group then, thanks to the presence of 2 extra CARISMA instructors, we split the class in three groups:

  • Total beginners run by Massimo; we collected here all people who have never practiced a martial art.  This lesson was purely no contact and teaching a few basic techniques.
  • Intermediate run by Georgios; we gathered here people who has some relevant experience in striking martial arts and we had the opportunity of assessing their skills
  • Advanced group run by Jarek: committee members, Varsity team members and a few other students from the previous years joined this group.

Toward the end of the lesson we showed to the beginners what kickboxing looks like when performed by advanced people.  The level of participation and interest was very high throughout the lesson and for quite some time after its end we are all looking forward to the next session.  See below a few pictures, taken toward the end: