On Sunday 6 June 2010 9 members of CARISMA passed successufully their grading and were awarded a higher rank: 1 blue second, 1 green second, 1 green, 2 orange second, one orange and 3 yellow belts were awarded.

Congratulations to the individual members!

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On Sunday 28 February 5 members of CARISMA successfully passed their grading: one orange second, one orange and 3 yellow belts were awarded.

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On Sunday 6 December CARISMA awarded a number of new belts, including a brown, two blue, 3 green and various orange and yellow ones.  The technical level of all participants to the grading was, once more, very high and it was reflected by very high scores in their respective grading forms.

Well done to everyone and special thanks to James B. who helped with the grading.

Please have a look at some of the pictures of the grading here:

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CARISMA recently commissioned the production of a short clip that represents the essence of its training and spirit. BCTODAY, a professional agency specialized in video production based in Turin (Italy) was selected for this job given the professional experience I had with them during one of my previous jobs.

The result is stunning and I am very pleased of it.  Any comment to this post will be highly appreciated.

Many thanks from me personally and on behalf of the whole club for the effort and hard work all members put in this project.  Special thanks to Piero Masi (cameraman) and Stefano Giovannini (director of photography who actually did the filming following Piero’s suggestions) who flew to Cambridge for a day, spent many hours in Adembrooks hospital as Piero’s suffered of a kidney colic in the middle of the night and still managed to deliver some amazing work. Also a big thank to Emanuele Mercadante for the great editing work.

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CARISMA will take part to the Cultural Olympiad Celebrations held at The Corn Exchange theatre as shown on their web site.

A small group of CARISMA member will be selected to represent the club in the  half hour shows to be held on Sat 25 July between 11:45 and 12:15.   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 on the Sat, between 11 and 12:30.

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Another very successful grading for CARISMA: 2 yellow belts, 3 orange, 2 orange second, 1 green, 1 green second, 1 blue second belts were awarded.  The overall grading tests showed great committment, technical proficiency and preparation from all participants.

Well done to everyone for the consistent effort put in it!

Grading Jun 2009

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Description
Agenda
Notes
Suggestions & Hints
What to do Next?

The Summer Camp (SC) is a special training event lasting one or more days where all students of the club have the opportunity of practicing together in a relaxed environment.  This is a preliminary announcement to raise awareness and interest about the event and establishing the approximate number of participants.

Given the great success of previous years, we decided to organize the fourth
SC in the same place: a pleasant location in the Hungarian countryside.  The whole event will be based in a village called Csokonyavisonta in the Somogy region, in the South East area of the country, by the Croatian border. You can have a look at where it is by clicking on this link.

Participants

Every member of CARISMA is invited to the Summer Camp: lower ranked people usually benefit of the high percentage of instructors and high ranked people that help their development and knowledge.  There is no charge from CARISMA to participate to this event: just the costs associated to travel, substistence and fun.

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Agenda

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NOTES

We heard tumours about Ryanair resuming the Stansted to Balaton flight; at the same time as we are publishing this post the possible alternatives are flying to Graz (A) or Budapest (H).  The distance between each of these places and the final destination is approximately the same but the flight to Budapest is usually about half an hour longer then the one to Graz.  Transportation means renting cars in groups of 3-4 people per car to be arranged once it’s known who is going.
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SUGGESTIONS AND HINTS

• activities: apart from training the aim of the Summer Camp is to have fun: what is described above as Activities can be anything between chilling by the local pool or visiting a nearby town or forest: it’s easier agreeing day by day what to do rather than rearranging things later because of weather or other reasons.
• money: local currency is the Hungarian Forint that changes to the GBP at about 321.50 (Financial Times 5/5/09) to 1.  Try to have plenty of cash with you. The best way to have local currency is carry some GBP cash and change it locally: alternatively you can draw cash with a maestro, delta card or credit card: all ATM are opened to international circuits such as VISA and MASTERCARD.  Please do not rely on plastic for payments over the counter because it cannot be assured that bars and rural restaurants will accept them. Changing at the airport in the UK is also possible but surely less convenient.
• food: Hungarian cuisine is not necessarily the lightest and most balanced in the world. They eat lots of meat, mostly pork, turkey and chicken.  The area where we are going is also rich in game so dishes based on venison and wild bore are fairly common. Vegetables are usually very fresh and good. Eating in restaurants costs probably 20-40% of what it costs in the UK. At least one of the nights we’ll have a traditional goulash (or gulyas as it should be correctly spelled). A pint of beer costs between 60p and £1.50 and wine is also very reasonably priced.  We let you work out what the budget should be for each of you.
• vegetarians: given the negligible percentage of vegetarians in Hungary most restaurants do not really have special menus to cater for vegetarians.  In any case pizzas are fairly common, salads and vegetables are available everywhere even if they are usually considered side dishes.  Fish dishes are also widely available: mostly fresh water fish from the local lakes and rivers.
• driving: we will have cars so please make sure to carry your driving licence: it makes life easier for everybody if more than one person per car is insured to drive the same vehicle.
  Many car rental companies want drivers aged at least 25 and with a full
  driving license for a number of years: please check with
  the company you are choosing to avoid bad surprises.
• staying: the village has a small tourist resort with villas
  and a Camping: prices for villas will be in the order or £15-20
  PP/night: for a couple of pounds you can have breakfast in the nearby
  restaurant.
• uniform: we are going to be CARISMA ambassadors abroad
  therefore everybody’s uniform must be impeccable. CARISMA T-shirt,
  Gi trousers, belt, shoes. Needless to say that you should carry your
  full kit of pads.
• shoes: training will be outdoor, either on concrete or
  grass so please wear shoes. Martial arts shoes
  are probably the best solution. If you don’t own a pair of those the any
  kind of light weight trainers (not high top) will do just fine.
• sun: middle of August, Hungary: it’s likely to be very hot. We will be
  training outdoor so don’t forget strong sun protection if you have sensitive skin.
• clothing: evenings are pretty cool as the village is
  surrounded by forests: make sure to have reasonable warm clothing and a
  wind/water proof coat.

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What to do next?

If you are interested in participating to the Summer Camp 2009 or would like to ask questions about it please send an Email to info (at) carisma.org.uk stating [Summer Camp] in the Subject.

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CARISMA has an unofficial Facebook group named Carisma Cambridge (Cambridge Riverside Martial Arts) and it’s a place where current and former members of the club interact and exchange messages, post photos, videos and events.

While we invite all members of CARISMA to join this group we like to stress the fact that this website is the official source for all information about CARISMA.

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CARISMA was recently invited to run demonstrations of Kickboxing and Multicombat at the Martial Arts Festival UK that was held in Leicester on 4 and 5 April 2009.

A  group of CARISMA members was selected to represent the club in the 3 half hour shows running on Sat 4 April.

A big thank you to James Bush, Heley Matthews, Robin Turner, Georgios Evengelinos James Weatherall and Zeb Pietras for their time and effort to help with the success of these demonstrations.

Please leave comments at the bottom, after having seen the video:

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9 fighters, between CARISMA, CUKBS and ARUKBC, participated in a Light Contact Competition organized by Pete Dunnet and the Combat Academy Kickboxing in Thurston (near Bury St. Edmund, Suffolk).

The overall results are extremely encouraging:

Andrea Cristofaro(*): second
Andrew Gillham: winner
Carlos Virvez(*): second
Heidi Holmes: winner
Ian Chau: second
James Waddell: winner
Nas Salmi(*): second
Robin Turner: second
Sam Goldsheider: second

(*) people at their first kickboxing competition

CARISMA fighters showed once more to have a distinct style, good technique and all those qualities that a martial artist should have by definition: even those at their first experience entered competently the tournament and stood their ground with good performance.

Please have a look at the videos:

Andrea Cristofaro

Andrew Gilham

Carlos Virvez

Heidi Holmes

Ian Chau

James Waddell

Nas Salmi

Robin Turner

Sam GoldScheider

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