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!

Post from: CARISMA

Please leave a comment

Forward to a friend

Sent this by a friend?

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

Post from: CARISMA

Please leave a comment

Forward to a friend

Sent this by a friend?

With apologies from our video production company we can finally proudly announce the official video of the Summer Camp 2009 and, in this weather, remember the great time we had last summer in both terms of training and fun.  Looking forward to Summer Camp 2010!

Here is the video:

Post from: CARISMA

Please leave a comment

Forward to a friend

Sent this by a friend?

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:

Post from: CARISMA

Please leave a comment

Forward to a friend

Sent this by a friend?

CARISMA took part to a sport demonstration organised by Cambridge City Council at the Corn Exchange in Cambridge.  Six of us prepared and performed a half an hour demonstration that shows some aspects of our training: regimental training, pair training, different styles of sparring and Multicombat for street fighting.

The resulting demonstration was good although the light and the position of the camera affected the quality of the foootage we managed to capture. I am pleased with the overall result:

I would like to thank personally and on behalf of the whole club for the effort and hard work that all members put in this project that are: Georgios, Heley, James, Robin, Rosie and myself. A special thank you for Caroline who assisted us there and was presenting and commenting our show.

Post from: CARISMA

Please leave a comment

Forward to a friend

Sent this by a friend?

Copyright 2009 Linda Silvestri

Get a bunch of great people, passionate about martial arts, put them in a pleasant location of the Hungarian country side and get them to train martial arts for 13 hours over a period of 5 days (some of them 19 hours in 7 days), in temperatures ranging between 25 and 32 degrees Celsius. Blend in some great activities like see sighting, thermal SPA, wine tasting and eating most meals in a good restaurant and, no doubt, you get a successful Summer Camp.

Main purposes for the Summer Camp, now at its fifth edition, is having a great holiday in an unusual location and at the same time enjoy an important amount of highly focussed training hours. This allows all participants to learn new things, practice and correct mistakes about their own techniques and have great fun in the process. All sessions were outdoors, on grass, in the shade offered by some nice trees.

Day 1 – Friday – Cambridge to Csokonyavisonta (via Budapest)

Copyright 2009 Massimo Gaetani

While 7 people flew in from Luton one was on a train from Cambridge across Europe and another one by train from Munich.  They all met at Budapest airport, rented a total of three cars and drove to Csokonyavisonta, arriving at about 6 P.M.

Soon after their arrival all participants were allocated to their accommodations: within half an hour the first session started, at 6:30PM. Given the short time before closure of the only decent restaurant in the village we decided to train just for an hour practising a few Wing Chun drills.  I run the overall lesson, technically helped by Andrea that is an expert of Wing Chun.

Dinner at the local Korona Etterem (restaurant) and an early sleep was due: just a few welcoming drinks at the house and meeting arranged for the following day at 9AM, ready to start.

Day 2 – Saturday

Copyright 2009 James Weatherall

While warming up I checked with the various participants what topic they were mostly interested in covering during the next 4 session, lasting 3 hours each. Here is the list of topics to focus on:

• Boxing (2)
• Close range fighting
• Hook punches (2)
• Hook kicks
• Sparring in a competitive way, e.g. mini tounament (4)
• Foot work (2)
• Body movement, weight shifting and balance
• Training in pairs with unexpected attacks
• Axe kicks
• Combinations with several changes of guard
• Basics (2)
• Special combinations

Having a total of four instructors, with 2 black, 1 brown and 1 blue belt, in a group of ten people surely added great value to the whole camp and people with lower rank truly appreciated the level of attention they received throughout the whole Summer Camp.

The Saturday session covered the following topics, more or less in this order:

Boxing: close range jab-cross vs. hook-hook; passive defence vs. attack; we then added kicks, one person attacking with kicks and punches and the other just punching.  This was forcing the person using reduced set of techniques to force himself/herself to work hard on guard, footwork, evasive moves and so on.

We then did some sparring alternating half and full speed, light contact both hands only and complete kickboxing.

Copyright 2009 Georgios Evangelinos

For the afternoon we agreed to visit Villany a famous wine district where we had some wine tasting and nibbles.  On the way back we had dinner in Pécs a nice city well known to everybody who has been to CARISMA summer camps.

Day 3 – Sunday

We started with combinations that require change of guard and stance several times: these are excellent and both improve guard and foot work.  This kind of training draws attention to the importance of finishing each technique in a way that allows the next one to start properly, optimizing the whole sequence and reducing extra foot work and time wasting.

Some of the combinations practiced were:

• Front kick f.l. followed by round kick r.l. and then round kick with the same leg (f.l.)
• Front kick f.l. followed by round kick r.l. and then side kick with the same leg (f.l.)
• Uppercut f.a. – Uppercut r.a. – Hook punch f.a.  followed by round kick f.l.
• Cross – Hook punch f.a. – spinning back side kick followed by jab-cross-hook

For the second part of the session we organised a small light contact competition where one pair of fighters at a time was competing with 1 central referee and 3 external judges.

We then had a few session of co-operative sparring where alternating each opponent had the opportunity of putting together a combination of 2 to 5-6 strikes.

We concluded this session with half an hour of Multicombat combinations in the midday sun: this was a nice gesture of mine to remind people to be on time for the following sessions   We finally cooled down.

Copyright 2009 James Weatherall

We spent the rest of the day chilling out (swimming, thermal baths, playing chess) in the same thermal SPA and pool resort where we were training.  Later that day we had a few hours walk (as we did not do enough sport that day) in a beautiful forest nearby and then dinner in a local restaurant.

Day 4 – Monday

After warming up good part of this session was taken up by power work: the importance of proper alignment of body and limbs in order to deliver maximum power at all times was emphasized several times during this exercise.  We worked primarily at techniques like:

• Jab
• Cross
• Round kick front and rear leg
• Front kick front and rear leg
• combinations of the above

We then experimented on a visualization technique: analysing in detail, while sitting and breathing slowly, a combination in order to rehearse in our mind and then practice it to test if the visualization helped the performance.

We spent the remaining half hour on technical issues involving axe kicks, the subtleties involved in their proper execution and how to optimise them and the we cooled down.

Copyright 2009 Linda Silvestri

Plan for the afternoon for a nice, traditional goulash that was prepared thanks to a perfectly co-ordinated team work.  While a few people started to prepare a cold lunch based on bread, cured meats, cheese and fresh vegetables the others started cutting and chopping the various ingredients: the actual cooking phase of the goulash, in a traditional cauldron over the open fire, started at around 3:30PM. The cooking time, in excess of 5 hours was to be spent relaxing, chatting having a drink and with Adam playing his guitar. The result managed to exceed expectations.

Day 5 – Tuesday

6 of the participants to the summer camp were living soon after this session that consisted of:

• Pushing around and basics of street fighting engagement.
• Combinations that involved sliding while performing double kicks with the same leg.  More emphasis on sliding and its implications.
• We then run a number of rounds of sparring.

We then spent the afternoon visiting Orfü a beautiful hill nearby Pécs full of natural ponds, big enough to have proper beaches and many people swimming around.

Day 6 – Wednesday

Being the last full day we decided to have an easy day (after training, the session was as hard as the others). Training was organized at the Barcs SPA complex, 15 Km from Csokonyavisonta with the intention to spend there a good part of the day.

The session involved: hook kick clinique.  Starting from the basics of the movement from lying position we evolved the training into standing while holding onto an object and then applying the technique to a target hitting from the front leg.

We then moved into hook punch clinique: after a short overview of the technique and its applications from both the front and rear arm we passed to applications that always use double hook punches with the front arm.

We then spent the remaining half hour of the session working on very basic concepts of knife defence and fighting.

The rest of the day was spent chilling out in the spa complex, swimming in the pools, and enjoying the sauna and the large Jacuzzi.

Day 7 – Thursday

Copyright 2009 Massimo Gaetani

This was the conclusive session of the camp for this year: we wrapped up some of the concepts explained in the previous sessions and then did more work on boxing in passive defence to develop easy approach to accept punching attacks and reduce the tension usually induced.

More work on hook kicks from rear leg, front leg and spinning back.

We finished with some basic moves of Wing Chun.

Conclusions

Once more this summer camp was a great success.  I list below the reasons that I see as the most relevant ones to consider participating to the next Summer Camp:

• all participants get to do lot of highly focussed training (this year 13 hours for who stayed 5 days and 19 hours for the others): they get to work of what they would like to improve and receive a great level of attention to help correcting mistakes and improving performance;
• for some people it’s noticeable the improvement of a particular technique that perhaps was never as good as it could get and it was corrected during the Summer Camp;
• it gives me the possibility of getting interesting feed back, from different people at different levels of their martial arts experience, about how to keep improving the way we run the club and our classes;
• it helps the various people at the Summer Camp to bond beyond the usual “hi-train-goodbye” pattern that some people follow and develop interesting personal and friendly relationships with some other members of the club;
• at its 5th edition the Summer Camp has now a tradition with a few people who were there most of the times, a few people that have been a 1-2 times and a few first timers: this offers continuity and diversity at the same time;

The first and second year’s Summer Camp were still to be considered one-off events; the Summer Camp is now a tradition to continue for the years to come.  I personally missed all people that have been at the Summer Camp before and could not make it this year but I would like to mention Duncan who could not be with us due to family issues: apart from his highly appreciated expertise as a martial artist and instructor we obviously missed the top quality of the pictures that he usually takes.  I’ll be working on the official video for the Summer Camp 2009 that will be released as soon as technically possible.

Apart from myself participants to the summer camp were: Adam, Andrea, Chris, Georgios, Heley, Linda, Mark, Ronnit and Wez.  I would like to thank them all for the great work and commitment in the training and fun activities that once more made me enjoy it so much and inspired me to organise the Summer Camp 2010.

I would appreciate comments to this post from people thatwere there and from those that missed it: thank you in advance.

Post from: CARISMA

Please leave a comment

Forward to a friend

Sent this by a friend?

Copyright and courtesy of Duncan Grisby 2008

Toward the end of the first training session of the Summer Camp 2009 we started chatting during cooling down and we came out with this random list of good reasons to be here:

1. Fun
2. Training outside
3. More time for cosial interaction
4. Palinka
5. Know other members better
6. Training outside
7. Swimming
8. Better weather
9. Goulash
10. Training away from everyday’s distractions
11. Holiday with a bit of training
12. Kickboxing
13. Socializing
14. Lots of clever people to have interesting, sometimes geeky, conversations
15. Thermal SPA
16. Better bonding on a personal level with some members of the club
17. Alternative training sessions

Best wishes to those that are back in Cambridge from the Summer Camp 2009 group: Mark, Adam, Heley, Georgios, Linda, Ronnit, Wez, Chris W., Andrea and Massimo.

Post from: CARISMA

Please leave a comment

Forward to a friend

Sent this by a friend?

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

Post from: CARISMA

Please leave a comment

Forward to a friend

Sent this by a friend?

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.

Top of the page

Agenda

Top of the page

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.
Top of the page

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.

Top of the page

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.

Post from: CARISMA

Please leave a comment

Forward to a friend

Sent this by a friend?

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:

Post from: CARISMA

Please leave a comment

Forward to a friend

Sent this by a friend?