CCMA at the Festival of Martial Arts (diary entry)

01.07.02023

I was invited to

take a talk and run a training session at the inaugural Festival of Martial Arts run by Matt Stait and Lucci Del-Guadio. This is the third time I have been involved in a martial arts festival (prior to this I was part of the European Martial Arts Festival in Disneyland, Paris in 2008 and Kwoklyn Wan's Martial Arts Festival in 2009) but the first time I have taught at type of martial arts expo since 2012. I made the decision to take up the offer based on the vibe Matt told he wanted that would set it apart from other events. This vibe appeared to ring true during the time I attended. I gave a talk on the new teaching programme I am running with Mary Stevens of Athena School of Karate, "Animal Instincts" and also taught a Vagabond Warriors cross training session (covering the "Switch" and Feedback Loop Training). I also had the opportunity to chat with Rick Dubidat and Matthew Chapman regarding going forward

CCMA products and services. I am grateful for their kind time and advice. Hopefully this will mean I can continue to improve my services to CCMA clients. Time was not wasted on just talking though. Matthew Chapman's Mittmaster session delivered what I had hoped and serves as further inspiration for drills I can work into my own lessons. We began with a simple boxing combination, working in slips and ducks. This was expanded into some dirty boxing style clinch-work involving shoulder bumps, elbow strikes and a knee strike to the groin. A moment that truly made my day was reconnecting with Lee Hasdell for his Mixed Martial Arts session. Lee was an old acquaintance of mine back in the late '90s when I was running an extreme professional wrestling promotion with Stu Allen. It was great to hear the huge amount of experience this true British pioneer could bring to a lesson and a totally refreshing approach to techniques. We looked at MMA from the Japanese global rule-set as well as discussions into self-defence applications, sports psychology and even animal training. So much of this landed with me. It's amazing to think that when I last saw Le

e he was considering a career in pro wrestling, having more than made his mark as a mixed martial arts fighter, professional K1 kickboxer and MMA promoter, and he visited my parents' zoo and shared table with Stu and me at Combat Magazine's awards dinner. My background was largely in Korean taekwondo based martial arts and ki

ckboxing. Two decades later and I was now teaching MMA but coming full circle to learn from one of my inspirations. Lee's session involved techniques that separate Global rules/Japanese rules MMA and the Unified rules/USA rules. We covered palm heel strikes - three angled straight strikes and hook strikes - and knee strikes from the guard.