Kicking for confidence. (Kick Boxing)

Member Name: rawwrjem

Product:	Kick Boxing
Date:	21/06/09 (49 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: fitness and confidence boost.

Disadvantages: costs a lot

My daughter did karate from the age of 5. When she turned 11, she got her black belt and decided she wanted to expand. She went to a kickboxing club about ten minutes away from our house. It is the Englih Contact Karate Association (ECKA).

ECKA have clubs allover britain including tipton, coventry, london, milton keynes and some abroad including in Iran. It has been around for some years now and it's a good association to be with if you're considering starting up training. If you want to know more about this, here's the association website: http://www.ecka.co.uk/index.php

During training, other than workingon flexibility, stamina and strength, you work on your fighting skills and learn how to execture different techniques of punching, kicking and defending.

My daughter started kickboxing because she wanted to try and get another black belt in a different martial art. I remember the first few times she went, she came out beetroot red and sweating and cried that her feet hurt so bad. She found the training a lot more intense and hard than she had the karate.

After about 4 months, she got her first belt and went to Bristol to fight in a tournament for the first time. She was scared, but that was nothing compared to how I felt, I was unbelievably petrified but had to be there for her and watch. She lost and cried and this happened again at the next one. After a while, I'd say about a year, her fitness level shot up and she lost about 1 1/2 stone. She had been fairly chubby but she's 15 now and weighs less than she did when she was 10. Her fighting skills are brilliant because of the training. They do cardio vascula workouts like jogging and sparring and they do muscle training like press ups. They also work a lot on flexibility which my daughter loves to improve their kicking. Her lessons cost £4 each and she trains up to 4 times a week. The tournaments usually cost around £20.

In the time she has been there, now almost 6 years, she has got hurt a lot, but the training has toughened her up so much. When I playfight with her now, I generally get a kick round the head and a good few punches from her. She used to get bullied in primary school and in her first year at high school, not long after starting kickboxing she had a fight with a girl who had upset her. She is defensive now and people don't try to pick on her because they know what she does and I think this has boosted her confidence a lot. Despite getting hurt when fighting in class or in tournaments, I think it i good because in reality, someone fighting you won't stop when they hurt you and it builds character a lot. They train to adapt their fighting and are told that in a real situation, they must always use minimum force. They're not taught that once the person is on the floor to keep kicking them in.

Becuase of the intensity of their workouts, she has developed a lot of muscle, paticularly on her legs and arms and some on her abs which again boosts her confidence about her image. She said :"If I hadn't started training, I'd probably be a big fat slob now wouldn't I?".

Within the training, different opportunities arise, like the summer course they do in Holland which is a weekend of intense training where she met the fight Remy Bonjasky. They also go allover the country fighting in tournaments which allows her to build skill, character and stamina. A lot of kickbxoing clubs do attend these tournaments. At the tournaments, you can win medals, trophies and I have seen one or two that give cash prizes. After 6 years, she's finally got her black belt and over 15 trophies and medals. I feel more confident when she goes out because I know if she gets into trouble, she has a good chance of handling herself wheras someone untrained wouldn't.

The biggest negativity about the training is cost. I'm not sure about other places, but to train where my daughter does has costed me a lot of money over the years. She has several pairs of boxing gloves that are about £20 a pair. A helmet, different uniforms, shin pads, tournament money, grading money, summer course money. It all adds up. Over the years, I'd say her training has cost me abuot £5,000 easily if not more. Her black belt grading was £100 on its own. It's a lot of money, but the results are priceless.

At the end of the day, she is still training to be her best. Kickboxing has given her the confidence and I can't imagine what she would be like if she hadn't have gone. She lives and breathes for it at the moment. I'm so glad that she does it.

Summary: its brilliant.