Train hard, fight easy

   03/04/11

   Kilkenny - Ireland

Claire fought Ann-Marie Bergin (IKF All Ireland champion) for the IKF 5 Nations Title at 62kg. A short notice fight for Claire and a big step up but a great opportunity. It was Claire's first 5 round fight and with a week's notice there was little time to prepare! The fight went the full 5 rounds and was close fought with the end result a majority decision to the Ireland champion Ann-Marie Bergin. Claire landed the cleaner shots throughout the fight - her cross particular finding a repeated home but was outworked in the last 2 rounds by the fitter Irish girl - not surprising given that Claire had never gone beyond 3 rounds before! The ring was small and suited Ann-Marie's bullish style making it difficult for Claire to use her usual evasive footwork and she found herself too often pushed onto the ropes and pinned down with Ann-Marie leaning in. To her credit she managed to effectively turn off the ropes but later lacked the stamina to press the advantage back once she had done so. The fight went back and forth and if it had been judged on physical damage Claire would have been the clear winner, coming through with barely a mark on her compared to a massive shiner for Ann-Marie but it was a fair decision based on Ann-Marie's higher work rate and aggressive, bullish style that prevented Claire from working to her strengths. An exciting fight and a true credit to Claire to give such a strong account against an opponent with 3 times her experience and on such short notice. Ann-Marie herself even said that Claire was the strongest opponent she had faced at that weight! Special thanks go out to the promoter Mick Bland and his gym, Top Pro, for making us feel extremely welcome and ensuring we were well housed and looked after throughout our stay. Re-match ...?

   26/03/11

   Yarborough - Lincoln

   "Back to basics"

A great event promoted by Lincoln KBA - hats off to the guys from Lincoln, Shawn and Aaron for putting on a really great show - brilliantly organised and some fantastic fights with Shawn's own probably being fight of the night!  This show saw Claire's 5th outing, this time against Justine Ramsey from Telford.  A hard fight against a very good opponent who remained dangerous throughout with some excellent kicking giving  Claire a hard fought for win on points.  Thanks to all who came down to scream for Claire- was a great atmosphere at the show and we appreciated the support! 

04/12/10

Rayleigh

 Victory No 4 for Claire, this time against Nicola Cragie who travelled all the way down from Aberdeen for the show.  A busy fight with Nicola putting Claire under a lot of pressure with a forward pushing boxing style but Claire managing to land the cleaner and more telling blows in what seemed a close fight but was scored unanimously in Claire's favour.  Four fights four wins now....

12/12/09

Alan Higgs Centre - Coventry

Claire took her 3rd victory at this show with a unanimous points decision over Joanne Randall from Milton Keynes.  Claire ensured she dominated the first round with excellent pressure fighting and proceeded to outwork her opponent making good use of counters to discourage Joanne from rallying too hard against her.  A good fight and good experience for Claire to go the distance against a very mobile opponent.  Her hardest fight to date.

   25/07/09

  Circus Tavern - Essex

We took Martin down to Essex for his second fight and he was matched against 67kg Matt Boden from Averly Kickboxing, Martin weighing in unexpectedly at a very light 64kg.  It was a gruelling fight with both fighters giving it their all and leaving nothing in the ring to say they could have tried any harder.  A very even match with the fight swinging one way and then the other but with a very able Matt Boden coming away with the decision having managed to outwork Martin slightly over the 3 rounds.  Hat off to Martin who gave the fight every ounce he had and gave his opponent a very hard nights work indeed!

26/03/09

Orsett Hall Hotel Fight Night

This show down in Essex saw Claire Harrison in her second fight.  This time her opponent was Kirsty Brooks from Coventry who showed some tenacity and good skills before she succumbed to Claire's greater power late in the 1st round.  Claire knocked her opponent down once for an 8 count then proceeded to knock her out with a lovely clean one - two combination with seconds to spare before the bell.  Well done to Claire once again - bring on the next one!

Claire and trophy!

  21/02/09

Yarborough UFBDA Dragon Clash

This show up at Yarborough Sports Centre in Lincoln was the first outing for 2 of the club's up and coming fighters: Claire Harrison and Martin Doughty.  It was a great show with a lively atmosphere and thanks to Pete Cook and Colin Muress for putting it on and to an excellent referee, Bob Taggart. Thanks also to Simon Powell for assisting with the corner and to all the supporters who came and screamed for our fighters !

Martin had a very tough opponent in Tommy Baker from Grimsby Freestyle with the fight swinging either way from the first round.  Martin landed some lovely hard roundhouse kicks to his opponents body and made efficient use of his hand and footwork to take the fight to a gruelling 3 round decision.  Martin showed  incredible heart in the 3rd when he was rocked with a cluster of punches on the ropes showing his mettle, tying up his opponent and then making distance to  come away with a very creditable draw against an extremely hard opponent.

Claire had her first clash against Dani Bourne from Newark Black Dragons with Claire imposing herself from the very first bell and working at a tremendous rate for the whole round.  Respect to Dani Bourne who took some serious punishment but never looked rocked (and Claire does hit hard!) and who showed she has some skills herself.  ; Claire proved too much on this occasion for her however and her corner withdrew her from the fight before the fighters came out for the second round giving Claire her first fight and first win. 

Congratulations to both Claire and Martin who always put in maximum effort and hard work at the club and take their training very seriously.  As their coach I couldn't be more proud of their performances.

TEAM MOD-KA!

Claire, Paul, Martin and Simon

  09/09/08

Paul and Claire spent two weeks living and training at Horizon Muay Thai Boxing Camp in Thailand recently.  The camp is located at Haad Tien Bay on the east coast of Koh Phangan Island (next door to Koh Samui in southern Thailand).

 Training consisted of two 2 hour sessions every day bar Saturdays in temperatures of between 30 and 35 degrees... Sweating was compulsory!!  We absolutely loved our stay at Horizon and our sincere thanks go out to the Thai guys training us.... Deeday , Phar, Ban, Mee, Yai  and Poiee (NOT the correct spellings I'm sure!!!). 

We highly recommend this gym to anyone else who fancies a bit of a boot camp style holiday learning this vicious martial art and only wish that we could have made our stay longer, perhaps a month or maybe 3! 

We hope to return next year!

  ; .

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26/04/08

We all enjoyed a  fantastic seminar hosted by Pat O Keeffe and Ronnie "Machine gun" Green at Seni 08 at Excel Arena in April.  Pat kindly (!) chose to demonstrate most of his material on Paul and gave us  a concentrated hour of essential Kickboxing principles and concepts that left everyone coming away with a sense of development and a smile (Paul getting the added bonus sense of slight bruising!)  ; Thanks to James Harris  ; from Lincoln Ju Jitsu for being the body for Pat's brief and slightly violent take on MMA that had the onlookers scattering for  cover as Pat  demonstrated his personal preference  for takedown defence used as an offence.

To watch the seminar follow the link below

http://www.ronniegreentv.com/pat-okeeffe/

  Claire, Pat O Keeffe, Tim, James, Stuart, Mark and Paul after the seminar

  Claire and Paul with Ronnie Green.