Kickboxer Reaction

[Mara Ermogemous]

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Now, this might lead you to think that I have always been athletically inclined and been a sportsperson in my younger days and have continued pursuing my passion along with my career. Nothing could be further from truth. As a child, I was not particularly healthy and kept falling sick to various ailments. So much so, that my mother once gave me a nickname, which meant rotten in Bengali. We still laugh about that!

When I was 7, I started having epileptic attacks - I would feel sleepy and my body temperature would fall to 94 degrees. My parents took me to many doctors and finally to a renowned neurologist in Kolkata. He told me three things:

So, there went my chance of playing football, hockey, cricket or for that matter any outdoor games. Though I was cured by the time I was 14, but I was advised caution nevertheless. And so, I was forbidden from playing any kind of sports.

I grew up as an underweight and clumsy kid who would be the last to be picked for any team whether in school or in my neighborhood. However, growing up as a nerd was not quite as bad in Bengal, because an inordinately more emphasis is put on studies and intellectual prowess than - and often at the cost of - sports and physical prowess. There is an old wives' tale that too much exercise makes a person dumb as his brain gets stiff!

Life followed it's usual path and I went on to become an engineer in the new (in 1996) world of IT, with its promise of travel and social status. Now, life of an IT worker consisted predominantly of deadlines, night-outs, client conferences and long hours of sitting at a desk and typing on a computer. Surviving on fast food and non-stop TV over the weekends. It changed a bit after marriage and kids, with new chores like bottle-feeding, putting kids to sleep and helping them with their homework coming up to crowd out any personal time. And that is what we understand by work life balance.

Now, I have always been prone to thinking about the purpose of life in general. I spent hours debating the same with my friends in college, lamenting the lack of purpose in daily routine. I now started feeling that my life could be summed up in just that - eat, sleep, work and raise a kid.

On January 1, 2010 while contemplating what my new year resolution should be, it just hit me. I had always been fascinated by martial arts. As a kid, I practiced moves at home as these moves helped me defend myself against bigger, stronger and yes, more athletically inclined kids. I now decided to start training in martial arts.

I went up to my son's Karate coach and told him I wanted to join. The oldest of his students at that time was 10 years old! So he told me that I would have to come to a special class early in the morning. I would be taken up on a trial basis and if I could handle the regimen, he would train me.

At 6 A.M. the next morning - a typically cold and foggy January morning - I went to the community park to begin my training. By the time the initial warm-up exercises were over, my head was spinning and I felt like throwing up. But since I persisted, my coach said that I could be trained after all and I could start. Since then, three days a week I would drag myself from the bed while it was still dark and push my body to do things it had never done before. And then after two hours of torture, I would rush home, take a bath, grab a bite to eat and rush off to face the challenges of a consulting career with one of the biggest IT companies in the world.

As I moved up in the belt rankings, my teacher's confidence in me grew and I became the star student. I was again put in a special class but this time it was for the most promising students. The other students of course were close to a third of my age. My life changed completely. I was forced to eat healthier and stick to a healthy routine. Any deviation would have an immediate impact on my strength and stamina. Three agonizing and exhilarating years later, my coach told me that I was ready to put my practice to test, play in the championships. Did I say play? I meant fight. And since the senior-most age group in martial arts championships is 19 and above, I would be fighting with men half my age!

I started practicing harder, and longer. I would push myself to test my limits, break them and find new limits. The fights of course were a different story. The rush of adrenaline during a fight makes you oblivious to everything else. And the trick of the trade is to not be oblivious - control your feelings, analyze the situation and decide on the best move, offence or defense. In split seconds you will see a kick or a chop coming your way and you would not only have to decide how to block it but also how to counterattack. And this can be learnt only through practice.

I went on to win the district and state championships. At every stage, I would think this is as far as I could go but my coach kept on pushing me. Apart from the fear of losing, there was also the prospect of getting hurt. In fact, my supervisor refused to grant me leave to participate in the national championship. He told me "You can take a vacation, but I cannot encourage you to risk breaking bones".

Finally I traveled to Pune for the nationals. In fact, I was so convinced that I would lose, I forbade my family from accompanying me! 1300 kickboxers from 24 states and 2 army units (Assam Rifles and 512 Army) participated in the event. I lost at the semifinal stage of my event and won the bronze.

Today, as I look back, I can only wonder at how this experience has changed my life. It has given me a sense of accomplishment, a sense of pride. I have taken control of life - at least in this aspect - and not just dealt with whatever life has thrown at me.

Heavy bags are among one of the most common pieces of equipment in martial arts gyms. Boxers, kickboxers, and mixed martial artists all use them for training. While heavy bags may be beneficial to developing power, they can be detrimental to technique. A fighters reaction speed, spacial awareness, and precision can decrease if they overuse a heavy bag.

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The study process involved an observation method that measured the time taken by the athletes to perform a complex motor task. The task was constructed to simulate typical actions performed by subjects during daily sports training and combat. The measurement tool was validated. In addition, all subjects signed a participant informed consent statement. The Senate Committee on Ethics of Scientific Research of the Wroclaw University of Health and Sport Sciences approved the study (34/2016). All experiments were performed in accordance with relevant named guidelines and regulations.

Each athlete completed an athlete personal data sheet before starting the test. The following information was obtained through the fighter personal data sheet questionnaire: fight position, major achievements, number of fights fought, number of fights won and lost (amateur and professional ones), body measurements, weight category and much more.

In addition, there was no significant difference between the reaction time obtained during the execution of both series of strikes (A1, A2) in variant II (TR) in either male or female athletes who declared offensive or defensive fighting as the leading tactic in their sports career (Fig. 3).

When searching for factors determining sports mastery in kickboxing, we calculated the correlation of task performance time with weight category, body height, age, training experience, the total number of fights (amateur and professional), and the percentage of fights won for the group of men (Table 3).

The correlation coefficient values obtained (Table 3) indicate that the performance time of some variant I in the A1 series and variant I and II in series A2 correlated with the total number of fights fought, i.e., with the experience of these fighters. The female group showed a significant correlation between the percentage of fights won and task completion time in variant II in the A1 series and variant I in the A2 series. In addition, the timing of the A1 and A2 in variants I and II significantly correlated with the total number of fights fought and training experience (Table 4).

In the male group, reaction time correlated significantly with the percentage of fights won, though there were no significant correlations between reaction time and the other variables (Table 5). In the female group, there were no clear correlations between series A1 and A2 in reaction time (variant II) or for the other variables.

Tomczak31 pointed out the relationship between reaction time with selection, and performance effectiveness in combat sports, as manifested through the style of diverse actions. Defensive athletes make more decisions between alternative courses of actions, demonstrating shorter reaction times with selection. Athletes with an offensive style make quicker decisions on an action-reaction basis, without alternatives (they attack more often). It is worth noting that athletes fighting using offensive tactics outnumber those who fight with defensive tactics. In our study, defensive fighting was preferred by 18.92% of men and 20% of women. Krupalija et al.32 and Ouergui et al.13 emphasize the importance of offensive combat for winning in kickboxing. Kickboxing fighters winning their fights used more offensive actions, compared to defensive ones. It is accepted that defensive combat is more difficult, requires different decision making, tremendous focus and composure, and only a few outstanding athletes achieve mastery by using it.

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