Chuldow Squad Pages

MAXTT REPORT
By Parent Jacqui Varley

Six squad members paid a return visit to Chesterfield’s Queens Park Sports Centre, venue for the recent Judgement Day tournament, to take part in Ashley Beck’s Max TT (Martial Arts Tricks Training).

Max TT is billed as the only programme of its kind in the UK offering the opportunity to develop acrobatic kicking techniques under the expert tuition of WAKO World Forms Champion, Ashley Beck.

It’s open to anyone with martial arts experience, regardless of ability, grade or style and aims to teach the all important basic foundations for the acrobatic tricks which have become so popular in sport martial arts.

The squad members who attended were: Luke and Adam Fields, Hannah and Jordan Varley, Tom Sampson, Nichola Rock, and Kevin Rosindale. They were joined by Mark Tomlinson from the Eagle Rose club. Nice to see some fighters taking an interest in creative forms!

As you might expect with a session run by Ashley Beck, it was a very popular event with around 50 people taking part.

After a mad dash through traffic, some of the squad members arrived just in time to join the very thorough warm up session – at the back of course! Then onto basic combos – double jumping front kick; jumping spinning back kick, scorpion kick and suicide kicks (now known as tornado kicks)

The group was then split off into two halves – those who were more experienced and those who were pretty much beginners. Some of our younger ones seemed to move between these groups as the mood took them! This was truly a mixed ability/experience/age group and it was great to see everyone helping each other out.

Later, whilst most of our lot concentrated on basic butterfly kicks, Adam and Jordan had a go at putting in a jumping twist before the kick (with varying degrees of success) and having fun landing in heaps on the crash mats. Actually, I think that was the point of it really – give kids a trampoline or bed and what are they going to do but jump on it! Lots of falling over today from beginners to experts!

Everyone seemed to be having loads of fun and there was much backslapping and networking going on. Apart from Ashley Beck, there were many others who we have seen performing on the open circuit including Carl Thomas, Joe Howlett (who was amazing – I like him more and more every time I see him), the majority of Team Evolution (of course) as well as Oliver Willison who is much more well known for his traditional forms.

I liked the way Ashley explained each trick in detail, telling everyone why a particular technique – say an arm movement to accelerate a spin – would improve the overall delivery of the manoeuvre. I was also impressed with the way he could demonstrate everything in slow motion to show where a particular part of the body should be at any point in the trick. He made it all look so damn easy!

Also loved watching a bloke with dreadlocks and frightening piercings doing balancing and contortion tricks REALLY slowly – he was incredibly graceful and controlled – more akin to something you might see a street performer do in Covent Garden. I’m sure there will be some weird name for it . . .

Last section was the ‘tricks battle’ in which all the more seasoned performers tried to outdo each other in terms of height, complexity and sheer showmanship of their jumping kicks. Some of these martial artists are amazing gymnasts and acrobats and they were absolutely awesome! What kind of application their set pieces would have in a street self-defence situation I am not sure but that’s not really the point is it!? Not to be outdone, Adam and Jordan did a synchronised cartwheel, kick combo across the floor – bless! Applause! (Jordan says it was ‘round off’ but who am I to argue!)

If I have one criticism, it is that maybe the participants would have benefited from working in smaller groups, with perhaps someone from Ashley’s team focusing more attention on the not-so-experienced. Ashley did not have much time to spend with individuals because of the number of people there - but then people want to train with Mr Beeck himself so maybe that’s not feasible.

Our squaddies certainly enjoyed themselves and got a lot out of the day, with all of them looking forward to taking part again at some point.

Max TT takes place around four times a year in Chesterfield, with other sessions planned for the Northern and Southern regions. It’s certainly worth booking a place for anyone interested in performance technique, tricks, balance, flexibility, acrobatics and gymnastics as they relate to sport karate. Have a look at Ashley Beck’s web pages and show reel (see links page) to see the master at work!

PS – Norm and I can recommend the pub up the road for lunch – excellent steak sarnie and Stones Bitter!