makeqfit

Below is a vid of K1's top ten knockouts from 2007. But for sheer guts and getting-off-the-canvas determination number four takes some beating!

In my classes on Thursday and Friday evenings, the warm up is skipping. The Friday guys are happy to skip away, the Thursday guys however groan as though I've just asked them to dig a deep hole and get into it! Here, for my Thursday evening guys, is a little inspiration.

Women fighting, specifically fighting on film; artistically, well choreographed, looking as though they can actually fight, has always held a bit of a fascination for me. women fighting in films is not a new thing. the The late sixties and seventies martial arts boom, led by Bruce Lee, whose more story and character driven films, revolving around a strong moralled, good ass-kicking lead, appealed to the Western masses, showcased, ever so briefly, a fighting woman. In Lee's worldwide hit film one of the chief exponents of females fighting on film made a brief - fighting appearance. Angela Mao (seen above as "Lady Kung Fu") plays Lee's sister in Enter the Dragon. We see her in a brief flashback as she tries to fight off some bad guys, eventually electing to take her own life rather than be taken. Possibly because of the women's movement and colourful music seen of the seventies, the empowered female made fleeting, if sometimes comical, appearances in cinema.

Generally they tended to beat up men. The prospect of two women fighting wearing more than a bikini and executing proficient high kicks at one another was not one that really took off in the seventies, or even much in the nineties. there would be a bit of wait before we saw two women squaring up in a less than obscure straight-to-video film. A big star, within martial arts circles, was Cynthia Rothrock, was the goto girl for seeing a woman kicking, punching and handing out justice the old fashioned way in the eighties and into the nineties. An accomplished practitioner of five martial arts, Rothrock made and continues to make, a career as woman who could fight without pulling hair or scratching eyes out. By no stretch of the imagination an accomplished actress and, probably due to some of the stuntmen she had to work with, alot of her better known works, the American productions, always looked sped up and fake. But as the clip below shows, she could do it the Chinese way.

More up to date, we have had Michelle Yeoh - the other woman in the clip above - and Ziyi Zhang, both of whom have a fantastic fight scene in "Hidden Dragon Crouching Tiger". On the big screen Sharon Stone and Rachel Ticotin have a brief fight in "Total Recall". Though for a great fight scene between women, the scene involving Uma Thurman and Lucy Liu in "Kill Bill: Volume One" is a modern day classic. In fact every fight scene in the Kill Bill films is brilliant. Check out the Uma Thurman versus Vivaca Fox clip below.

On television women being able to hand out the odd can of "whup ass" has been evident for over a decade. Lucy Lawless' Xena was probably at the forefront of strong fighting women through the nineties. With her more demure sidekick, Gabrielle, played by Renee O'Connor, they smacked up marauding hordes across mythical lands right up to 2001. In the noughties we had Kelly Hu in the martial arts showcase that was "Martial Law" and present day we have Yvonne Strahovski in the spy drama/comedy "Chuck". For the martial arts lover there is plenty of action to be seen on our screens. The answer to the question'"can she kick it?" has to be "yes she can!"

SEPP BLATTER, the FIFA president, has mooted an idea to introduce by 2010 a system that “protects” home-grown footballing talent by having a numerical quota system. The “six-plus-five” (rolls off the tongue!) quota system guarantees that every footballing team, worldwide, will eventually have to field a minimum of six home-grown, as in eligible for the home country’s national team, players. The English FA sees this as veiled attack on the cash rich Premier league. The major leagues in world football; English, Italian and Spanish, attract footballing talent from all over the globe. They attract the best players because: They pay the best wages and they offer the most glory; league championship medals, champions league, UEFA cup. Even for the teams within these leagues which cannot realistically challenge for top honours, for players from smaller footballing nations, the wages and the televisual exposure make the working environment appealing. As ever, media exposure and hyperbole make the lot of a professional footballer something that is difficult to see as anything other than glamorous. The image of all footballers being millionaire playboys is flawed. Of course, those in the top teams do not struggle to pay their bills, but in the lesser teams, many of these young men have to think about accumulating enough money in a decade to last into dotage. So it is no surprise that a talented footballer from a poorer nation would jump at the opportunity to ply his trade in one of the cash rich leagues of Europe.
The six-plus-five rule would hurt a lot of these young footballers and push up the price of already overpriced home-grown players. The argument that this system would give young home-grown players more chance to progress is flawed. This will simply give home-grown players more reason to not try as hard. The Premier league has already shown how some, home-grown, players have flourished, whilst others have bemoaned the influx of foreign players. Frank Lampard, a player seen as overweight and pedestrian in his West Ham days, blossomed at Chelsea in a team filled with foreign talent. Danny Murphy, a talented midfielder player, felt that he had to leave Liverpool to advance his career. Not that his career has blossomed since he moved on. His career has been patchy at best. Nor has he enhanced his national team call-up potential.
To summarise, six-plus-five is a compromise on quality. It would not help the national team, being in a team does not automatically make players better. If that were the case the Scottish Premier league would not be a two horse race, Celtic and Rangers, every season, come think of it, the English Premier league’s title is only contested by four clubs, one of which, Chelsea, can boast an English spine to the team. The six-plus-five system may be dead in the water before it gets going, as there is the small matter of European law to overcome. This will not stop Sepp Blatter from trying to push through the rule.

It is well documented that Ricky Hatton balloons up to twelve/ thirteen stone (180 lbs) which is two stone plus above his fight weight of ten stone (140 lbs). I found quite an interesting interview with his strength coach, former bodybuilder and trainer, Kerry Kayes. Bringing his bodybuilding expertise to Hatton's camp at the behest of Billy Graham, Hatton's trainer. He outlines a little of how he helps Hatton achieve results.

click pic.

KERRY KAYES

Usain Bolt - you couldn't make the name up! - broke the world record for 100 metres on Saturday 31st may, with a time of 9.72 seconds. that was two hundreds of a second faster than the previous time, held by the 100 metre specialist, Jamaican compatriot and serial big meet choker, Asafa Powell. Bolt, whose preferred distance is the 200 metres, had already laid down a mark of his potential in an earlier race, clocking a time of 9.76 seconds. For a man who claims to have a poor start and also shares with his fellow speedster, Powell, the alarming habit of slowing down ten metres from the finish line, the question is just how fast can he go? Showing admiral composure to focus after two false starts, Bolt also managed to hold off the challenge of the current world champion, the American Tyson Gay. Gay's achievements also include being the current 200 metres world champion and the burden of being the man to banish the tarnished image of America's brash and arrogant, not mention drug scandalized, athletics. If Powell can get his mind right and Bolt and Gay maintain form, the Beijing 100 metres will be a real race to look forward to. I, for one, cannot wait!