Midlands Kickboxing Turkish training camp was an outstanding success. | 10th October | posted by Midlands Kickboxing
Whilst on annual leave In Turkey, James Turner and Jenny Enderby from Midlands Kickboxing were approached by local fighter Rocky Yilmaz after seeing James is his club vest. Both James and Jenny accepted Rocky’s SOS call. We had just over a week to prepare for the fight against Eser Ayaz the reigning Mugla regional champion. Rocky’s coach had to return to his family home else-where in Turkey which left Rocky to fend for himself. We quickly had to assess his good and bad points. His ability to work in 100 degree heat was tremendous his fitness levels were very good. Since his old coach left Rocky concentrated on the work he could carry out himself and really enjoyed running huge distances daily. It was quickly apparent to Both James and Jenny that their fighter had a big heart great engine and plenty of good intentions but his hands were not great. We set about correcting that, we worked really hard on his hand speed and did lots of sparing. Both James and Jenny got into the ring and really pushed him at first he struggled to understand the slips and parry’s and the footwork as he has no Martial Arts experience, however we kept chipping away and at the end of the week he looked very sharp. The evening of the fight our camp was relaxed, I knew nothing about Eser and the language barrier didn’t help. As we arrived at the outdoor venue close to the mayor’s official office, I had simply under estimated quite how big this fight was. There were hundreds of fanatical supporters there all standing around the ring, it was an extremely volatile atmosphere. Win loose or drew I knew that Rocky was in a better place to challenge than he was several days before. We had a game plan to push him really had the first round, so that I could quickly analyze his opponent and then advise him and modify or plan for the next round. The bell rang and the fight set off at a frantic pace both fighters gave their all, then Rocky produced a moment of magic and pulled off one of the routines we worked on, he slipped the jab, hooked low the body then hooked to the head the finished him with the cross the fight was over in a blink of an eye and Rocky was crowed the Mugla Regional Champion to which he dedicated his win to Midlands Kickboxing.
