Over 2 years ago, one of Irelands top coaches, Martin Rice, was awarded the Directorship of the Irish Sport Jujitsu Team who were invited to take part in the prestigious WCJJO World Championships to take part in 2007.
Martin's plan was to put together a team of coaches and fighters from varying backgrounds to show the world that Ireland was a force to be reckoned with on the International fight circuit. As a result of Martin's efforts the Combat Sport Federation was born.
The main venue for the bulk of the blood, sweat and tears or mildly put the Teams selection and preparation was The Hut in Glengormley.
The Preparation
Over the coming months many fighters would attend the often gut wrenching sessions with Top Class coaching coming from the likes of MMA Coach and former cage Fighter Peter Lavery, World Bronze medallist Paddy Ritchie, Martin Rice and yours truly.
A solid year of selections, sparring, and sweat filled afternoons got the nucleus of the Irish Squad selected and gave Martin Rice the formation of his first Irish Team. Although the main venue for the Squad was the Hut in Glengormley the Squad also took advantage of the sports facilities at Queens Physical Education Centre. Sundays would never be the same for the Irish Squad.
Broken Bones.
With any top level training injuries are common, however they are usually sprains, strains and bruises. However one cold May evening while teaching at my own Club I was to pick up an injury that would jeopardise the whole World Championship attempt. 5 Minutes before the end of the class whilst taking part in some grappling a freak accident and a rather large gent (only joking) (you know who you are) simply fell across my shin whilst my heel had got stuck in the mat, snap the bone cracked across my shin and on my ankle...apparently the screams could be heard for miles around, but I would of course deny that!
Six weeks of a plastered leg, a fractured wife who had to look after our 4 children and myself and everyone in the world telling me I had no chance of competing only spurred me on to make it.
In June the plaster came off, luckily this coincided with the ZKJ classes breaking for the summer and gave me the chance to train night and day to get there. I am very lucky that I am able to train with some of the most experienced guys in the country who do not believe in giving me an easy time. So from June to September I embarked on a mental regime to try and get me ready.
Physio was key and ZKJ 3rd Dan and Handily enough Physiotherapist Tom Rowley was there to get me ready, as you can see, he even made me train with the cast on!
The road ahead was simple! June and July where spent in total dedication to rehabilitating gaining strength and flexibility back into the leg, whilst August was a fierce programme of explosive lifting and bulking up from a podgey 13stone to a solid 14stone and then September saw a month of pure sparring, sauna suits, speed work and hours upon hours of cutting weight to make the ridiculous 79kg...in fact August the 20th on my Fortieth birthday I weighed in at 89kg ... the day of the weigh in on the 29th September I weighed in a frightening 79.1kg and for the first time in quite a while I did notice a bit of a 4-6 pack around the abdomen, but it quickly disappeared!
