THE Combat Kickboxing Academy is hoping to make Suffolk a major stop on the kickboxing show circuit following the hugely successful hosting of an event at Thurston.

Stuart Watson

THE Combat Kickboxing Academy is hoping to make Suffolk a major stop on the kickboxing show circuit following the hugely successful hosting of an event at Thurston.

The CKA's chief instructor Peter Dunnett decided three months ago that he would host his own kickboxing show having grown tired of transporting the majority of his 280 strong club across the length and breadth of the country every few months for competition.

Dunnett said: “Some of the shows we have been going to have not been up to the standard we wish them to be. We were driving a long way to find that there were poor fighters, biased judges and bad venues.

“There was also a safety issue. We have got a lot of children at our club, some as young as five or six, and the last thing we wanted was for them to get hurt.

“We've been to some shows where the senior fighters get really stuck into each other and there ends up with blood here there and everywhere. That's the last thing the young fighters and their parents want to see.

“It got to the stage where I realised that the only way that we could get what we want from a show was to host it ourselves.”

The result was a spectacular and professional show at Thurston Community College where fighters from 16 clubs across the country battled it out in front of around 600 spectators.

Fighters came out to their own entrance music, while five light continuous fights were shown at the start of the day in order to emphasise the rules of contact for the show.

Senior fighters were instructed to keep contact as light as possible in front of the budding young fighters, while anyone under the age of 16 were banned from face contact.

Dunnett said: “We had people come from all over the country, some from as far as Middlesex and Burton on Trent, and the feedback from them all was great.

“People were actually going away and saying that they were going to stop their own shows and start coming to ours as they were that impressed. We're now hoping to run similar shows once every three months.”

The Combat Kickboxing Academy runs training sessions at five different venues over Suffolk - Walsham le Wil-lows, Woolpit, Debenham, Stanton and Bury St Edmunds.

For more information on the club click here