#41: Hard Training With A Side Of Partying, ITL’s Second Fight Camp WAS A Major Success!
The ITL Fight Camp 2 had some major expectations following the success of last year’s fight camp. Yet, it did not fail to live up to the hype.
Held at the wonderful La Branda Riviera Hotel, the ITL hosted a series of sessions to improve each athlete’s fighting game. But that didn’t mean there wasn’t any time for some fun on the side.
Tactical Focus
The camp got going on Friday 2nd February: a joint team session led by coaches Gianluca Barbara and Ditmir Vodinaj.
The team also welcomed the expertise of another assistant coach: Coach Mohammed El Amin Merabati.
The team’s first session focused mainly on tactical drills concerning fighting space and timing. The second part, then, was all physical: hard and fast kicks against time.
A Spicy Breakfast
The second day of training began at 06:00, with the senior team (and some parents) taking to the hills of Mellieha for a short-distance run followed by a set of sprints and relays.
Fast and explosive: the way it should be. The boys and girls broke a sweat amid an early morning sunrise.
Responsible Citizenship
It wasn’t all about training.
After some downtime, the team convened on the beachfront and took part in a massive clean up. Together, they collected heaps of trash in the form of beer cans, plastics, ropes, debris, building materials, wrappers, paper, and other miscellaneous items.
All members, including MTA officials, coaches, and parents, to the youngest of toddlers did their part to clean the place up. On that note, we would also like to thank the La Branda Hotel for supplying us with waste-collection material to see the deed done.
Saturday Sweats
The morning physical session on Saturday 3rd February only left the guys wanting more.
One Kids’ session and one Seniors’ session took place later that afternoon. They each targeted practical sparring drills with the scope of incorporating these plays in test matches the very next day.
Check out these sessions by clicking on the above hyperlinks!
The ITL Parents Session Did Not Fail To Please
Coaches Gianluca and Ditmir later conducted the third-ever parents’ session, and this preceded a very special announcement.
In the coming weeks, the ITL will launch a new project aimed at delivering taekwondo training to an over-40s team. More about that later.
In camp, the parent’s session was attended by no less than twenty parents, of whom simply engaged in the sport after - at some point or other - seeing their kids take part in it.
The session targeted three common taekwondo drills (which would come in handy later), a physical component of hard-and-fast kicks, and of course… sparring!
Dancing, Karaoke, And One Major Party
We had a hard Saturday, so we wanted to be sure we’d finish off with something nice: a party.
After adding some lights and some speakers in our training hall, the night got going with a full-fledged party!
Karaoke, dancing, and choreographed performance by the team: you think it, it was there.
Not pointing any fingers, but there may or may not have been an ITL athlete’s rendition of ‘I’m a Barbie Girl’.
We Capped Off The Event Doing What We Do Best… Fighting!
With the support of the MTA, the ITL hosted a morning of test matches with the scope of integrating what we practiced in-game.
It was really exciting to see some first-timers getting their game on, on a full ring in front of a merry band of spectators.
The test matches were refereed by new ITL addition: Coach Amin.
Onwards… to the next!
A promise delivered! We made sure to schedule this camp in the first quarter of the year, as promised in our end-of-year activity, last year.
To say THANK YOU to our members for their undying support, we made this camp FREE OF CHARGE (training) to all our registered club members, all the while giving all families a chance to enjoy some downtime at the hotel.
From our part, we would like to thank you for being a part of this massive experience, which we will cherish for many years to come.
