Contemporary Martial Arts Gym

CMAG CHILDREN’S SELF DEFENCE SEMINAR

No rehearsed attacks. No agreed sequences. No rinse and repeat techniques.

The kids entered the space one at a time with no idea what was coming.

They were confronted, challenged, bullied and sometimes physically attacked by larger leaders wearing protective equipment.

Their job wasn’t to win.

It was to think, use their words, recognise opportunities and escape.

Sometimes it worked. Sometimes it didn’t. And sometimes the result was pretty funny!

This is self defence training built around decision making, adaptability and dealing with the unexpected.

A huge success at CMAG today!
Our Kids Self Defence Seminar was a truly scenario based, Ecological Dynamics approach to self defence.
The environment, spaces and situations changed throughout the session, requiring the kids to adapt, assess risk, think critically and make decisions.
They learnt, practised and applied de escalation, verbal skills, body positioning, awareness and safe escapes, alongside the physical skills normally associated with martial arts.
A grading aspect was only one small part of the day.
The real achievement was learning to recognise, respond and adapt.

🥊 SELF-DEFENCE SEMINAR FOR CHILDREN
Saturday 29 August | 9:00am–11:00am
A practical self-defence session focused on one scenario: defending against a hook punch.
We’ll explore it:
🥊 Standing
🤼 In the clinch
🥋 On the ground
The kids will work on awareness, verbal skills, positioning, decision making, escape and physical defence when necessary.
The goal isn't to win a fight. It's to get safe.

CMAG Highlight 👏

Two beginners. One task. No instructions on how to solve it.
Both girls have been training with us only a few months. We gave them a simple constraint: join hands around your partner's body however you can, then get them to the floor. No cooperative"drilling", or "put your foot here." No demonstrated solution to copy.
What you're watching is a minute of two kids solving a live problem in real time, reading pressure, adjusting grips, transitioning between attempts as the first one closes off, recovering position when it slips away. Nobody told them how to do any of that. They found it, under pressure, against a partner who's also trying to solve the same problem against them.
This is the whole idea behind how we coach. Give someone a real problem with real constraints and let them build their own solutions, rather than handing them a fixed technique and asking them to reproduce it. The adaptability you see here, the constant small adjustments, isn't something you can drill into someone. It only shows up when the training actually demands it.
Fantastic effort and so good to watch.

Finish it standing🤔

Flashback Friday.
England August 2025.
Time flies when you are doing what you love, and getting to learn and train with great people🥊

Friday Flashback!
2015
Coaching kids in Charters Towers (QLD) with Nick and Lucy Hall at Power Up.
Happy days😀

KICKBOXING GONE WRONG! 🥊
What happens when you change the environment?
We turned the mats, cubes