Well, there are many reasons to start kickboxing, some people gain a lot of self confidence from kickboxing, others start in the hope of eventually competing seriously, these are my reasons*:

1) Fitness – I am far fitter now than I ever have been prior to starting kickboxing, I may not be super-fit, but at least I’m not out of breath walking into university on a Monday morning (not that I ever go into university on a Monday morning!).

2) Control – I’m a rather ungainly fellow at the best of times. I have more flailing elbows and knees than any single person should possess at any one time. Since kickboxing I’m more flexible, have greater balance, and am generally better co-ordinated.

3) Stress Relief – Work, Study, Money, Family… despite what anyone says about life as a student is not as stress free as it should be. It’s very difficult to be stressed while kickboxing. Not only are you physically active and releasing all those good-for-you chemicals that exercise causes, but you have to concentrate on techniques and remain in the moment during the lesson, an hour of kickboxing and I tend to have forgotten whatever it is I was worrying about in the first place.

4) Safety – Kickboxing is a relatively safe sport. I’ve had a couple of nosebleeds whilst sparring (which seems to be my main claim to fame so far), but other than that I’ve not had any problems, unlike football where I’ve had – broken wrist, broken toe, whiplash, achilles tendinitis, sprained ankles, knee ligament damage, and more muscle strains than I can even remember. So all in all kickboxing, when practiced with ARUKBC and CARISMA at least, is as safe a sport as I’ve ever tried.

5) It Stays Interesting – I’ve tried running before, and I still play football, but nothing has kept me interested and challenged as much as kickboxing does. You can learn the basic punches and kicks that kickboxing contains in just a couple of weeks… perfecting them takes much longer. Not only do you improve the single techniques but it becomes necessary to learn to put them together in flowing combinations. For me that beats the rigmarole of lift heavy object, put down heavy object, repeat, repeat, stand on treadmill, go back lift heavy object, put down heavy object, repeat and so forth that going to the gym seems to be about. If you want something that will keep you entertained while you exercise it’s hard to think of a better activity than kickboxing.

6) Addiction – I have to admit that I am now slightly addicted to kickboxing and really missed it over the christmas break. As far as addictions go it’s probably one of the more harmless ones, and at least it provides more real life benefits than playing Zelda every night!

7) Meet new and interesting people (and hit them!) – Doing a PhD is a solitary existence. For some people the entire university experience can be a lonely one. I must admit that I’ve met some really decent people while kickboxing, not just from ARUKBC but also from CARISMA and CUKBS. You can just attend, keep yourself to yourself, and be a hermit if you want, but you can just as easily end up getting to know some new and interesting people and, if you go to sparring, you get to hit them too!

So if you are thinking of taking up kickboxing then my advice would be to go for it.

*Note: these are my reasons, and my opinions, and are not to be considered official views of ARUKBC