Great Night for Basildon’s 5 Elements Martial Arts

On Saturday 8th May 5 Elements Martial Arts hosted their first WAKO Kickboxing and K1 show at the Selex Sports Centre in Basildon. There was a full house and an excellent atmosphere.

5 Elements entered 5 fighters into the competitions of which 4 won, including the English WAKO title belt for the under 63.5kg group, which was won by Colin Heard, who beat Gareth Ford from Leicester PKA.

Helen Robinson Carey, who runs the Chip Inn in Maylandsea, was also victorious, beating Tracey Ling from Chadwell Kickboxing. This was her 3rd win for 5 Elements.

Fighters came to Basildon from all over the country, with many travelling down from the Grimsby, Doncaster and Leicester.

Mike Brooks failed to hold onto his British WAKO amateur title, losing against Alfie Davies from Enfield Kickboxing by way of a technical knock-out in the 4th round.

Tony Willis from 5 Elements Martial Arts was extremely pleased with all his fighters and Master Cris Janson-Piers, head of WAKO GB Ringsports said that it was the best début kickboxing show that he had ever attended.

Tony Willis has been involved in martial arts for over 20 years. He started teaching kung-fu in school halls in Wickford, South Woodham and Chelmsford and then moved into his own martial arts gym 3 years ago. Since then he has focussed on training kickboxers under the WAKO rules and has seen many of his fighters win bouts and become national champions.

More recently he has started teaching MMA classes in Basildon which are proving to be extremely popular. The MMA classes teach a wide range of fighting techniques, including boxing, kicking, grappling, wrestling and throws. Tony Willis is planning to install a MMA Cage Wall to help train students in ring techniques. Fergus Dullaghan has recently joined the MMA teaching team at 5 Elements. He comes from a Judo background and was ranked 4th in the UK in 2008, and was on the Welsh National Judo Team.