Salerno hopeful the ship has steadied for Bushido clubs
By Caitlin Rundle
BUSHIDO Kickboxing Club in Clondalkin has endured some turbulent periods over the last year, but head coach, Ilija Salerno is hoping he has managed to steady the ship.
The impact of the Covid-19 crises saw the club faced with a drop off of 40-50 percent of its membership at the start of the first lockdown.
BMA Naas Coach Seamus Reynolds and BMA Clondalkin Head Coach Ilija Salerno preparing for Zoom classes
Yet in managing to navigate such choppy waters, the club made it through to the re-opening of the country back in August with a return to in-person sessions resulting in Bushido benefiting from new members as well as returning ones.
Now facing a third lockdown, Salerno said they are presented with a new challenge- how to make Zoom classes remain appealing.
“All of our classes went to Zoom, so we continued every class on a Zoom platform for our members, but as you know, the novelty has kind of worn off,” he said.
“We teach four-year-old kids through to adults. Adults are fine, we have a good set of adult memberships, and even had some new adults join us online as well. But, there’s only so much you can do with four or five-year-olds online for a 45-minute session.”
While in Level Three, classes were held in person, following strict cleaning and physical precautions with ‘shadow training’- the practice of punching and kicking in the mirror-, as well as different combinations given by the instructor being the predominant form of teaching as no contact training was allowed.
“Unfortunately, it will be a lot of strength and conditioning based on high intensity training because they’re not allowed to spar each other,” Salerno said.
“The contact end of it’s been missing since March and that’s a big downfall for us because obviously we are a physical sport, we are a contact sport.”
On top of motivating his students, Salerno has been finding ways to motivate himself, for his own sake as well as the club’s.
“If I don’t stay motivated, I’m going to lose the club and lose my members” stressed Salerno who pointed out that the club did not have the option to do nothing due to their overhead costs.
“We’ve been running for 20 years, so it would be a shame to just say ‘ok shut the doors.’”
Salerno had to face a separate challenge over the summer when the landlord of the unit the club used announced it was being demolished and replaced with an apartment complex.
“During the summer, we kind of looked around and found a unit on the Ninth Lock road and I’ve been negotiating with the landlords there for the summer. We finally got the keys there just before January,” Salerno said.
“We’re in the middle of renovating at the moment, but obviously this lockdown has brought construction to a close as well, so we can’t do much inside.”
Despite the delay, Salerno said that the timeline looks positive, and is hoping to move to the new location by March or April.
While this marks an exciting phase for the club, the sport of kickboxing itself has been making huge ground in it’s push for a place on the Olympic Games programme.
For Irish kickboxing, this year marks the first that Kickboxing Ireland has been recognised by the Olympic Federation of Ireland, allowing for the possibly increase in funding and resources for elite athletes.
“A lot of doors have opened with being recognised, for our elite athletes to qualify for the national team,” Salerno said.
“Kickboxing is also officially in the European Olympic Games for 2023. There will be a qualification process for the European Games, but that’ll be a huge, huge thing as well, a massive step” he stressed.
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