I have been given the opportunity to do an MMA demonstration on a local small town boxing card. It is a 5 minute spot in the ring between a couple of the scheduled bouts.
I would like it to be fairly high energy while still looking very practical. Has anyone done anything like this before? I would appreciate some input, if it goes well it would be good advertising for my club.
My background is mainly submission grappling with a bit of boxing and Muay Thai. Ideas?
.....and no I don't think I'll incorporate any board breaking.;)
First off, consider your audience. Will it be kids, housewives, college age males, etc.. In this case, with it being a boxing card, you probably won't have a lot of kids present, and the women in attendance will either be there in support of a competitor or with a significant other, so your audience may essentially be grown men that want to see some fights. Therefore, design a routine that will get that audiences' attention. The two things you must do is ENTERTAIN and INFORM. If you just get out there and do a couple of moves, and fail to also be entertaining you will not capture the interests of your potential market.
Here's some ideas. Use both drills and self defense skills in the demo. Start with a bang and end with a bang! You have to get their attention quick,so start off with some big throws and have a partner that can "sell" the fall. You can use the middle of the demo to demonstrate more technical, less flashy moves to INFORM your audience, but the start and end should also entertain the crowd. Flying armbars or kneebars, or big slams and takedowns get people's attention. Also if you have the manpower, try some routines involving multiple attackers, and you shouldn't always be the one "winning." You want to show them that people of different shapes and sizes can all apply these moves effectively. Consider using humor, music, and good acting (taking hard bumps, using facial expressions and gasps to add to the preceived effectiveness of the technique) to pull your crowd in. Again, moves such as flying armbars, Big shoulder throws to submissions, rolling reversals of takedown attempts, and sport jiu-jitsu moves that have an element of flash will entertain the crowd and get there attention to allow you to inform them of what you have to offer. By the way, we just did a demo this morning. It went great.
There is only going to be two of us, so the multiple attacker scenario is out the window. I think the audience is going to be very mixed seeing as there are junior bouts on the card as well.
I was going to do some flashy stuff. I am just curious how the actual ground work will go over with the crowd. Bare in mind most of these people wouldn't have EVER seen any MMA.
I guess I could always do the Bruce Lee 60 second challenge.;)