Here we are on Thursday 21st May, a few days away from BMAC’s Virtual Lockdown Knockdown and things are going well so far.  At this point, we have raised over £500 for our chosen charities which is pretty awesome.  A huge thank you to everyone that has sponsored us so far.

On Tuesday we had another training session to familiarise everyone with the format of the event and to practise the different punching sequences we have in mind.  This went pretty smoothly and even allowed us all to work up a bit of a sweat.   Note to self: have a fan in the room when I’m doing the actual challenge. 

So far, we have 24 club members signed up for the event. It’s really cool to see the BMAC family coming together like this for such a good cause.  We haven’t been able to train together since mid-March but the club bond is still strong.
 
The big event itself takes place on Tuesday 26th May and there’s still time to sponsor us.  We are raising funds for NHS charities together, the Trussell Trust and the Star Project and you can support us by visiting https://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/Team/BMAC

How is everyone doing during lockdown?
 
Unsurprisingly for a martial arts club, we are missing our regular training and the physical and mental boost that comes with it.  After a few weeks of video conference training sessions, Emma and I had a chat about whether the club could do a charity something to help organisations that might need some funds at this difficult time.  How about we try and do 50,000 punches between everyone in the club?  Great idea, let us see if the others are up for it.
 
Hugh was up for it, so the next challenge was to ask if the rest of the club were in too.  After a few “yeahs” and “I guess so” responses, which is often what passes for enthusiasm in BMAC, we had a team.
 
We laid out our idea and suggested charities and then things went a bit awry as many other opinions were offered.  As the old saying goes, a camel is a horse designed by committee and we were in danger of designing a horse with four humps, a trunk, and skis for feet.  I will admit to getting very grumpy about it on one video call which I could try and put down to cabin fever but…. mumble mumble.
 
Anyway, after some more brain storming including a trip to a virtual pub (with real beer), BMAC’s Virtual Lockdown Knockdown was born.  On 26th May, the club will get together online to do as many punches as possible in 30 minutes.  That might not sound like long but when you start punching 30 minutes can seem like an eternity.  We are going to do it in blocks of 10 minutes with each of our black belts leading a block with a sequence of punches.  15 blocks in total will give us our 30 minutes.
 
How many punches in that time?  Well we still think 50,000 is a realistic target.  One week out from the event and we have 23 club members participating so that averages out at 2174 punches each, or 72 punches per minute.  We had a short trial run at this and in doing two-minute blocks managed between 150 and 200 punches.  Easy.  I think. 
 
At the end of the day, it is a bit of fun to keep us active and engaged as a club whilst hopefully raising some money for good causes.  We have picked three charities to support.  The NHS Charities Together was chosen as the NHS is providing so much care to the country’s population at present and their staff are very much in the front line.  The Trussell Trust supports foodbanks across the UK, including here in East Dunbartonshire and aims to end hunger poverty.   Finally, the Star Project in Paisley ins close to Emma’s heart and they are helping people by doing food and medicine deliveries and organising digital get-togethers to combat loneliness. 
 
We hope you will agree that these are very worthwhile causes during these unprecedented times.  If you would like to support our Virtual Lockdown Knockdown, please visit our Virgin Money Giving page at https://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/Team/BMAC
 
Tune in next time as we prepare for the big event.  Keeeeep punching!