Training courses to be clarified, even more in the light of the sport reform. The exclusion of the Mma from the Coni list, after the discipline had given a great boost to the sector. The need to pay more attention to the athlete’s physical preparation, trying to equate it to the technical one. These are just some of the open questions on the table of the Italian Union of Combat Sports Athletic Trainers (Uipasc), the association born in 2010 following the educational course organized by the University of Cassino. The organizers of the course, in fact, have decided to get together to “promote and disseminate everything that is present in combat sports and martial arts”, as the president Michele Distaso explains to ItailaOggi. “Every sports federation and organization has an internal sector dedicated to training which trains athletic trainers, such as football which has its own association of trainers. They have specific physical training programs aimed at football, as well as other sports. In our case there is the Italian judo wrestling and karate federation which has an internal training sector dedicated to the three disciplines. Instead, we deal with all combat sports, sports that are different from each other but which for some parts have a similar physical preparation “. The Union then trains the instructors, also issuing a certificate that allows them to work in the gym: “our program includes eighty hours of training, with compulsory attendance at lessons and two or three final exams”. The Union also relies on Csen, the national educational sports centre.
The “category” is experiencing a moment of good health, in particular thanks to the MMA (mixed martial arts), a discipline that is having a lot of success, bringing benefits to the whole movement. However, in Italy MMA has been excluded from the disciplines recognized by CONI: “for some years now it has been part of mixed sports, in the form of jujitsu”, explains the Uipasc president. “As well as the following and the economic return, the Mma has also allowed a sort of “professionalisation” of our sector. Until a few years ago, in fact, the modus operandi was that of the instructors who transmitted “secret techniques”, learned over the years of experience. With the arrival of the MMA it was understood that preparation must follow technical criteria and that by now nothing is improvised anymore, on the contrary”.
In all of this, even the trainers then have to deal with the entry into force of the sporting reform. According to Distaso, the biggest problem for the category in this sense is linked to academic paths: “I see a bit of chaos, between three-year degrees, the formation of federations, of other entities such as ours, training credits at a European level … There are still various educational levels and a basic confusion. A more organic system, with certain rules and few possibilities to interpret them, would certainly be good for all of us”. Finally, the Uipasc president also underlines another aspect, namely the value of preparation linked to that of technical knowledge: “in our sector much attention is paid to the figure of the technician, of the master, of the instructor and less to that of the trainer, or physical fitness in general. Instead, especially in combat sports, it is a fundamental element, even more so than in other disciplines”.
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