Just to inform you that Gilles le Duigou will be coming back to
Cambridge at the end of the month (Sat 27 Jan 2007) to conduct
another seminar. He will be accompanied by Florence Suire, a
many times Savate Champion, including French, European and
World.

For those of you who don't know who Gilles is, please read the
following:

Gilles le Duigou

30+ years in Savate

114 competitive fights in total (rough breakdown in brackets):

Savate (60) only lost 4 times in Savate competition; English
Boxing (20) 14 amateur and 6 Pro fights (won 4, lost 2) was
amateur Boxing Champion of Paris, and winner of two other
amateur tournaments; Kickboxing (14); and Full-Contact (20).
One of Gilles' Full-Contact trainers was the legendary Dominic
Valera.

In 1985, Gilles fought and beat the fabulous Francois
Pennacchio in the semi-finals of the French Championships.
After losing the first round, to the highly-skilled and fast kicking
Pennacchio, Gilles switched tactics and used his English Boxing
skills to win the next four rounds.

(Pennacchio later went on to defeat Ramon Dekkers, the Thai
Boxing legend, in a kickboxing challenge match. "The Dutch
sensation fought in Milan in the 1990s losing a spectacular
match against French Savate Champion Francois Pennacchio.
Nobody expected Pennacchio to last more than a few minutes,
but the Frenchman found out that Savate sweeps were effective
against Dekkers and used them to build a victory on points.")

In 1986 (before there was an official World Championships),
Gilles beat everyone he met in the ring, including Daklaoui (Fr),
to become Champion of Europe. In that same year, he also
fought a Japanese Full-Contact fighter, who was an extremely
powerful kicker. Gilles had been ill in the weeks before the fight
and, possibly as a result of that, he had both arms broken when
he tried to block a particularly strong round kick. Gilles continued
to fight, even though he knew one of his arms was broken, and
eventually knocked out his opponent in the fourth round with a
fouetté (whip kick) to the liver.

Some time after breaking his arms in that fight (he now has at
least one steel plate as a result!), Gilles fought the remarkable
Richard Sylla, but lost in the third round to an uppercut punch to
the liver. So now you know why he likes that particular target!

Please email me in the first instance for further information, or if
you are interested in attending: info@...

Pugil