London PR firm PHA Media joins MMA Fighter Khalid Ismail with Saracens Rugby
In late January, PHA Media’s sport PR team arranged for their client Khalid Ismail, one of the UK’s top Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) fighters to take part in a training day at Saracens Rugby club, as the 1st XI put their final preparations in place ahead of their Heineken cup clash against Treviso at the weekend. Initially PHA Media approached Saracens and England player, Matt Stevens to work with Khalid for a PR campaign. Stevens is a big fan of MMA and put the public relations firm in touch with various coaches at Saracens to set up a full day of activities with the players and Khalid.
The MMA fighter and trainer visited Saracens’ training ground in St Albans on Friday 20th January, and after being briefed on the basics of rugby by PHA Media’s team, Khalid observed the first team forwards and then the backs training together in the gym, interacting with players to find out what exercises they did for strength and conditioning and how MMA training can complement rugby – especially wrestling vs. scrummaging!
Despite rugby being a team game and MMA being an individual sport, PHA Media spread the message that there are many areas of both sports that overlap and they secured an invitation for Khalid to give a talk to some of the younger players in the afternoon. Khalid lead a discussion with the academy players and held demonstrations drawing parallels between MMA and rugby, looking at how MMA can positively influence professional rugby training. The confidence and discipline for grueling training regimes required to physically and mentally prepare for big matches was a major talking point as were methods to channel aggression and anger with participants in both sports very familiar with being knocked to the ground!!
It was a real eye opener on how such different sports can complement one another and was a useful day enjoyed by all!
About the Author: Katie Matthews is working in a sports PR in UK and recommends you to visit http://www.pha-media.com/
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