You must work hard to become someone!
Ciprian Sora, the sportsman whose results are singular in Romania. Ciprian Sora, the coach who wants his students at the club be even better than him.
On how he started his career in sport, what he recommands to his students, his future plans, his opinions about casinos and much more, you are invited to read in the following lines of this exclusive interview.
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Hello, Ciprian Sora and thank you for your time that you took away from training classes to give us this interview.
C.S. Hello back to you, and we are glad that the publication Casino Life & Business Magazine is quite interested in the people doing sport in Romania.
This is true, even though we are not a sport magazine, we still promote sport and the sport people in every edition coming out of the print.
C.S. It is an unfortunate thing that you can read more about small things everywhere, but there are still newspapers and magazines featuring sports people.
We are here in your training hall, very well equipped, at the first floor of Sala Polivalenta, where you train both consecrated sports and beginners in sport, plus children. How did you start your own sport career and what were the training conditions back then?
C.S. Everything has started for me since I was little. After watching those video movies, as there was nothing else to watch on TV or at the movie theaters, they had a positive influence on me and made me start practising the martial arts. In the 1990-1991, I went to the Voinicelul club, where my first coach was Dan Deliu. His club trained many to become champions, they launched very many professional sportsmen. That was my first contact with the sport. Afterwards, I participated in the first national championships and placed on the first position. A new stage followed, which was the international competitions, starting with 1996. Since 1995, I have been trained by Shihan Mircea Boldea, a coach who helped me have very many good international results as an amateur – an international title in 1998 at kick-boxing in Lithuania; in 1999, I was the world thai-box champion at IAMTF, Thailand – as a matter of fact, I am still the only Romanian to have won a gold medal in the Thai boxing. I hope to have my students to match my performance and, why not, go beyond it.
What were the conditions 15 years ago?
C.S. The conditions were like… I used to train in small room, with no fitness equipment. This is what I paid great attention and made sure that my students are trained in excellent conditions and the room is fitted with fitness equipment. For me as a sportsman, even lacking these conditions, my strong will, ambition and the desire to be performant, the human qualities and my coaches mattered the most. For the international title, I even trained in an apartment, where there were 8 to 10 people in a few square meters – and performance was not impossible, in spite of all these. If you really want and have all the ingredients, ambition, motor skills, strong will, endurance, speed, strength and a coach to guide you exactly how it should be done, you can reach performance with minimum conditions. The demands of the sports people are higher today. They are thinking of money, not of performance. I had in my head to become an European or world champion, while the children today think money. As far as I am concerned, they will only have things to lose. In our sport branch, money comes really hard and it is rather impossible to make a living off it. I keep telling my students that they should study hard in school, to get a job and then go and do some professional sport. If they are good, they will be able to find a sponsor to support them financially so as they will become better.
I.A. How did you shift from being a man doing sport to a man coaching others?
C.S. It was quite simple for me as for a good period of time I was still competing but I had a group of students to train. I was two people in one, a sportsman and a coach. At some point, I was coaching with a good friend, Horia Radulescu, who supported me professionally when I started Local Kombat; besides him, I had many people around me training at the same time but I was also leading the training. I was doing the sparing, the sparing topic, the training plan. In other words, the shift to coaching was smooth. Back then, I was travelling to international training sessions, spending a lot of time outside the country. I trained with Peter Aerts, who was a world champion for three times. I also trained with Semmy Schilt, who also trained in my training hall for his fourth title. In 2009, he spent here one month and trained for the K1 final tournament – this is how we acquired experience, since I trained with the best. Since I was a student myself, I have picked up several training methods that I later implemented into my training programs with my students. I want to explain to the readers of Casino Life & Business Magazine that there are some stages that need to be covered in the professional sport and I had to adjust the training program for the beginners. There is a pyramid of performance, as Dan Deliu, my first teacher, told me, which starts with the initiation where sportsmen are selected. Then, it follows the stage where the person starts advancing – the advance stage – and then the performance – the performance stage – that is the top of the pyramid. And I am talking about international performance, European, world titles or medals at Balkan, European or world championships.
Then, we have the reversed pyramid, as many teachers call, which I agree with; the pyramid that you may not reach, which is called the professionals, where you must make money. In the first pyramid, initiation, advanced and performance, it is the sportsman and his family who needs to invest into; for the second pyramid, you start fighting for a few hundreds and in time you will make a few thousand, ten thousands euros, in dependence on the value of each coach. It is a long path for performance, spotted with many hours of training, a lot and hard work and the possibility that you may not succeed. The thing you are left with is an extraordinary physical and psychical training, which can help you on coaching or joining the national defense systems, which are the Police, Gendarmerie, The Romanian Intelligence, Army, since you are prepared from all points of view. This thing happened with sports people in K1 and SuperKombat.
The Galas that Eduard Irimia organizes have helped and still doing it for the sports people who are in the second pyramid.
C.S. Yes, this is true, Local Kombat-ul has helped us tremendously. But for Super Kombat and Mr. Eduard Irimia, we could have not been known by the large public. If I take myself as an example, people know me when they see me on the street, in any county in Romania. I have many fans to come for the martial arts and /or fitness here, who would have not possibly heard about us, but for LocalKombat or SuperKombat (as an international product). Only the people in our branch knew me but after these Galas, we became heroes and models for the youth nowadays, who watch these events and wish to become professionals.
Do you have young people, children, coming here to Ciprian Sora hall?
C.S. Yes, I have to admit that there are many children here, even though ‘Ciprian Sora’ hall is not very well known inside the Sala Polivalenta. Not so many people are aware that I have a training hall here, where we teach martial arts. There is an initiation group of children, starting from 5 years of age; but the initiation group targets anyone who wants to train – to my surprise, the hall is packed. All the social categories are represented here – people with a regular job or bank directors, doctors, teachers, etc. We also have ‘young’ sportsmen in their 60’s about whom we are glad that they understand the benefits of the martial arts. Out of the ones we have in the initiation group, there will be a few to join the performance stage. Even though it lasts for quite long, between 3 and 6 years, with at least 2 training sessions per day, for circa 4-5 hours.. And after 2-3 years, they will step up, to the performance. Plus, you have to make a lot of sacrifice. These people support themselves, they need proper food, vitamins, time to recover and last, but not least, equipment. This is an investment that may not be taken back but, as I said, you will be left with a strong mental force.
Who are the sports people you are training at your club, who started becoming more visible?
C.S. My club is at the beginning of its road. We have been in the business for only 3-4 years but last year we had Cristian Spetcu, who won the world title of vice champion in kick-boxing (k1) in Sao Paulo in Brazil in the 63.5 kg category. WAKO is the strongest competition in the world kick-boxing, for amateurs. His performance was a nice surprise and expected at the same time, for he is a person very dedicated to performance.
Lazăr Daniel is another sportsman I am training, with a few years of experience, whom we are taking soon to the competition in the Republic of Azerbaijan, for a game within K1 MAX.
We should not forget Serhal Ordek, a sportsman of Turkish background in the 74 kg category, and Neacşu Andrei -69 kg -, who participates in the light contact.
Dicu Irinel -81 kg – and Spetcu Cristian -63.5 – will be in the full contact events. They already were in the world championship in Turkey last year and they are national champions in kick-boxing and muay-thai.
I support all of them, with my skills and equipment at this training hall.
Slowly, but surely, our Club is catching up with the rest. And also, I need to mention that Sandu Lungu trains here for a month, prior to each game or gala.
To reach the performance we all dream about, I am the person in charge with the future kick-box and Muay Thai Federation, which organizes the national kick-box championships.
There are more fighting styles, such as: full contact – fists and leg sweeps above the waist, kick-boxing low-kick where you are allowed to kick above the legs and kick-boxing K1 where you can kick with your knee, only one strike. Plus that we have Muay Thai style where I received the best result as an amateur sportsman and the Muay Thai national championship.
We do have the light contact events, which gives us an intense schedule, with 7 national and at least 4 international championships, light and full contact. Unfortunately, we are not given much support, we spend our money to go to the championships. As I already said, we are now trying to establish the Romanian kick-boxing and Muay Thai Federation. Should we get the approval of the Department of Youth and Sport, we will have assigned a budget for such competitions, which will mean performance for Romania. We are not a sport branch to bring many medals because a medal involves a lot of sweating. But last year we had 4 medals, 3 in juniors and 1 in seniors. We are almost similar with boxing – the same amount of work for a medal – but we have never had their budget. I cannot say that I am sorry for spending our own money but it would be nice to bring money from home. Positive signals are coming from the Department, we have the support of Minister Banicoiu and Carmen Tocala, Secretary of State. The Department of Youth and Sport is very supportive of such activities.
I.A. Do you have any free time left for yourself?
C.S. This is a sensitive issue. I spend the weekend with my family whenever I am not away in a competition.
How does a regular day in your life look like, where there is no competition going on?
C.S. The morning training – performance is mandatory – , then I have 1-2 hours for myself, after I come back to the training hall until the evening. Most of the time I spend it in here.
The hall is indeed looking very good.
C. S. Thank you, we have a well equipped hall within Ciprian Sora sport club; we also have fitness that is a must for the professional sportsmen. No results will be as good as should be without them working on various equipment and muscle groups. The fitness is fully fitted, on a surface area of 400 square meters within Sala Polivalenta. We also feature an aerobics room where people can do Kangoo Jumps, very beneficial for women and also Zumba or Bokwa, a new and modern dancing style that is becoming more and more popular. There are coaches and colleagues who managed to attract many followers, but we also target the people who want to do sport out of pleasure and for healthy reasons.
We extend our invitation to everyone who want to do sport and to all who want to bring some discipline in the life of their children so that they will lead a healty life.
We have had special cases, with people displaying behavioral problems in society, people with drinking and drugs problems. They came to us, the people employed here, and we played the role of a psychologist and solved their issues. We have 8 coaches for the various activities around the club.
Have you ever visited casinos, the gambling rooms?
C.S. I have walked into them, I played but I am not an addict. The world of gambling is interesting and the rooms are nice places to be in.
If you go there for entertainment only, to have fun in a casino, everything is ok. I have nothing against but people should know when to stop. As a gambler, you should not make a ‘business’ out of it, as it is very likely you lose and go the wrong direction. If there are limits to the casino or gambling activities, then this enjoyment is very welcome.
Thank you for your kindness and wish you good luck in your endeavor.
C.S. I also thank you for your time and desire to tell the people about what we, the sports people are doing in our training halls. I myself am tired of all the tabloids that overlook the sport activities. A sport person works for a life and sometimes cannot make the money back, unlike a beautiful girl who giggles, waves at people and here is a limo waiting for her. This is Romania and we should tell the young people that whatever they see over there is fake, as reality is much tougher. You must work hard to become someone who matters!
