The IBK All-Round Fighting Club at AU was one of the first Scottish universities to embrace the MMA scene. Conceived and developed by Stanislaw Święcicki, who was one of the first Kyokushin Budokai students in the world to do a true all-round fighting black belt grading. He did this under the watchful gaze of Kancho Eric Van Vaerenbergh at his dojo in Blankenberge, Belgium and his sensei Hanshi Marc Howes.
There was much paperwork and effort needed to allow a club to be associated with any university, but Stanislaw persisted and in 2008 the first lesson began. Kaicho Jon Bluming was delighted with such a prestigious university to add his worldwide list of clubs.
Within a short space of time, the university fighters became a force to be reckoned with on the amateur circuit. The original members fought for their university all over Scotland. However, as MMA gained ground and acceptance the smaller shows began to dry up and given the fact that students were at AU to get a degree and not to be pro fighters, something needed to be done. Hence the conception and development of SMMART (see page). Soon the club had top quality instructors giving their time freely to work with the students. Sensei Nera ‘Rocky’ Vegys came onboard to give his expert instruction in boxing and kickboxing and Sensei Piotr Widz; an international wrestler
Aberdeen University All-Round Fighting Club has the highest membership of any martial arts group at the University; indeed many non-martial arts groups as well. At Freshers Week the club’s meet-and-greet table is often swamped with eager applicants. And as the years have passed the martial arts standard of students has also increased as more MMA, BJJ and Muay Thai clubs have opened throughout the world. This has had a positive impact on the AU students by widening their knowledge of other systems.
As well as the SMMART, the Aberdeen University club has a wrestling-based competition format. This has been developed by Sensei Piotr Widz and proved increasingly popular each tear.
IBK UK 