In my eyes Mixed Martial Arts is the greatest sport in the world. Take two combatants, give them minimal padding with minimal rules and let them decide who is the best; using whatever martial art tactics they want. It’s simple, it’s captivating, and it’s primal. The few rules like the banning of groin strikes and regulating weight classes not only helped the sport in the eyes of the average John and Jane Q Public, but it also increased the longevity of the fighters and gave me my favorite thing to watch on the planet. As if that wasn’t enough, mixed martial artists are easily the greatest athletes on the planet. If I could only get my clients to train a tenth as hard as those men and women do. I'd have at least my own local fitness show, not to mention the hottest looking group of people in town.
I’m a complete Mixed Martial Arts junkie. Mr. MMA thinks that most Mixed Martial Artists have a “lack of honor” and views the sport as if it's all that is wrong with the world today.
Despite his reservations about the purity of purpose for your average mixed martial artist, for the price of standard lesson price of $200, he’ll be happy to share his knowledge with you to help you win your next fight. Mr. MMA has one taker for these lessons. This pupil of Mr. MMA has a fight coming up and after seeing this rather large individual walk through the door I suddenly had to know what Mr. MMA is teaching him. It was an itch I couldn't resist scratching.
Walking back into the mat area I arrived just in time to see Mr. MMA tie on his black belt and ask the student if he was ready. The lesson started with the traditional bow and assumption of your typical side karate/Tae Kwon Do/Kenpo/ (insert your point scoring art here) stance. From there, Mr. MMA proceeded to teach a straight kick. Mr. MMA admittedly looked pretty smooth as he executed it. I’m guessing multiple decades of practice would do that for you. His student, on the other hand, did not look so good. His kick looked like the one Anderson Silva caught before he pounded out James Irvin at the last UFC Fight Night. He was telegraphing the kick by grossly dropping his back shoulder before he even stepped in for the kick, trying to hit the shield Mr. MMA was holding at chest level as hard as he could. As it went on, his dip of the shoulder only got worse as the pupil tried harder and harder to load up the kick.
“Now remember, throw this with confidence. Like you mean it.” Mr. MMA was telling him. “He’s not going to see it coming until that leg is already coming up, and by that time it’s too late!” Mr. MMA spoke excitedly. He'd been getting progressively more and more excited as the lesson wore on.
“Hey dude,” I spoke up. “Be careful. You’re dropping that back shoulder noticeably as you load up. As high as you're kicking a good wrestler will be able to time his shot for a single and a good striker can close the distance to on you the way that shoulder is dropping.”
“It’s dropping that bad?” He asked me, clearly surprised I was saying something.
“Yeah man, it is,” I told him.
“Well don’t forget you're kicking for the ribs,” Mr. MMA said, pointing to a spot five or six inches lower than he’d been holding center mass of the shield.
Riiiiiiiiiiiiiight. I thought. You are so full of shit, dude.
I had to step away from the lesson because when someone came in for a tour of the gym. I came back to the lesson twenty minutes later. Mr. MMA had moved on to a three-punch combo, ending in a rather slow developing hook. His pupil was moving through it pretty well and Mr. MMA was again excited.
“That’s it!” He shouted. “If you hit this, it’s done. The purpose of the fight is to end it as quickly as possible, right? To get in and out and on with your day? This will make that happen.”
I’d say the purpose is to win and prove you are the better man or woman in the cage that night. To show that you’re better, but hey what do I know? I thought, glaring at him. His tone let anyone within ear shot know in exactly how little esteem he held MMA.
“You do this, and it’s over. It’s over,” he continued on. “I’ve used this in tournaments against black belts and dominated them. This really, really works!”
Because, you know, a point sparring tournament is so much like stepping into an octagon shaped cage with nothing but a pair of 5oz gloves and a set of fight shorts on. You fucking moron.
“Ok, again!” Mr. MMA told his student. As he worked it through three or four more times I noticed that every time the student moved forward, Mr. MMA was always dropping his head and covering up.
Plume clinch Note for the non MMA/fight fan, it’s where you cup the back of your opponents head in your hands so you can unload you knees into his or her face. It’s beautiful when executed correctly- watch Anderson Silva v Rich Franklin I for a great example.
“Hey man,” I called out to them. “Can you use knees in your fight? I know you’re fighting amateur.”
“To the body, but not to the face,” he told me.
“See how Mr. MMA is ducking and dropping his head the way he is? That combo positions you perfectly for a plume clinch if the guy you’re fighting does the same thing. Watch for it, especially if you’ve backed him up into the cage.” I told him.
“Pff, the force you are going to generate on that punch, if he’s still standing after that, I want to train with him,” Mr. MMA said; turning to glare at me as he finished the sentence.
Ok dude, who are you? Mr. Fight Fucking Guru? Hasn’t the very name of the sport mixed martial arts dawned in you, you fucking moron? BJ Penn could take the punch, Rick Franklin did take it more than once in his two fights with Silva, holy hell Big Nog has made a living of taking punches like that only to come back and sub the shit out of people. The blow Fedor took when he got slammed and still came back to beat Fujitia... I continued to fume in my head, feeling the color in my face starting to rise. Ok Mr. MMA, I’m sure ‘no one can take that punch’… hey wait a minute, Mr. MMA… yeah dude that is your name until I leave this job. From here on out, you’re Mr. MMA.
With that I had a nickname for him. Two days later he would give me the speech that got all of this started.
And in 361 days, I'm going to strike a blow that so many out there only wish for. Only 361 days till I fight my fucking boss.
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