vFighting Chance MA Academy

Being the Global Sales Director for Software Company has many benefits and many drawbacks. The benefits? Well, on my travels I have met and got autographs and pictures for my kids of their heroes, such as Hulk Hogan, Shawn Michaels, Mr. T, and David Beckham, and for my wife, Tom Jones. The downside is that the world is a 24- hour place that never sleeps, so at 7.00am I am speaking to Australia and Japan and at 7.00pm I am speaking to the USA and Canada. This has seriously impacted on my martial arts training over the last few years, so when I saw a thread on SFUK mentioning a Saturday morning Vale Tudo class, in Batley, West Yorkshire, I decided to go and see for myself what the club was like.

The directions I had were excellent and I arrived at 10.10 am, due to traffic, and was met by Neil Hall. I had read many times that Neil was a nice bloke and that proved to be true, he was genuinely interested in me, my background and what I expected from the class. Neil has many years of training in various arts and seemed to have a good all round knowledge of various training systems.

The club is a large room above a motor museum. It is light, well ventilated, with weights, punch bags and a large, good quality matted area. The group of lads training ranged in age and experience from mid teens to (almost) 40 (me!) and everyone was very friendly, which always helps on your first visit alone to a new club.

I quickly changed and joined the group doing the warm up, which consisted of lots of jogging, press ups, crunches and squats, with some shadow boxing thrown in for good measure. I was introduced to Daz, who runs the class. A former boxer, turned grappler, he looked fit and strong and a no-nonsense character. Daz was suffering from a back injury, so he had to be careful when showing drills and techniques, but it didnât stop him from joining in with everything.

We moved onto drills with partners. Starting with pushing and pulling from a collar and elbow stance, we moved onto cross body lifting and some basic ground work and then it was time to put the bag gloves and get stuck into the padded shields. We started by firing in four punch combinations, full power, while moving forward along the matted area, then 100 fast punches before moving back down the mat, still punching in four punch bursts. 100 crunches followed and then we were back up and firing off the four punch comboâs again, only this time it was followed up with two heavy knee shots while gripping the back of the partners neck. A 30 second ãwater gulpä break (much needed) and it was time to practice low kicks, thai style, into the pads. I managed to keep upright as Neil Hall went at it, full power!, showing how much he had learnt during his time as a Muay Thai boxer. Sparring, to the body only, with some very heavy shots thrown, followed this. Finally, we practised knee strikes and then another 30 second break.

On to the grappling, with various scarf escapes, top and side mount escapes and some nice (painful) counters. This was what I had really come here to learn, as my grappling experience was thin on the ground, but Neil, Daz and the rest of the lads were very patient and took a lot of time to make sure my technique was correct, and that I understood the basic body mechanics of what to go for and why, especially when bridging, to make sure I was not wasting energy and that I was smoothly reversing a weak position for a more dominant one. We switched partners and I was then working with Sean (or it could be spelt Shaun), a powerful young man who had only been training at the club for about 8 weeks, but was keen to learn and wanted to enter competitions. Daz then asked everyone to start working on the ground for submissions, but only of one type, for example he would say, only chokes, and that is what you had to do, keep rolling and working, looking for a choke, nothing else counted. Then it was figure fours only, followed by, arm bars only. Finally, it was anything goes and time to get stuck in. I was rolling with Sean and managed to make my additional size and power count for a few minutes, but he was patient and finally caught me in the arm bar he had been working for. The class ran over by about 15 minutes, due to everyone wanting to keep going! But eventually it was time to call it a day and cool off and stretch.

I spent another 15 minutes chatting with Neil and Daz before making my way back home. I really enjoyed my first trip the Fighting Chance MA Academy, the club is good, the instructor good, they just need a few more lads, say early to mid 20âs, with a will to learn and maybe compete. Come on, if an old timer like me can do it, anyone can!! Like Arnold always says..... I'll be back!!!!!

Summary: A good, well equipped club, with a high quality matted area and (more importantly perhaps) top class instruction. A great bunch of lads, no prima donnas, all friendly and willing to help. A good location, within a 45-60 minute catchments area of Greater Manchester, West Yorkshire, North Yorkshire, South Yorkshire, etc. The club caters for all ages and experience levels, so give it a try!!! Check out the club directory on SFUK for details.

25 June 2002