Fred Rado's pancrase training camp - mixed martial arts training

August is usually a time to consider one’s holidays, the state of London’s tube network, why girls look great in the summer and why don’t leisure centres’ have air conditioning in their combat rooms?! So to my surprise I managed to combine virtually all of the above, bar the tube, into one handy pocket sized training camp with the French Godfather of Pancrase, Monsieur Fred Rado.

The training camp was set in Biarritz, France which is a mecca for European surfers and a cirtain pair of Greek brothers who regularly bash my head in. I was staying with two French guys — ‘big’ Pascal who spoke no English and Brian who studied English via UFC and Pride tapes "Tito-Ortiz-UFC-Light-Heavyweight-Champion-of-the-World!"

The town is much like its Cornish equivalent — surf dudes, Hawaiian shorts, VW campers. Unlike the UK, it was sfuking hot (45 degrees), full of stylish French patrons, no English accents and FULL of stunning girls! Everywhere I looked, from when I landed at the airport to when I took off at the end of the week, was like a scene from MTV Spring Break — oh, suits you sir!

Oh yeah, the training.

The days were split into two sessions — stand up and pancrase. We started each morning with a run from the training centre down to the beach and either Fred would kill us with sprinting up the steps over and over again or find really steep hills to conquer. All this at 9am in 35 degrees heat.

After completing the run we commenced with 2 hours of Thai boxing with a bit of Savate thrown in for good measure (hey, when in France…). Sets of Thai pad drills over three minute rounds to start with (this is normally when I regretted drinking anything stronger than apple juice) and I started my lessons in French all over again:

Fred (in French): blahblahblahblahblah middle kick blahblahblahblahblahblah. Ok?

Me: Err…oui!

Luckily Fred had perfect English with even a grasp of Cockney thanks to two of his old students, Ricky and Paul - who still teach at the Pancrase London club. So it was then that I regretted spending my French lessons at school scribbling obscenities into the desks about ‘Juicy’ Mattuicy, the young French teacher who all the boys were infatuated about.

We went through a mixture of Thai techniques with Fred correcting individuals, showing how and why we were using this combination (and approaching me with "Alright Geezer!") and then putting it into practice in a 1 on 1 situation and then finally into a sparing session. Also I learned to rather hard and painful way of blocking every leg kick instead of thinking I could take a couple and hit them on the way in. BANG, ow!, "une". BANG, ow!, "duex". BANG,ow!,"trios"… The French for bruise is ‘blu’- as in the colour of the big black and blue blobs on my pasty white legs.

We usually finished by 12 noon and headed back to the hostel for lunch — great food, ate like pigs — and chilled out till the next session. I found out why people have a siesta after I though I’d just ‘lie down’ for 20 mins and was out for the count for 2 hours.

The afternoon session was held in a huge dojo with — you’ve guessed it - no air conditioning/fans/air. After a sweatfest of a warm up which would normally include me (80kg and dropping each day) lifting big Pascal (100kg of solid French muscle) in a variety of ways — firemans lift, double leg, greco-roman, etc. We went through a series of takedowns into controlling positions and finally into submissions. This is where I found out how much there is to know of submissions — it feels endless! Fred is like an encyclopedia of strikes and submissions. He just goes on and on and on, from one submission to the escape to the counter to that escape to the counter to that counter of the escape and counter. Finally I can get out of side control and into a leg lock, or from being mounted into a toe hold! I defeat all man!! Until I spar with Fred and he counters everything I throw at him. He would tell me what I should go for and how to maneuver him into a correct position for the submission. He would show me how to tweak a technique to produce the ‘Funky Shit’ that Jess Liaudin is famed for!

Throughout the week I started to acclimatize to the heat and the intensity of the training, but the first two days were hell. On Wednesday we were gifted with an ‘easy’day, to let the bodies heal and to just purely work on technique but no sparring or pad work. Alleluia!

During the week I found a lot out about my body: what it could and couldn’t do, what it wanted and what it didn’t want. My piss was constantly brown due to dehydration, even though I was drinking at least 3 litres per session plus during the day.

When I was fated to drink a beer or two (mmmm, cold refreshing beer!) I got twatted really quickly, did my Kofi Anan impression by bringing together all the nationalities staying at the hostel (LOTS of 17 year old girls with what the French say "Une bon cou" — a great arse!) onto one table and getting them all drunk, but immediately regretting it when I was training and trying not to collapse or throw up at then end of sparring. This happened even if I didn’t drink anyway, so it was pretty much a lose-lose situation. I had obviously not read the ‘hardcore training’ bit in the post for the training camp. For those who know a bit about fitness and heart rate levels, for a 31-year old (mental age of 18) my maximum heart rate is 189. During the running/steps/hills it was 183-190. During my last spar with Fred it was 204. Ow!

If you are preparing for a fight I would strongly recommend going out there for a week and training with him and his students, as your conditioning would improve a HUGE amount, not to mention both stand up and ground game.