Elite Training Center in St. Petersburg Florida

January 31st, 2010 | Tags: dojo, gyms, schools

Elite Training Center St. Petersburg Florida

A break from the cold, rainy weather sent me to Sunny Florida. It’s supposed to be warm there, event though I heard recent stories of it being so cold Iguanas were falling out of trees. But just because I am away it doesn’t mean I can stop training, especially if I want to enter the Tiger Balm Tournament in March 2010. So I asked Sensei Ali if he knew of any where to train in the Tampa Bay area and he found Elite Training Center. So I fired an email their way and the response back from Phil Beatty, the owner and chief instructor, was, “You are certainly welcome here… No attitudes here, just great training with friendly people.” That sounded just great. Elite Training Center is a fairly big martial arts school in the heart of St. Petersburg, being one of the largest and best schools in the whole Tampa Bay area. The school offers Karate for adults and kids; it’s also a Gracie Barra Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu School; they have a Muay Thai and Kickboxing program, and have plenty of room for crossfit training, a weight room, and Elite Training Center also offers seminars in Self-Defence on a regular basis.

So on Saturday morning I found my way across St. Pete with the TomTom and met up with Kathy at the front counter and joined the Muay Thai/Kickboxing class. Many students from that day are already in a MMA mindset, since they were in the BJJ class immediately before Muay Thai/Kickboxing. The class instructor was a very capable Roger Patrizzi, who has over 20 years experience in martial arts, a background in Close Combat training with the Marines, and a number of Muay Thai and Vale Tudo fights to his credit. The course plan when I attended class was punching and kicking combinations in the first half and light sparring during the second half. My impressions from the class were that the open and relaxed environment enabled the instructor to keep moving about the class and allowed the students to share some of their thoughts as well. The mat is open after class and I got some sparring in with Alex Cruz. I heard later that Alex is on the card for his first pro MMA fight on February 26, in RFC 20 (Real Fighting Championships) in Tampa (note last I checked the RFC website, they had not updated the info with his fight).

I came back the following Tuesday for another class. This time I managed to borrow some fancy sparring gear ahead of time so I could train with the group that had gear. I was in for a real surprise when I sparred with Jeff Bullock, who had some of the speediest punches I have come across in a while. Turns out he was so hot because he was training for a fight on the 23^rd of January! I had to compliment him afterwards for being such a good boxer. He was really amazing. I have since heard from Sensei Phil Beatty that both their fighters from that night, Jeff Bullock and Alyssa Bellini won their fights. Congratulations to both fighters. I understand also that Elite Training Center is set for further expansion to support its growing student base and future programs.

Here are a few photos from my time there.