On a recent trip to Kamloops, and needing a place to roll, I came upon MMA fighter Matt Baker’s new gym, Mata-Leao MMA. For a measure of how much mixed martial arts is making inroads to our way of life, the new martial arts gyms are a far better example of how relevant it has become, rather than UFC on Fox. How nice it is to see the new generation of MMA fighters like Matt Baker already giving back to the sport they love by opening gyms, bringing the fundamental components of mixed martial arts to a new generation of young athletes who want to learn it and train it. I took mat away from his busy schedule to tell me a bit more about his fight background and his new gym.

Matt Baker is a Canadian MMA fighter with a 10-0 amateur and a 7-3 pro record, currently fighting for Battlefield Fight League. Matt is the only Canadian on Team Nogueira, out of Rio De Janeiro Brazil. His own martial arts education has given him the opportunity to roll and train with some heavy hitters like Minotaur Noguiera, Minotauro, Anderson Silva, Tony Mariano, the #1 ranked fighter in the world outside of UFC, Bigfoot Silva, ex Strikeforce champ, Rafael Cavalcante… Matt says the gym is amazing for fighting at 185, lots of light heavyweights and 185s. No doubt!

Matt explained that the name for the gym, Mata-Leao MMA, is from the Portuguese for ‘lion kills’, which is another name for the rear naked choke. The expression also comes from the legend of Hercules. In one of Hercules’ 10 quests, he defeated the Nemean Lion with its impenetrable skin by applying a rear naked choke.

Mata-Leao naturally has a kickboxing program, and a gi and no gi program. The Brazilian Jiu-jitsu gi program is run by Andre Taniguiti. Originally from Brazil, Taniguiti trained at Axis Jiu-jitsu in Japan. Matt says Andrey is a very good brown belt. Matt runs the mma and no gi side of things, as well as personal training sessions.

I asked Matt what was his personal approach to training and the kind of gym he was hoping to run. He said, “I like working with kids, I just get lost training in classes with kids, I have a gym in my home town because it takes me away from training at my fight camps, I relax, I do it for the fun, I don’t do it for the money… The gym is open since January 2012. It’s the first year in business and I already have over 30 students. I am taking down about 8 of my students to Tiger Balm 2012 this weekend. For 90% of them it’s their first tournament. Hopefully from there the gym is going to grow, the school is going to grow, and there will be more tournaments to come. If I can’t one day be a champion myself, I would like to coach a champion. That would be my ultimate goal. Hopefully one day, I’ll make it to the Kamloops Sports Hall of fame like Tom Laroche, my first sifu.

A new martial arts gym opened the doors to the public on Saturday September 25, Raw Academy Vancouver. Naturally I had to take up the invitation to see what kind of gym it is going to be. I was impressed to see that Raw Academy already had its high school wrestling program in place for 3 months, and the large mat space is lined with a wide variety of heavy bags and two boxing rings along the North side.

I originally heard about RAW Academy through ‘Tricky’ Nick Marinos, local MMA fighter. I then noticed that wrestler and grappler Frank Mensah was an instructor, awesome and super high energy Muay Thai Instructors A. Kru Williams and Tony Strong would also be offering courses at Raw Academy. Earlier in the year, I took a couple classes with them at the Stand Up Muay Thai Gym in Coquitlam and loved the classes.  As well Local fight promoter Gerry Gionco and my good friends at MMASucka.com have office space down there.

…was RAW Academy just a gym for MMA fighters? Paul assured me no, that was not the case at all.

Saturday’s guests were treated to a demo of high school wrestling program and cake and a nutrition seminar by Charles Holmes. I had a chat about RAW Academy with Boxing trainer Mike Wiese and Paul, another of the wrestling coaches. Both trainers have over 15 years of experience training, and they are there because they love what they do. With people like Gerry Gionco, MMA Sucka, and Nick Marinos at the gym, was RAW Academy just a gym for MMA fighters? Paul assured me no, that was not the case at all. He is working to establish wrestling programs in all of the high schools in Vancouver, having already established wrestling in many of the schools. “We arent into the hype of MMA just because there are a couple of fighters at the gym… that’s no way to run a business at all. We are about establishing sport programs throughout the community. With out core sport programs in Vancouver like high school wrestling, there would be no MMA fighters in the city”.

Three months open and RAW Academy, by all appearances, has been busy planting its roots into the community with its great youth wrestling program, and already announcing other fitness programs from Yoga, to Hip Hop, Senior Fitness, and more. Visit their site for a the full program schedule.

Open House at North Burnaby Boxing Club
Sunday January 3 2010

The ‘NEW’ North Burnaby Boxing Club is open on Sunday, January 3rd from 12-4pm for viewing and recreational/competitive registration. Come check out the new NBBC gym at Revs Bowling & Entertainment Center at 5502 Lougheed Hwy. next to the Holdom Skytrain Station!

See you there…

For more information please contact Rob Bortolazzo, NBBC Coach at 604.790.4154

The North Burnaby Boxing Club is a not-for-profit society offering boxing instructions to the public at an affordable price. Our coaches are NCCP certified and have over a 100 years of combined experience in coaching the “sweet science.”

Versus 21 just took down their big dividing wall and doubled the size of the place. Originally, the wall divided the facility. Half was for martial arts and heavy training, and the other half was for yoga, pilates, and bicycle. Well the martial arts side of the business kept on growing. We got together one Saturday Morning in August to take down the wall, which would more than double the space available for martial arts.

Drywall and insulation pulled out

Cutting apart the steel studs

Cutting the mirrors out carefully

Apparently, there is such a thing as world record for demolition of a house by a martial arts team. In Prince Albert, Saskachewan, a karate school run by Wolfgang Manicke holds the world record for housewrecking. Its even featured in an episode or Ripley’s Believe It Or Not, and it is noted in the article that the feat will be registered in the 2002 Guinness Book of World Records. An online search of http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/ didnt return a result on this but the site states clearly that not everything is in the online database. However you can certainly see the video record for the “Most Impressive Breaking Demonstration“. It is very impressive. I cant do that.

But unlike some karate team that shows total wanton disregard and disrespect for abandoned houses, demolishing them in 2 hours, 15 minutes, we tried to be much more careful. Safety first. We were volunteering our time for the improvement of our dojo, we had to deal with tons of icky drywall, insulation, steel studs, wiring, and four large glass mirrors which would be reused. Then we had to sort out all this stuff and hump it down the stairs. I hope this doesnt sound totally wimpy, but we took 3 hours to get the wall down, and we were using tools. Of course we tried a few punches to the drywall, a few elbows, a few kicks to begin with, but say what you will, tools are the way to go. Call it a weapons training day or something. We used cro bars, pry bars, sledge hammers, cutters. and grinders. Actually, it was kind of a weapons day. Any of those would be good for self defence in a real fight. Maybe not the grinder or cutter, they were electric.

Its a common principle among martial arts that a student takes care of the dojo as part of the duties of training in the martial art. In some martial arts like Aikido, the class ends with dutiful sweeping and wiping of tatami. So it was not too terrible at all to put in a little time to help the gym along that I go to train in.

Now look what we have, this big wide open space with tons of room.

New Gym View

A big wide open space

Double the space double the gym

When it comes to exercise, the best place is in the gym. But that shouldn’t stop you from having a little home gym to slip in some exercises with your daily routine. So I have some exercise equipment at home that I have assembled using a few guiding principles.

1. Go cheap. Don’t spend a lot of money. You might in general need to spend more to get fit, but just spending a lot wont get you fit. Product marketers know that people think that they can get fit, however, if they do spend money on something, and then make it so you can tuck it under your bed. There is no real benefit from buying something that costs a lot of money and then tucking it under your bed – and make it a rule to never buy that kind of exercise equipment.
2. Keep it simple. You probably don’t have much more room available to exercise than you need to swing a cat around, so you need not get overly technical about your stuff. It need not be perfect if it is useful and you use it. There are plenty of things that wont crowd you out of your home, but again, don’t stick it under your bed. Considering your space is important. What good is a skipping rope if you don’t have room to use it.
3. Shop around. Use the venerable Craigslist, and go & buy what you need with cash in hand. Used sporting goods stores abound as well, so keeping the above guiding principles in mind, look at what they have to offer. And take your time with this stuff.
4. Use your creativity. Make your own exercise equipment. If you have ever had a session with a personal trainer, you will notice that they tend not to use overly complicated pieces of equipment. They use their experience and dip into a grab bag of ideas and tricks for a well designed workout. You can research exercise methods, tips, tricks and techniques on the web. You can assemble the pieces you need from places like hardware stores, marine equipment stores, as well as from mountain equipment and sewing stores.

I decided to create a piece of equipment that extends what I can do with my chin-up bar. A single straight chin-up can be very hard to do if you are heavy, out of condition, or just don’t have enough muscle mass. You wont get the benefit of an exercise if you cant do it. So I thought why not use some rope or strapping and some commonly available parts from some local hardware, marine, and camping stores, and make a cheat. The trick with all this of course, is to make something strong enough to support your weight, and that you can adjust to your dimensions. Hopefully you can do more than one exercise with it.

I call it my Upside-Down T-rope harness, (UDT). I am able to suspend my contraption off my chin-up bar, as a high point. One way or another, the UDT harness should look like an inverted “T”, with handles at the end. It should attach to a ceiling point. In my case, I am able to use a chin up bar.

With my UDT, my exercises become unstable so they help engage the core and control muscles. I am able to add exercises to my regime like unstable push-ups, low angle pull ups, high angle pull ups, lowered chin up, and probably other things I haven’t thought of yet. I started out with a simpler version, and have moved to a more stable version that I am still tweaking for my needs. Some changes were made in order to have a beefier result, that would allow me to use metal parts strong enough to support my weight and then some.

The following is a recipe, please modify to suit your own needs.

Down line:
Samson braid rope, 5/8, 8 feet – good quality rope
1 large harness ring
1 galvanized thimble, 5/8″ (marine style eyelet for rope.)
No. 2 whipping twine (marine store)
1 carbiner, large, galvanized, (optional)

Assemble the thimble and whipping to one end. The cross webbing will go through the eyelet thimble. Using a thimble ensures no chafing on the rope. Pass the rope through the harness ring, over your ceiling mount or your chin-up bar, and back through the harness ring. The rope goes through the harness ring with a half twist, and enables length adjustment. When using the UDT you lock off the length of the downline with a half knot. When attaching the thimble, use the whipping twine and a large needle. Use black electrical tape to temporarily fasten the rope to the thimble. Possibly use a hose clamp to squeeze the thimble ends close together before you begin stitching. The more stitching and whipping you do, the stronger it is.

Cross line:
2 metal clasps for 1″ webbing
2 plastic or metal buckles for adjusting length of webbing
1″ webbing, 9 feet (more than you need).

Assemble the line with clasps at each end. The buckle is threaded through. I have only sewn one end so that I can adjust it more and get the length right. See photo.

The handles
1″ webbing, * 2 * 19″ optional, so you can create a foot stirrup.
1″ webbing, 2 * 26″
2 D-rings, 1″
2 foam bicycle handle grips
2 * 5″ pvc plumbing tubing – tubing may be cheapest in 10 ft. length

Get your bike handles first, and take them with you when you select your tubing. The tubing will only cost $3, but you may have to buy 10 feet of it. Oops. Cut the tubing to the length of the grips and sand the ends, make the inner lip smooth and rounded. Slide the webbing through and slide in the D-ring into the longer piece of webbing and sew them up.

You then you have your handles to attach to the clasps on the cross strap which is attached to the downline through the thimble eyelet. Adjust to your needs.

There are a few things you might need when you are assembling this:

• A source of fire to melt nylon webbing cut ends
• 1 large sewing needle
• 1 pair of pliers, to push needle through,
• sandpaper, scissors, saw, black electrical tape
• hose clamp to squeeze together thimble & rope for sewing & whipping.

My Home Gym includes:

• small bosu ball – $30 on Craigslist
• Dumbells: 5, 3, 2 & 1 lb, couple dollars each
• Adjustable plate dumbell, economy version, 5 – 25 lbs $60 each – cheaper and more compact than plates.
• plastic stool (ikea) $10
• chin-up bar $20
• push up bars static ($25) & twisting ($10)
• 2 exercise balls (not sure, and they are in storage anyways)