Gym shopping

Underground
1

Well I've been looking around and trying the various mma gyms in the valley. I'm having a hard time choosing. In my case it boils down to either Walt Bayless or Rob's new Absolute MMA. (which I checked out last night, VERY cool place)

I'm aiming to eventually fight in NHB tournaments.

Rob's place has both gi and no gi grappling. I've read numerous times that some gi can be of benefit. What I really like is Rob's place goes over takedowns. (once again, I'm not implying that Bayless doesn't, I've only been once.) In the case of of grappling, they start from the knees which I've heard is bad.

Bayless is cool because they have a pro boxer teaching and from what I could tell they spar a bit more there. The grappling is also very good.

Am I just being too picky about this? Should I just pick one?

2

I'd probably see what each offers for free (week?) and try them both. Chances are good that the decision of which is right for you will be clear after that.

3

Well, I've been to both places. They offered a free day. I'm slightly leaning toward's Rob's place.

lol, I don't know why this decision is so hard. I'm just glad that we have so much talent in a relatively small city.

4

We're very lucky that way.

5

Which is closer to your home?

Check out my interview with Rob on my website to findout more about him and how he approaches teaching.

http://www.maximumg.com

Rob's current website is:

http://www.absolutemma.com but it will be changing sometime soon.

Yo may also want to check out my MMA/BJJ school links area to fid other schools that you might be interested in checking out:

http://www.maximumg.com/schoolLinks.cfm

I hope that helps.

6

I should also say that Micky Janjira was working out over at Rob's the last time I talked to Rob. I don't know if Micky is going to teach Muay Thai there or not, at the time I talked to him Rob and Micky hadn't really talked about it.

7

I take it he's a pro Thai fighter? That would be cool to have a guy with that kind of experience teaching there.

8

Mickey is not a pro thai fighter. He is an amature and I am not sure if he has a winning record. His work ethic is rumored to be very very poor and he basicaly looks for the big right hand when he fights. I also wonder if Saekson knows or aproves of him using his name.

9

Saekesam does know and Micky uses (or at least used) the name because it is traditional in Thailand for fighters to adopt the name of their camp.

I haven't talked to Micky for a while but he is apparently training with the Northern Connection guys in Clearfield.

10

saekson and sakasem are two different people DJ.

11

Ooops, sorry . . . thanks for the correction.

Mickey is still legit and has no reason to pretend by adopting he name he isn't qualified or recognized as allowed to adopt.

12

amorphous,

Are you still training at Elite? What's it like? I hear their guys are getting really good.

13

I haven't been there since last October due to a number of things. Trying to balance work, school, and something resembling a social life along with mma is tough. Not to mention I totalled my car and I was broke for a while.

However, at this new job I'm at hopefully I can tweak my schedule a bit to where I can train while working and going to school.

Elite was badass and I'm sure a lot of those guys are getting really good by now. Is Bird Dog still a champ? I haven't been following it much lately.

While I did like Elite I might try another school. I'm not exactly sure yet.

14

Birddog is still the champ locally and he'll be fighting Ray Perales (the guy that beat Razor 2X) in the next few weeks (sorry, not exactly sure when, might even be this Saturday)

15

amorphous,

Can you Email me? I have some questions. I tried sending you MMA.tv mail, but you have it disabled.

16

Sorry I haven't messed with my mail options. It's enabled now.

17

amorphus, where do you live (area)? If you're on the west side come check out the UCTC in West Valley (45th south 47th west). There's a couple of great Jiu-Jitsu coaches, an awesome Muay Thai guy and the prices are as reasonable as anywhere else.

18

I live in the Midvale area. Although for me travel isn't a huge deal as long as it's in the valley.

19

You should really check out the UCTC off of 4700 South and 4100 west. I'm there 4-5 days a week.

20

"Mickey is still legit and has no reason to pretend by adopting he name he isn't qualified or recognized as allowed to adopt."

I know that Muay thai fighter often use their camp name as their last name. Mickeys half brother trained with Saekson. Mickey never did.