Please take the time to read this.
Those of you who have visited my website (www.syndicatemanagement.com) might have noticed that i provide links to organizations that fight child abuse, violence against women and violence against police officers. Well a representative if the organization that fights violence against women just contacted me and asked me to take their link off of my page b/c she believed it gave the impression that they supported violence (b/c MMA is "violent"). In fact she called MMA a "fight club" type of sport. I spent an hour on the phone with her explaining the sportsmanship that exists in MMA. I explained the training the athletes endure, their athleticism. I drew parallels between MMA and boxing. I explained that many of the fighters have bases in Olympic sports such as Judo, TKD and wrestling. I explained that most matches begin and end with a handshake. The point she was most interested in was when I explained that most of the athletes are not "tough guys" who walk around starting fights. I told her that in fact most of the athletes are against violence outside of the ring and that many schools have classes geared towards women and preparing them to defend against rape.
At this point she was completely turned around, asked me please to keep her link up and invited me to attend a conference for men against violence on women and give the MMA position. She offered me a booth where we can educate people about MMA, provide info to women who would like to learn self defense and defense against rape, and sell/distribute whatever we want (in good taste). She then thanked me for helping her to understand what the sport was really about. The conference isn't until April so there is time to really put something together to showcase MMA in a better light and take a step towards professionalism. I mean if an anti-violence organization is willing to accept us and give us the chance to show them that our sport is not wht many people think it is, I think thats a great opportunity. I'm definately gonna need some help planning this but like I said, we have time.
Anybody interested in helping (providing info on schools that offer self defense for women, WOMEN WHO HAVE LEARNED SELF DEFENSE AND/OR HAD TO DEFEND THEMSELVES WOULD BE ESPECIALLY HELPFUL!) I'm also gonna need a few people to come down and represent the sport.
Thanks guys, Adam
Email me igjjf@aol.com or Call me at the academy 310 782 2708 ext 0
Thanx
Rose