Cant afford local MMA gym. Any other suggestions?

Question

I cant afford the membership at MN MMA Academy. Its entirely too far of a drive and gas is killing me financially. Does anyone know of other MMA facilities in the twin cities area?

Answer 1

If you live in a large city, to hold you off for the time being before your financial situation changes, just hook up with a Wrestling coach, and a boxing coach, and train in both every other day.  Without a solid foundation in catch anyway, those guys will eat you alive.  Look man, its as much the style as the person and frankly, boxing and catch wrestling on their own are not the same as an outright MMA training regiment.  But if boxing and wrestling are all you've got, just work with it and train in it as passionately as you can.  MN, as in Minesota?  I hear the midwest has some outstanding grapplers, and that region of the U.S. frequently produces Olympic gold medalists.  Then again I suppose, the best wrestlers tend to be the nicest people, little wonder midwesterners always beat the c**p out of west and east coasters.

Look man, if "MN" is minesota, pardon my ignorance if it isn't, you can't go wrong with getting a solid foundation in catch because you will need it anyway.  Catch wrestling is considered "basic training" in MMA, while all the fancy BJJ stuff, e.g. submission holds, is considered "advanced" training.  If you can manage to set up a schedule, where you do, say, boxing monday wednesday and friday, and catch wrestling training with a coach willing to train you on tuesday, thursday and saturday, then after about one solid year of hard core training, and a good strength training regiment involving cals, from begining to advance, you'll be set.

MMA is rapidly, and sadly, replacing boxing so there may not be that many boxing gyms left.  If you can't find a boxing gym, then, take up Muay Thai.  If you combine Muay Thai with just basic High School catch, it should be plenty to get you through the early starting rounds.  Myself personally, I can't stand MMA, and what it has done to the martial arts world but nevertheless I can understand the financial or psychological reasons as to why someone would want to fight.  You can't get yourself thrown in there, without a solid foundation first.

Many of those guys, even the 160 lb guys, can all bench press over 350 lbs.  Even the little guys can bench nearly over twice their weight.  You will need at least a calendar year of traditional catch training, which will make you strong if you've got the genes, and a good foundation in some striking art or other, preferably Muay Thai or western boxing which are suited for sports competition.  Jumping into MMA right away, without a background in wrestling first, is a mistake anyway, so you should be thankful for the obstacle.

Find a good wrestling coach, train as hard as you can, and same if you can find a boxing or muay thai coach, and then if any MMA tourneys are held in your area, sign up, kick a few asses proving what you've got, and if you trained hard enough and keep a humble mindset the entire time anticipate no problems.  For the "bottom rung" MMA fights, man, all you need is high school catch and basic boxing skills.  If you train particularly hard, and get really good, you'll plow right through them.  Its when you are climbing rapidly, people think you are talented and ready to hit the big time that you actually need an MMA gym.  The prohibitive cost, is to keep people out who haven't made it there yet and its nothing personal against you; if you went in there, NOW, they would kill you, so take it as a concern for your safety, health and well being.

Sorry for the length so here is a summary; because you are "bottom rung," and likely you will get into competition, look for a catch wrestling coach, someone who is a good coach, because olympic gold medalists are not necessarily good coaches, and look for a boxing or if you can't find out, a Muay Thai coach.  For your fitness routine, do cals 6 days a week, total body workout, and look into a fitness program called Calisthenics Kingz.  If the DVD has not come out yet, then, look into the Charles Atlas dynamic tension method.

The Charles Atlas method may seem silly, but when you think about it, wrestlers all over the world, when they wrestler, are basically doing "dynamic tension."  The exact same way charles atlas pit muscle against muscle, wrestlers do that very same thing, that is why they develop muscular bodies without ever lifting weights.  Train in that for fitness in addition to any recomendations from your boxing and wrestling coaches, wait for one solid year, before signing for a competition, take one year to perfect your skills, until they are absolutely flawless in execution, and THEN sign up to compete.  While you're at it, you should also learn Tai Chi Chuan, yang long form, to teach yourself how to relax.  Getting all neurotic and angry like, is a hole in your defenses; remember that.

I hope that helps.