Melting Moments

It wasn't a psychiatric holding cell, but the walls and floor were completely padded in black dense foam.  Over the course of a packed, 90 minute MMA class, the humid room attempted to become a sauna.  Growing pools of sweat on the floor went from dangerous to ridiculous.  Sliding from one end of the room to the other would be possible, if only one could get the footing for a running start.

There were two types of MMA classes available at Tiger, both run by Ultimate Fighting Championship veterans.  The McSweeney class covered striking from a distance and in the clinch.  Judo throws were also added to the mix, followed by swift soccer kicks to the head.  Unlike the UFC, the rules of the local MMA promotion (One Fighting Championship), allowed these usually illegal strikes.

Roger Huerta's class was wrestling-based MMA.  Apart from competing in various organisations around the world, I just learned that Roger was in the Tekken movie (that may or may not be impressive news).

His class focussed on securing the takedown and grinding the will out of an opponent via position control and GNP (Ground N' Pound).  GNP is not a reference to buying coffee by weight.  It refers to controlling an opponent on the floor while hitting them repeatedly, often with the benefits of that thing Isaac Newton invented - gravity. 

My training partners varied for different classes.  There was Hilo from Japan, who shared the discipline of continuously drilling technique repetitions while others sat and rested in puddles of perspiration.  Karim was a stuntman from California, likely adding some realism to his fight scenes.

A partnered warmup for one class involved taking turns in throwing combinations.  For this, I teamed up with Boris from Russia.  I figured he'd be a strong wrestler, as Sambo is the national combat sport of grappling, with an emphasis on leg locks (No time to tighten my knee brace).  For some reason, he was the only person not encumbered by protective gloves for this drill.  Boris also had some surprisingly adept spinning head kicks in his game.  He either had great faith in my defence, or he was trying to decapitate me.  Each time, I'd return fire with something unorthodox until he finally cracked a smile after I'd snuck a clean heel kick into his liver.

The dynamics of respect varies.  The formula I prefer is - give respect to gain respect.  But sometimes in the combat sport world of the wolf pack, the rule is - prove your ability to maim and kill to earn respect.  Boris turned out to be a great training partner.

Immediately after most classes, I'd order a meal at the on-site outdoor restaurant.  Some people took this time to hold a garden hose over their head for a while to cool off.  It would be luck of the draw if I used this time to socialise (with sweat-sparkly, crossfit ladies perhaps).  Otherwise, I'd add a few pages of scrawled notes from the previous class.  This extended beyond the techniques taught, and included anything useful I'd noticed from anyone in the class.  It was a timely mining of hindsight for insight.  I never noticed anyone else taking notes, but... good.