The following is a letter written to us by Laura, and published with her consent. Laura, we'll look forward to your visits!Having lived on the Outer Banks for two and a half years,.. Read more
Hey everyone! There's been a lot going on around the club lately, and we wanted to make sure everyone is in the loop. We had a marathon, an upcoming tournament, a fitness champ and.. Read more
This past Saturday, before the fights started, a group of good-looking KnuckleUp students headed over to the Wright Memorial bridge to participate in the celebration of the 9th Annual Kitty Hawk Heritage Day festival.
The main event, a 5K race, was a walk in the park for these beach bootcamp graduates, so they had plenty of time to shoot some pictures and even put some videos together for us.
We want to congratulate everybody for their efforts, and celebrate another win with you!
It's no surprise they did so well in the race - under Matt's military training they run well over 5k at least twice a week. Actually, it's more like 7 MILES twice a week.
A big thanks for Rev. Jay Bowman for putting this awesome video together:
Before you start watching the video, let's go a few weeks back to the King Of The Beach MMA event held at Port O' Call, in Kill Devil Hills, September 06th.
At the very end of Wayne Hunter's fight, his coach is telling him to choke his opponent - the only problem is that Wayne has mounted, and was in no position to pull that choke. Anybody with basic Jiu Jitsu experience would know that.
Morrison, while filming the fight, politely tells Wayne's coach that he didnt have the lock and would not be able to choke his opponent (you can listen to the entire conversation during the last minute of the video); his coach goes ballistic over Morrison's advice and immediately challenges him to get on the "stage".
Fast forward 20 days after that silly discussion - Morrison receives a text message from Wayne Hunter saying his coach was going to come to KnuckleUp and prove to Morrison that grappling is not important. He was going to jump on the "stage" and defeat Morrison without taking the fight to the ground.
Nobody believed he'd actually show up; but yesterday (9/22) he showed up at KnuckleUp with an entourage of 15+ of his students, and his own timekeeper. After signing a waiver of liability, the coach decides NOT to use gloves, and asks for ONE 15-min round. There would be no rules on the fight.
You can see what happened in the video above. It was quite a prehistoric approach, thought to be lost somewhere around 1997 after the first UFCs with Royce Gracie. In fact, the coach did resemble Tank Abott somewhat
One might think the coach overreacted, after all, it was a spur-of-the-moment discussion during a fight - but there's much more underneath the surface.
However, despite his ascending mma career, Wayne has never had any grappling training, and lacks basic ground skills. Wayne lost his past two matches due to his inability to defend himself from being taken down and dominated on the ground. But when he finally faced the need to learn Jiu Jitsu and Wrestling, his coach (the KungFu master on the video) would not allow it.
For whatever reason, Wayne's coach believed (I dont think he's so sure of it now) that grappling skills were not important for MMA.
Well, we sincerely wish he would've learned that grappling skills are important without having to undergo Morrison's punch-face treatment.
KnuckleUp wants to reinforce to all of those reading this post that fights like this one bring no glory, have no purpose, and are completely unnecessary. Fighting bare-knuckled is dangerous even for the guy punching, and we STRONGLY urge that nobody follows this coach's idea to solve a simple argument.
With that said, enjoy the video - it's darn good entertainment.
KnuckleUp is proud to announce major changes in the Brazilian Jiu Jitsu / MMA program for this upcoming fall. New instructors, brand new classes, and brand-spanking-new bjj installations.
To keep myself form "hyping" this post too much, let's start with the changes that are already in place, and then we'll discuss the future ones..
New Jiu Jitsu & MMA Coach
Jeremiah Lancaster has quietly taken over the BJJ classes, and his extensive background in wrestling adds highly effective strategies to the jiu jitsu mix.
Here's a little bit on Jeremiah's background:
Jeremiah Lancaster is a close quarters combat and hand to hand instructor at Ft. Bragg, NC. He is a professional MMA fighter himself as well as having coached 2 All-Army Championship teams with several All-Army Champions. Jeremiah has also coached in the International Fight League as well as over a hundred other fights in many organizations.
And some of his impressive accomplishments:
Head Coach Team-ROC Fayetteville/FT.Bragg 2004-2008
Head Combatives Instructor for 7th Special Forces Group 2006-2008
NAGA-National, North American, and World submission wrestling champion
2nd Place Judo Black Belt State Championship
Check out our new instructor at work:
Jeremiah is teaching the 7:30pm class on Tuesdays and Thursdays - check the outer banks gym schedule for more details.
Now, for the other news...
New Gi (Kimono) Jiu Jitsu Classes To Start Soon
Our very own Sal Rullan is crafting the very first Gi Jiu Jitsu class program in the Outer Banks! Sal has recently undergone intensive gracie jiu jitsu training in Virginia Beach, and is now ready to start teaching solid fundamentals that are only really possible with the appropriate garment.
A Gi (Kimono) Jiu Jitsu program is set to start soon at KnuckleUp
Up until this point, very few students had ever trained with the Gi, given that it's widely unpopular for MMA purposes (anybody remembers Royce Gracie's fights on the first UFCs?). Also, the beauty of the Smooth Art (jiu=art / jitsu= smooth) is that chokes, locks, and the entire body balance and positioning education work no matter what clothes a student has.
However, the way Helio Gracie taught it, the correct way, students are supposed to first solid fundamentals with the Gi and then adventure themselves without it. The Gi in Jiu Jitsu, just like any other Martial Art, represents the art's garment, and only while wearing it a student is allowed to practice.
The Gi is also called Kimono, and they will be available for purchase soon at KnuckleUp. They range from $70 to $100 and they are virtually indestructible. I had mine for well over 5 years now.
We are all very excited to see new students learn the valuable Gi fundamentals, and we hope Mr. Sal Rullan gets it rolling soon.
Bigger Mat For Jiu Jitsu and Wrestling?
Also on Mr. Rullan's to-do list is to bring down the entire weight room from upstairs to the back room (where the computer desk is at) and install a brand new mat upstairs.
This way, we'd have a room solely dedicated for grappling, with a thicker mat and more space.
We expect both the Gi program and the new mat to be ready within a month. There has been a great deal of interest in the new direction that the Jiu Jitsu classes are taking, and more people are realizing the body and mind benefits a solid martial art discipline offers.
If you want to know more about all of the projects going on at KnuckleUp, simply fill in the form to the right and we'll keep you posted on everything going on at the gym.
Sean Spangler (left) and Leo Saraceni after exclusive class 6/18
On Wednesday, the 17th, and Thursday, the 18th, KnuckleUp had the honor to welcome Sean Spangler on the mat.
Sean taught an exclusive seminar on Wednesday, for a group of intermediate and advanced fighters, and left each one of them impressed with the technique and effectiveness of his teaching.
In Las Vegas, where Sean spends most of his time, he trains with Robert Drysdale and a team of high-caliber professionals.
Sean brought to the seminar strong, proven drills, and shared with the students how to take basic moves to perfection by focusing on flawless execution.
His execution of the rear-naked choke is close to flawless, and according to him, the secret is knowing when and where to apply energy.
Sean is not the heaviest fighter on the mat (aprox 180lbs), but controls heavier and stronger opponents utilizing a rather suave style of jiu-jitsu that relies on focused pressure application instead of raw strength. When teaching a defense to the inside-guard arm bar, Sean explained how to control your opponent's hip movement as well as leg pressure, which allowed for a much more efficient defense against stronger opponents.
Here are some pictures of the Thursday class:
Sean Spangler (left) and Leo Saraceni after exclusive class 6/18
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