Our kids were just not that interested in team sports – while all of the other kids got into football, soccer, basketball, baseball our kids were really not all that interested – neither my wife or I really played sports (even though I used to be a huge hockey fan and now can never even watch again for medical reasons – I just get too annoyed when my Maple Leafs just keep on losing 🙁 ) So we went on the lookout for a challenging sport and workout combination.
The cool thing about MMA is the variety: there are plenty of styles of fighting and the conditioning is all over – you don’t get all muscly, just incredibly strong and fit, without all of the negative aspects of something like Crossfit. So its great for men, women, boys and girls…
It just so happens that we live fairly close to one of the best MMA gyms in the US – little did we know that San Jose is a center for some of the best MMA fighters in the world. So we enrolled first my older son at 13 – he was just starting to show sings of being a flabby couch potato (much like his Dad at the time – I’m better now 🙂 ) but now after a bit less than 2 years he is very strong and can easily do something like 7 pullups in a row, something I can only aspire to! I’m hoping to join them at MMA sometime soon for some classes of my own so I can shave off those last 20 pounds as well.
Mixed martial arts (MMA) is a full contact combat sport that allows the use of both striking and grappling techniques, both standing and on the ground, including boxing, wrestling, Brazilian jiu-jitsu, muay Thai, kickboxing, taekwondo, karate, judo and other styles.