Stewart
We visited Yushin Okami at RJW (Real Japan Wrestling, part of the Wajutsu Keishukai network) where he trains several days a week to interview him and watch him take the MMA class with some of the resident professional and amateur fighters.
RJW is located in a very unlikely spot. A residential area of Tokyo, on a converted floor of a condominium, rather hard to find for anyone unfamiliar with Tokyo or the Japanese language.
February 27, 2011, Riki Fukuda – team Grabaka’s DEEP Middleweight Champion – fought in the UFC for the first time.
The match which went to a judge decision in the favour of his opponent, Nick Ring (Canada), was widely accepted as Fukuda’s win and it has been reported that Dana White has offered to compensate Fukuda with the same purse as the winner.
MMA-in-Japan will interview Fukuda shortly and get his thoughts on
DEEP Welterweight Champion Yuya Shirai faced Paul Daley at BAMMA5 in Manchester, England on Feb. 26.
Daley used his reach and jab to stick and move. Shirai had
December 30, 2010 will see an exciting mix of MMA and kickboxing matches on a day long card of 28 fights at Sengoku Raiden Championships (SRC).
MMA-in-Japan.com was at the weight ins and photo shoot at the arena a day before.
Sengoku (SRC) Ring
Also present was Roxanne Modafferi who will face Hitomi Akano at 61kg.
Roxanne Modafferi overseeing the SRC ring set up!
Coming soon – an exclusive interview with Yasubey Enomoto who will fight K-Taro Nakamura for the welterweight title.
This could be very entertaining!
Hidetaka Monma is a Japanese welterweight fighter with a professional MMA record spanning back to 2001. He has fought in RINGS, DEEP, DEMOLITION, CAGE FORCE, HERO’S and DREAM.
Hidetaka Monma
Originally from the Wajutsu Keishukai Network of fighters, which have included Caol Uno, Daiju Takase (see his win over Anderson Silva here), Yushin Okami, amongst others, Monma explains how he got into MMA later than most.
Yesterday I paid a visit to Hidetaka Monma’s MMA gym, Brightness in Adachi Ward, Tokyo.
I joined the grappling class from 8 to 9pm and then sparring from 9 to 10pm. His teaching style is very clear and he spent time going round the students individually helping them with the techniques. We worked on a sweep and then to submissions from mount and side positions.
His gym, opened in October 2009 is new, clean and bright: very conducive to learning!
Monma’s blog has already been updated with a post-training photo with myself and young American, Joe LaChance, who tells me he found out about Monma’s dojo through MMA-in-Japan.com!
Monma-san, thank you for the great training! I’ll be back!
And look out for a video and interview of Hidetaka Monma coming soon here.
Today I used a running track to work on explosive speed.
The warm up leg work looked like this:
- 5X50-metre thrust jumps, focus on pumping the knee up for height on each jump
- 5X50-metre bounds, focus on length/distance on each bound
- 4X50-metre scissor steps (2X facing into the field, 2X facing out of the track)
- 4X 50-metre side steps (2 one way, and 3 the other as above)
- 4X 50-metre backward sprints
The main speed work was 4 sets of alternating 5X50-metre sprints followed by 50-metre jogs, no rest. 1 minute break between each set.
This workout was finished off in the gym with 5 sets of 10 pullups on a barbell with legs together, out straight and on a Swiss ball. The focus on each pull up is exploding up, the chest towards the bar, and letting the body down very slowly.
On the Swiss ball this also works some core muscles, so I followed this up with some more core work to finish (video to come).
At some point later in the evening, instead of stretching, I worked on the foam roller, focussing on the main leg muscle groups.
Todays boxing menu shaped up like this.
- 2X3-minute rounds shadow boxing with some knees and elbows
- 2X5minute sounds of focus pads, concentrating on speed and footwork, light
- 2X5minute sparring (50~75%, without headgear)
- 2X5-minute focus pads, concentrating on out-fighting and in-fighting at grappling range + takedown defence
- 2X10 reps from the gaurd to stand position followed by a knee + jab cross
- 2X10 reps of jab cross then burpee jump
- 2.5 mins of gound+pound from standing in the guard and passed guard (knee on the belly + hammerfist)
Normally, to finish we do some core, pushups/hindu pushups, and plyometrics but there was no time today.
A very big thanks to Kanpei Endo of Watanabe Boxing Gym in Gotanda for his excellent advice, training and pad holding!
This weeks visit to Weerasakreck gym looked like this, with all rounds 3 minutes.
- 3 rounds of rope
- 2 rounds shadow kickboxing
- 1 round sandbag
- into the ring for 5 rounds of thaipads
- 8 rounds of heavybag
- strength and & conditioning; core work, pushups/hindu pushups in the same set as 35kg arm-curls (EZ bar)
- 1 round of shadow
Of course there was some stretching in there but I’d rather have used a foam roller.
Also, the lack of heavyweights, or even light heavyweights there (one arrived as I was leaving) makes sparring impossible.
