Welcome to Fight Firm Philadelphia Mixed Martial arts!
Its not just our equipment and machines that make our fitness facility such a great place to workout. We offer a wide variety of classes that can change up your mundane and routine workout to something much more active and fun. Because our classes are designed to prepare our members for practical hand to hand combat, whether it be on self defense on the street or competition in the cage or ring, our classes place a strong emphasis on strength and conditioning, technique and practical implementation through live sparring and grappling. If it is an easy class you are looking for, this is not the place for you. If you want to see results, our classes will guarantee you results and push your body to its limits. Don't worry though if you have never taken a martial arts before or if you are way out of shape. Our classes are taylored with everyone in mind and allows each individual to push themselves to their limits. To achieve your fitness goals, We offer the follow classes: strength and conditioning, Mixed Martial Arts, Muay Thai kickboxing,Boxing, and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.
We also have a strong competition team which is always growing and looking for new talent. Being invited to our competition team is not for everyone. It is a special honor and priviledge. It takes skill, experience, dedication, and most important of all the right attitude. Being part of the competition team allows you to participate in the intense team training you cannot get anywhere else in the region. Always pushing you to your physical and mental limits. As our fighters say, you dont do team training, you're trying to survive it. It also gives you the special honor of representing Fight Firm in external sport events/venues like Combat in the Cage, Asylum Fight League, New Breed, Naga, Grappler's Quest, USKBA, WKA and more....
When it comes to philadelphia mixed martial arts training schools, we are confident we have the best mixed martial arts training and facility. We encourange everyone to come and take a couple classes for free with no commitment. We also encourage everyone to also check out other philadelphia mixed martial arts schools so they can compare for themselves which they like best.
Unlike other chains of fitness gyms, we do not charge you a signup fee. We do not force you to a long term commitment just to get cost effective membership. we offer month-to-month, 4 month(with student ID), 6 month, 1 yr, and 2 yr commitments.
For those that are new to Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu or Muay Thai, we offer a free private introductory session to go over the basics. call us to setup an appointment for the introductory session. 215-492-1745
Please feel free to stop in and check out our facility anytime or contact us at 215-492-1745, info@fightfirm.com
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A Brief History of Mixed Martial Arts
In 648 B.C.E., the Greeks introduced the sport of pankration into the Olympic Games. The word pankration is a combination of two Greek words, pan, meaning “all,” and kratos, meaning “powers.” This is an accurate depiction of the sport itself, as it was a potent mixture of Hellenic boxing and wrestling. The sport only truly had two rules: no biting and no eye gouging, though even these techniques were allowed by the Spartans. The bouts could end only when one competitor was knocked unconscious, or submitted to his opponent by raising his hand. Often times, these matches would last for hours, and sometimes ended with the death of one, or even both competitors. The sport became the most popular event in the Olympic Games, and across the Hellenic world. The matches took place in an arena, or “ring” which was a square approximately 12 to 14 feet across, which the Greeks hoped would encourage close-quarter combat. The matches also featured a referee armed with a rod or switch he used to enforce the rules, which were often broken by opponents that were overmatched. Common techniques included punches, joint locks, choke holds, elbow and knee strikes, and kicks. Kicks to the legs, groin and stomach were quite commonly used. Standing strikes such as these were common, though the overwhelming majority of pankration bouts were settled on the ground, where submission holds and strikes were both accepted practices. Pankratiasts were renowned for their grappling skills, and would employ a variety of grappling techniques, such as takedowns, chokes and joint locks, often to great effect. Strangulation was the most common cause of death in pankration matches. Ancient Greek pankratiasts became heroes, and the subject of numerous myths and legends. These include the legends of Arrichion, Dioxxipus, Polydamos and even Hercules was believed to be a pankratiast. Alexander the Great sought out pankratiasts as soldiers because of their legendary skills at unarmed combat. When he invaded India in 326 B.C.E., he had a great number of pankratiasts serving with him. This is believed to be the beginning of Asian martial arts, as most Asian martial arts trace their history to India at around this time. Pankration is the first recorded form of what would later come to be known as mixed martial arts, and is the closest any society has come to allowing a truly no-holds-barred unarmed combat sport. Following the decline of pankration in Greece, which coincided with the rise of the Roman Empire, mixed martial arts fell by the wayside in favor of other combat sports. Sports such as wrestling and boxing became the dominant forms of combat sport in the West, while traditional martial arts swelled in popularity in Asia. This remained the case for centuries until 1925 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, when the sport of mixed martial arts experienced a revival from a peculiar source. In order to fully understand the reemergence of mixed martial arts, it is necessary to take a brief look at the history of the Gracie family of Brazil. In 1801, George Gracie immigrated to Brazil from Scotland, and settled in the Para province of northeastern Brazil. His family grew and flourished, and in the early 1900s, a Japanese man named Mitsuyo Maeda immigrated to the same area. The Japanese government had plans to establish a colony in the area, and Maeda was a representative of the Japanese government. He quickly became close friends with Gastão Gracie, a political figure in the area, and grandson of George Gracie. Gastão used his power and influence to assist Maeda and his agenda of establishing a Japanese colony. In addition to Maeda’s political prowess and skills, he was also famous in Japan for another reason: Maeda had been a renowned champion of the Japanese martial art of judo. Maeda, or Count Koma, as he was known in Japan, offered to teach Gastão’s son the art of Judo. Maeda trained Gustão’s son, Carlos, in judo from the time Carlos was 15 until he was 21, when Maeda returned to Japan. With Maeda gone, Carlos began to teach his brothers, Helio, Jorge, Osvaldo and Gastão, Jr. the art as Maeda taught it to him. The Gracie brothers were not bound by the tradition that Japanese practitioners of the art so rigidly upheld, rather the brothers began to adapt the art to suit themselves, and to make it more practical. It was in 1925 that Carlos took his brother Helio, who was 11 years younger than Carlos, to Rio de Janeiro, where they opened a jiu-jitsu academy. As Carlos and brother Helio continued to advance and perfect their art in their new academy, Carlos concocted a brilliant marketing scheme to draw attention to the fledgling academy. He issued what is now famously known as the “Gracie Challenge.” As he explained, “I had to do something to shock the people.” He began the “Gracie Challenge” by taking out an advertisement in several Rio newspapers. The advertisement, which included a picture of the slight Carlos Gracie, information on the academy, and stated “If you want a broken arm, or rib, contact Carlos Gracie at this number.” This effectively began the revival of professional mixed martial arts in the Western world, as Carlos, and later his younger brother Helio, followed by the sons of both men, would take on all comers in vale-tudo matches. These matches closely resembled the pankration matches of Ancient Greece, and were participated in by representatives of area karate schools, professional boxers, capoeira champions, and various others that sought to prove that they were better than the Gracies. As word of these matches spread through Rio de Janeiro, the public craved these matches. As a result, these matches began to be held in Brazil’s large soccer stadiums, and attracted record crowds. The first of these professional fights was between Brazilian Lightweight Boxing Champion, Antonio Portugal and Carlos’ younger, smaller, and much frailer brother Helio. Helio won the match in less than 30 seconds, effectively elevating himself to the status of Brazilian hero. At the time, Brazil had no international sports heroes, and Helio filled that void for the Brazilians. As word of these matches spread to Japan, the great martial arts champions of Japan sought to participate in this new form of competition against the Gracies, who the Japanese thought were defiling their traditional arts. Japanese champions flocked to Rio de Janeiro to do battle with Helio Gracie, who was always out weighed by his opponents, often by more than 100 pounds. He defeated many great Japanese fighters, and in a trip to the United States, Helio defeated the World Freestyle Wrestling Champion, American super heavyweight Fred Ebert. One-hundred-thirty-five pound Helio continued to defend the Gracie name and their martial art, often against opponents weighing as much as 300 pounds, from 1935 until 1951, fighting over 1000 fights, until Carlos’ son, Carlson, and later Helio’s sons Rolls, Rickson and Rorion took over the roll of family champion in upholding the “Gracie Challenge.” The new combat sport of vale-tudo fighting became immensely popular, quickly rising to become the second most popular sport, in terms of ticket sales, in Brazil behind soccer. This is a status that the sport still enjoys today. Leagues and organizations were soon formed and events began to be held regularly all over Brazil. The fights featured practitioners of Brazilian jiu-jitsu, muay Thai kickboxing, luta livre wrestling, boxing and various other styles. As these events, and as a result, Brazilian jiu-jitsu, grew in popularity in Brazil, the Gracies branched out to the United States. In the early 1980s, Helio’s oldest son Rorion, came to the United States to teach Brazilian, or Gracie jiu-jitsu as he preferred to call it, in California. Like his father and uncle before him, he issued the infamous “Gracie Challenge” in his new home, but added a new twist. Rorion offered $100,000 to anyone who could defeat him, or one of his brothers, in a vale-tudo match. These matches again brought Brazilian jiu-jitsu much popularity. As Rorion realized the potential this style of fighting offered to spread his family’s art, he sought to create an organization that would promote this sort of fighting in the United States. After years of hard work, and promoting his family’s art and his idea for an American vale-tudo league, Rorion Gracie met Art Davie, a salesmen who had first become interested in this style of fighting during a trip he took to Thailand where he witnessed an underground mixed martial arts event. Davie utilized his connections in the television industry to set up a meeting for himself and Rorion Gracie with Bob Meyrowitz, who was president of Semaphore Entertainment Group (SEG), a corporation that specialized in putting on live pay-per-view sporting events. Together, the three men established the “Ultimate Fighting Championship,” which held its first event in 1993. The first “Ultimate Fighting Championship” (or UFC as it is more commonly known) event sold 86,000 pay-per-view buys, and by the third event, the buy rate was up to 300,000 pay-per-view buys per show. This secured a place for the sport of mixed martial arts in the United States, but this place was not a reputable one. The Ultimate Fighting Championship had introduced a form of fighting which it dubbed “no-holds-barred,” or NHB fighting. The first six Ultimate Fighting Championships had very few rules. In fact, there were no weight classes, no time limits or rounds, and no mandatory safety equipment. The only rules were that fighters could not eye gouge, bite, or fish hook, and fights could only end with a referee’s stoppage, knock out, or submission, which could be signified verbally, or by a “tap out,” where the fighter must tap the mat, or his opponent three times with his hand or foot to signify that he submits. The event took place in an octagonal cage, dubbed “The Octagon.” The format of the event was that of a one night tournament, where competitors would fight several bouts in one night, in a single elimination style tournament until a champion was named. The lack of weight classes became an obvious problem from the outset, when 415 pound Hawaiian sumo wrestler was allowed to fight 216 pound Dutch kick boxer Gerard Gordeau. This scene was later repeated in the third UFC event, when 6-foot-8inch tall, 600 pound sumo wrestler from New Jersey, Emmanuel Yarborough, was allowed to fight 5-foot-11-inch tall, 200 pound karate fighter from Illinois, Keith Hackney. Another problem that quickly became obvious was the lack of time limits, and judges. By UFC IV, most of the competitors had caught on to Royce Gracie’s success, and had begun to learn grappling techniques. As a result, the fights became longer and longer. It reached a point where the fights were running over the allotted pay-per-view time slot, and the UFC was losing fans, as they viewed the long periods of ground fighting as boring. SEG realized that it had to do something, so in 1995, at UFC V in Charlotte, North Carolina, the UFC instituted a 30 minute time limit, but did not have judges. Thus, when the much anticipated Royce Gracie-Ken Shamrock rematch ran over the 30 minute time limit, it was ruled a draw. The fans were outraged. This resulted in the use of judges beginning with UFC VI to decide the outcome of fights that outlasted the time limit. As the UFC gained popularity, it became a pertinent political topic, as Arizona Senator John McCain launched a campaign against the UFC. As a result, in 1997, pay-per-view carriers dropped the Ultimate Fighting Championship events from their line-ups. This was partially SEG’s fault, as they had marketed the UFC as a blood sport, by drawing attention to the negatives that surrounded the event. SEG’s marketing of the event boasted that it was a “no rules,” or “no-holds-barred” fighting event, where anything could happen, even death. This was a successful marketing scheme in the beginning, as it drew attention to the sport from curiosity seekers, but it later backfired politically. As the political uproar began, and Sen. McCain became an outspoken champion of the abolition of the sport, states began to outlaw mixed martial arts competition. This forced the UFC to move its events from state to state, until the pay-per-view providers dropped the events from their services. In the words of UFC ring announcer, Bruce Buffer, this caused the UFC to “basically go underground.” The Ultimate Fighting Championship remained a fringe oddity, without pay-per-view coverage, and banned from all but a handful of states for several years, until the franchise was purchased by Zuffa, LLC. Zuffa, a Las Vegas based media and casino management company owned by Lorenzo and Frank Fertitta, took over the UFC franchise with the intention of returning it to its former popularity, and eventually gaining the sport mainstream acceptance. The Fertittas and Zuffa president Dana White sought to turn the UFC into a “good, clean sport with actual rules,” which would allow the sport to eventually become sanctioned. This would be a huge step for the UFC, as “sanctioning provides a legitimization for the sport,” according to Bruce Buffer. Dana White and the Fertitta’s work came to fruition in 2001, when the UFC returned to pay-per-view, with record buy rates, and record ticket sales at their live events. The new and improved UFC returned with a stricter set of rules, which included rounds, time limits, five weight classes, a list of 31 fouls, and 8 possible ways to win. Also, the UFC fighters were drastically different from those that entered the Octagon in 1993. Current UFC fighters are among the best conditioned athletes in the world. Often, fighters train for more than six hours a day, which is comparable to, and often more than the amount of time boxers and other professional athletes spend in training on a daily basis. Also, fighters work on strength and conditioning, in addition to their striking and grappling skills. The difficulty of mixed martial arts training can best be summed up in the words of two of the sport’s stars, as former UFC heavyweight champion Tim Sylvia says “Mixed martial arts training is the hardest thing I have ever done in my life,” and UFC light-heavyweight contender Chuck Liddell stated that mixed martial arts training is “more rigorous training than almost any other sport.” The new breed are well-rounded fighters, versed in numerous styles of combat, and equally at home on the mat, as standing and trading punches and kicks. Among the new breed of fighters are former Olympic medallists, NCAA champions, Pan American games medallists, and even a long list of former NFL football players, and boxing champions. Many of these fighters are college graduates, and several are graduate school students. Today, the UFC’s pay-per-view buy rates are rising quickly, as are ticket sales at their live gates. Fighters now spend five to six years fighting in smaller events, building their resumes to compete in the big show. Fans continue to flock to the sport looking for the excitement and intensity of the purest form of one-on-one competition on the planet today. Mixed martial arts is also currently the fastest growing sport in the United States, as mixed martial arts events and training centers spring up all over the country, and the money the sport is making continues to grow at a nearly exponential rate.
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A BRIEF HISTORY OF MUAY THAI BOXING
-By Thawat Watthana
Thai boxing, or Muay Thai as the Thai people call it, is a traditional art of self defense of the Thais. It is different from international boxing in that in the Thai style of unarmed fighting, feet, elbows and knees are used as well as fists. Thus, it resembles more to a real free- for-all fight and is therefore considered superior to international boxing as an art of self defense. As it is more exacting, a Thai boxing match lasts only five rounds of three minutes each, with a two-minute rest between rounds. Since ancient times the Thai rulers have attached great importance to the training of their soldiers and the ordinary people in the skills of hand-to-hand fighting, both with and without weapons. While the latter is known as muay, the former is called krabi-krabong, literally sword and baton, though the weapons used are not limited to these two. Very often, the rulers themselves were great fighters--strong, valiant and skilled in the art. That is one of the reasons why the Thais emerged a victor in their rivalry with other races and became dominant in this part of the world. When the first Thai kingdom was set up in the late 13th century with Sukhothai as capital, a piece of ground in front of the palace was used by the king himself for practicing shadow boxing and also as a stadium where boxing contests were held to select good boxers as palace guards. When the power of Sukhothai declined, another Thai kingdom rose in the lower reaches of the Chao Phraya River in 1350 with Ayutthaya as capital. The Kingdom was ruled successively by 35 kings of five dynasties until 1767, when Ayutthaya was occupied by the Burmese invaders. During this long period of over four centuries, several outstanding Thai boxers were produced. The first was King Naresuan the Great (1590-1605). When Naresuan was a boy of nine, he was taken to Burma as a hostage following the first fall of Ayutthaya to the Burmese which resulted in the conqueror's installation of Naresuan's father, Maha Thammaraja, as the new king of Siam. Six years later, the Siamese prince was allowed to come back home, but only after he had won a boxing match with a well- known Burmese pugilist, which was a precondition set by the Burmese ruler for his release. Latter, Naresuan declared Siam's independence from Burma and, with his fighting skills, was able to repel another invasion from Burma and killed the crown prince of the enemy in the decisive battle. Another Ayutthayan king known for his fondness of and expertise in boxing was Sanpet VIII. He once fought two boxers consecutively in a village fair not far from the capital. He beat both of them and won a prize of two bath from the ringmaster without revealing his real identity. But he did not use his special ability to bring glory to his country, but indulged himself in sensual pleasure. He soon acquired the bad reputation of being a cruel sexual pervert and the infamous nickname of "King Tiger". Another very well known Thai boxer was a commoner named Khanomtom. He was among some 30,000 Thais taken to Burma as prisoners after the second fall of Ayutthaya in 1767. The next year a grand festival was held at a Buddhist temple in Rangoon where a holy relic of the Buddha was enshrined. Boxing contests were organized at the temple and Khanomtom was sent as a representative of the Thai prisoners of war. Having been well trained in the use of his fists, feet, elbows and knees in fighting, Khanomtom incredibly defeated 10 Burmese boxers in succession and was highly commended by the Burmese king. His extraordi- nary exploit is recorded in school textbooks and is known to every Thai school-children today. After expelling the Burmese aggressors in late 1767, Phraya Taksin ascended the throne at Thom Buri. Himself a great warrior and keen boxer, the king spared no efforts in promoting the art of hand-to-hang fighting. Links his predecessors, he held boxing matches in his palace grounds. Among these the best known was Phraya Phichai the Broken Sword. He got the nickname because he once broke his sword in a fierce fight with the enemy and subsequently killed the enemy with the broken sword. He was later made governor of Phichai with the title of phraya. RamaI, who founded the Chakri dynasty in Bangkok in 1782, also used the grounds in front of his palace as an arena where boxing matches were held to select his guardsmen. Once during his reign, there were two French brothers coming to Bangkok looking for rivals in free-style boxing contests with stakes. They had toured several cities in Indochina for the same purpose and had won a lot of money. To meet the challenge, the king assigned his foremost boxer Muen phlan to fight one of the brothers. It was an uphill task for the Thai boxer who was inferior in size and weight. However, he was able to use his superior skills in kicking, punching and attacking with elbows and knees to his advantage and defeated the brothers one after the other. Rama V (1868-1910) was another king who was a great patron of boxing. He promoted the martial art by setting up his own boxing camp and encouraging the princes and other members of the nobility to do the same in all major cities of the country. He arranged boxing contests regularly and awarded the winners with rank and money. Rama VI (1910-1925) took a step further by allowing commoners to run their own boxing camps, boxing rings and boxing competitions. The first modern boxing ring was erected on the football ground of Wang Suan Kulap or Rose Garden Palace in Bangkok. It was a raised square space enclosed by ropes with two referees to control matches, one at the blue corner and the other at the red corner. In a contest, the boxers' hands were bound with strings instead of wearing padded gloves as is the universal practice today. Thus, Thai boxers of former times could do much greater damage to each other in a match. What is most strange is the timing device, which was a holed coconut shell. It was placed in a tub filled with water at the beginning of a round. The round ended as soon as the coconut shell was completely immersed in the water. The best Thai boxer of the time was a Korat man named Yang Hanthale. He became internationally known after beating a Shaolin-school boxer from China, Chin Chang, in a free- style match at the palace stadium. Chin was defeated because he failed to find an effective way to fend off the quick and powerful high kicking of the Thai boxer. Consequenty, he was hit at the neck into unconsciousness and had to be carried off the ring. The boxing ring was successively moved to Tha Chang, Suan Sanuk and Lak Muang, all inside the ormer walled city of Bangkok. It was in 1919 when boxing matches were held at Tha Chang that the rules of Thai boxing were changed to require all boxers to wear boxing gloves in contests. All the above boxing rings were temporary structures. The first permanent boxing stadium in Bangkok was built on Rachadamnoen Nok Road and was first opened in December 1945. Half a century later, Ratchadamnoen Boxing Stadium is still one of the two major stadium in the capital, where both Thai and international boxing matches are staged regularly, the other being Lumphini Boxing Stadium near Lumphini Park. Major matches are often televised live. And there are many other boxing rings in large cities throughout the country. So it is not difficult for a foreign visitor to Thailand to find out at first hand what Thai boxing is like.