Summer Camp 2007 Review

mark.leonard

MMA Summer Camp Galway the Second kicked off in the Point Blank Gym on Friday the 6th of July as a multitude of Mixed Martial Artists descended on Parkmore most having battled the terrible Oxygen induced traffic conditions to get to Galway. After some brief opening statements from camp host Mark Leonard, who welcomed everyone and introduced them all to the celebrity in their midst, UFC Veteran Stevie Lynch, he then turned the camp over to John Kavanagh and the rolling began as the Friday night was used to allow everyone to get to know each other with some gentle sparring. The atmosphere was very friendly and everyone seemed to have the right attitude of being there to enjoy themselves and learn.

After the rolling was brought to a close, everyone moved back to their hotels, hostels and B&Bs and after a quick shower and change arrived in Al Muretto restaurant in Forster Court for some more ice breaking and something to eat. The staff at Al Muretto were tremendously friendly and the food was excellent and worked out very reasonably for everyone, that is for everyone except for Tim Murphy, dieting for Ring of Truth he wound up paying the same share as everyone else despite skipping starters and desert and just having a pizza! Penance for being above his fighting weight? We think so! The campers dispersed after dinner and left to get some rest for the following day, although there were unconfirmed sightings of KO Martial Arts heading for more drink after dinner and dragging several other camp attendees down with them into scaldiness!
Saturday morning opened up with Irelands first and only BJJ Black Belt John Kavanagh introducing everyone to the beauty that is the Gi! John's instruction was complemented by Andy Ryan's attendance, a dyed in the wool gi aficionado who came down to Galway just for the Gi session bringing some of his SBG Northside students along.The response to the Gi session was extremely positive and even the most hardened of no-gi fanatics (yes contrary to the opinion of several T-Shirts the Three Castle Fighters in attendance did actually wear the gi!) got into the slower more technical aspects of the gi game. This was helped in no small part by John's presentation of the material; John seemed very aware that there could have been some resistance to the benefits of the gi so he took the attitude of here is why I think the gi helps, if its not for you, then don't do it! This approach definitely worked as the group on Saturday morning seemed to be very much wearing the mark of the faithful as on Saturday night the value of the gi kept coming up again and again in conversation.<p>

The camp broke for lunch at 1pm and headed down to the local Londis in Doughiske for some rolls to keep us going for the afternoon. The afternoon session was hotly anticipated by everyone on the camp as the majority of fighters present (the Progressive Combat folks aside) hadn't had the opportunity to train with Davy Paterson before. His segment certainly lived up to expectations; most people had trained with John Kavanagh before and were familiar with his constant, inexorable drive toward submission finishes, which echoed his own MMA career. Davy on the other hand showed us different methods of capitalizing on opponents mistakes to strike them, building up to a nice sequence of counter and re-counter resulting in a variety of ground and pound options. The pro MMA fighters there were already salivating at the prospect of trying these moves out in their own training. Davy's first section worked some MMA take-downs using minimum energy, which were also very well received. Some nice little additions to take-downs we knew, a new approach to the snap down and a few other bits and pieces that could easily be added to a fighters game given the proper practice. Definitely a treat having Northern Ireland's finest down in Galway, now the trick will be getting him to make the drive again to get him back! The session finished with some rolling again, once more allowing people to spar with new partners. The afternoon rounded off with a Questions and Answers section, which was probably the shortest Q&A in history! Contrasted with the Q&A on Friday night where Stevie Lynch was peppered with questions about his UFC experience, Saturday afternoon was only able to reveal that Davy's favorite color is in fact pink, as many of us had suspected all along!
Saturday night will forever be remembered in a haze of drink and barely concealed fatigue by many of us! Although the 2 days of the camp had taken a lot out of everyone, we still hit the Front Door Bar with gusto on Saturday night, who treated us like Kings laying on several platters of food and pizzas. By the time we hit Cuba the gang were all in tremendous form having spent the last couple of hours discussing the merits of the Gi versus no-gi, predicting the outcomes of UFC Stacked, the next Ring of Truth, the next UFR, the Galway UFR and any other random topic of interest to 30 odd merry MMA fighters! The night progressed well in Cuba, though several of the campers treated like pool of revelers in the night club as you would a catch and release stream! A frighteningly small number of the attendees finding local women to share their enthusiasm, debunking yet another myth - that Galway women have poor take-down defence!

Sunday morning, the PAIN! It was extremely tough to pull ourselves out of bed to make it down for the morning session.
Getting started training was even harder, though once the session did start Limerick man Ger Healy made it extremely easy to keep going with his fast paced instruction style. He passed out information quickly and succinctly and ably demonstrated his depth of knowledge on the subject of striking for MMA, if the knockout streak his protege Alan "The Cannon" Hannon is on wasn't proof enough! We began working on balance for striking, which Ger outlined that he considered it the most important cornerstone in your striking foundation.After some unusual but very useful drills to highlight this we moved on to Crazy Monkey defence drills. Most of us were familiar with the basics of Crazy monkey, but Ger quickly moved on from basic drills to get us into more advanced applications and his instruction throughout made the basics that much clearer.
Then it was on to the competition side of the weekend to wrap up. Camp Host Mark Leonard split the groups up keeping those training for less than a year for an elimination Amateur MMA competition and those training that bit longer for a mix and match team grappling event. After some tremendous MMA matches Jonny Kerins emerged as the eventual winner of two tickets for the next UFR event courtesy of Davy Paterson (thanks again Davy!). All the Point Blank teens got a run out in this very enjoyable event, Pat and Sean duking it out in the 3rd 4th place play off with Darragh Kirwan loosing out to Jonny in a hard fought final.
The final event of the day was the mix and match team of Team Scaldy vs Team FOL (Fighting Over the Limit), after several rounds of hard fought grappling Team Scaldy emerged the victors, although there is some dispute after one match was declared a draw. Paul Murray fighting through morning-after woes to the point where shortly after the result was announced he was in the bathroom having another look at his breakfast.


A very sincere thanks to everyone from Donegal, Dublin, Antrim, Sligo and Limerick who traveled to Galway and help make this camp as enjoyable as it was. More photos from the camp are available on the Point Blank Bebo Page.