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Outside the Comfort Zone
15 Feb 2009 1:32PM
Last Friday I took the day off work and headed to Sweden. The Nacka Dojo in Stockholm held their Girls Only Fight Camp. For me it was a great opportunity to train with other women since I normally train almost exclusively with men, to scout for other women training mma and a great way to officially kick off my fight training for the April bout in Denmark. Having had two weeks off with a flu that is making the rounds through the UK and sporting a cold sore which always makes me look like a Victorian prostitute I was dreading being the slowest and least fit with hooker lips to boot. Training in new gyms is always an experience since you're exposed to a different routine, drills and the unknown variable of training partners. Add to that mix foreign language instructors and it is outside of my routine and comfort zone completely. It was especially important for me to do this since being in a fight or competition also takes you out of your comfort zone unless you're Jeremy Horn or Paul Jenkins who have fought so much it does seem routine.
The fight camp was BJJ and judo in the gi for two days and then on Sunday morning no gi submission wrestling. Whenever we had gi BJJ people train at Pancrase London they would always tell me how much different it was to roll in the gi. The worst thing for me was training in the gi. With the heating on and the heavy weight of the gi I felt like I was at a furry convention leading a callisthenics demo. I certainly prefer no-gi myself though love that the gi opens up a whole new set of possibilities with movement, attack & defence.I actually surprised myself and managed okay in sparring, even catching a few subs though was certainly worse for wear by the time we got to the submission wrestling class. And I also met quite a few women training mma who also shared the same troubles of finding opponents or even competitions to help prepare them for fighting pro.
I was thrilled to see several girls at my weight and bigger and even more thrilled no one seemed to notice my hooker lips. There were about 40 girls there from Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Norwayand me from the UK. The instructors we had were amazing! I was able to learn under Shanti Abela, Jennifer Guiola Pettersson, Pernilla Ribeiro Novais & Devi Ahujaand. Plus I was able to spar with experienced women my own weight or even bigger. The Nacka Dojo was a really impressive space with a huge matted area, kitchen, men and women's changing rooms and heating (which was actually a mixed blessing).
Events like the Girls Only Fight Camp and even the UWC women's mma trials in Manchester last year were great opportunities to meet other women and benchmark your own level of skill, strength and speed. I only wish there were more events that encouraged women to attend and participate. I am certainly not alone in this desire and hope this is finally the year when women's MMA finally starts to excel and grow. The Nacka Dojo are doing a Summer Camp from 12-16 August for men and women and I am thinking about going though given the summer heat may "forget" my gi in London. For info on the camp, please go to the site; http://www.dynamixfighting.com
As for the fight socks, they were a hit. A lot of the girls that had their toes taped asked after them. They were lightweight and I escaped a heel hook with the same relative ease that I would have bare foot. The only thing I was not so keen on was the sticky dots on the sole were getting rubbed off after 3 days of constant sparring so wrote to the company to see if they could use stronger adhesive or stitch the sticky dots.
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