Blog 4 01 Feb 2010 1:46PM Next weekend we have our first fighters if the year out on two different shows. On Saturday we have four guys travelling down to Cumbria for Extreme Combat and Sunday we will be at Cage Kombat in Edinburgh. Ninjas main eventing on both shows.
 
Been a busy week at the gym, Paul's been away to Ireland for a rave, i've been trying to make sure the guys fighting next weekend are tapering there training down slowly and making sure everything has been covered in training and there all going to be on weight. While ive been doing this, i've got Graham Turner mid way through his fight prep for Scotland's first ever 4 man tourney so he is at the most intense phase of his training , I've got another group of fighters just starting there 6 weeks prep for fights in March at Sportfight Scotland and a Thai show at Oron Mor. It been pretty hectic to say the least.
 
I think one of the big differences between good fight teams and great fight teams is the organisation. Back in the day we just turned up and trained with out much structure or with out goal setting, now we have training programmes, game plans for fights and goal sets for each individual fighter, for each specific fight and for there own development over the time. It does take a bit of effort but it means our fighters know what there doing, when its to be done and more importantly why there doing it, It also means all the fighters have to do is train.
 
Training wise, I'm now 9 weeks out from Bushido Challenge when i fight, last weeks training was mostly sparring and strength training. I also spent 3 sessions working half guard for MMA. Next week sees me starting hill sprints with Joanne (she fights south african thai boxer Ferial Ameerodien in 6 weeks) and and some additional circuit training sessions.
 
On friday i sparred with an 18 stone Heavyweight called Andy Hillhouse. Andy is preparing for the Optimus fighting championship open weight tournament in April. I'm about 72kg just now, i've trained in martial arts for almost 23 years, its took me that long to realise that if a big guy wants to batter a small guy the small guy is fucked. Thankfully Andy wasn't hitting me hard and i'm still alive.
 
Also this week MMAunlimited released there first set of UK bantamweight rankings. Couple things were pretty cool about that, 1. there is finally enough bantamweights in the UK to have a top ten, and 2. i'm ranked number 2, behind Paul Mcveigh. The rankings dont actually mean too much to me if i'm honest, same as belts and titles, being talked about in the same breath as fighters like Paul, Brad Pickett and Leigh Remedious means a lot to me though.
 
Right i'm out of here, next week ill run over Xtreme Combat, best of luck to Martin Delaney in his first fight, Keiran Malone and Darren 'Tito' Gray (look out for these young guys in next few years) and Richie Rampage making his long awaited pro debut. Il also run over Cage Kombat which has its best card to date,  Andy the scorpion Snape returns from Brazil to face UKMMA legend Paul Jenkins.
 
Awesome weekend of MMA for me.