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MMA gym in SF for Beginner?

J

JimmyLojack

White Belt
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Jun 16, 2005
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Guys-

Was hoping anyone in San Francisco can recommend a good gym in San Francisco for a 26 year old beginner (no martial arts/boxing/wrestling experience of any kind).

Not sure if I want to start with BJJ or mt or just boxing, but we'll see. Thanks!
 
start with a BJJ school...there are so many good ones out there.
 
I say work on your standup while your still relatively young and explosive.
Boxing: 3rd street gym (good beginner class but everyone is pretty green, also has MT 2 X week) or World's gym (lots of pros, no so great for a beginner)
MT: Fairtex (also has BJJ, world reknowned training but in slight disarray after Alex's death), Fight and Fitness (Fairtex spinoff w/ Bunkerd Faphimai, the People's Champion, Thai legend), or Team USA (where I train, a little pricey, hot girls, no egos)
BJJ: Ralph (?) Gracie on Mission St. (don't know much about this place but hey, he's a Gracie)
 
Word to what dude above me said. Being a beginner I suggest you go for Fight and Fitness. I don't say for you to go there just cause I do either. I spent a LOT of time checking gyms out before I decided on it.

If you want to ease into MMA, and from the tone of your post it sounds like you do, I suggest FightandFitness. The JJ teacher is good but isn't a Gracie or anything. BUT he does a great job of teaching and comes from a wrestling background, which is what I prefer. It's a small gym so the classes are more personal and the price is about $40 less a month compared to Fairtex.

Fairtex is THE place for MMA in northern california. It's considered by many to be the mecca of MMA. If you're serious about training MMA and want to actually compete I suggest you go there.

The levels of Muay Thai and Boxing are the same at both gyms. The head instructor at FightandFitness used to be one of the instructors at Fairtex. The head boxing teacher teaches at both gyms. With all this crossover there's a great deal of camradarie between the gyms.

So to recap...if you want to start easy with mma and get a feel for it, go to FightandFitness. If you're hardcore about mma and want to actually compete go to Fairtex.

http://www.fightandfitness.com

http://www.fairtexmuaythai.com
 
Thanks all for the help. I was kind of leaning toward Fight and Fitness, probably won't get started for another month or so, but hope to see a couple of you there.
 
No idea because I am not american but, I would say Fairtex maybe. If you want to become could then go to the place that beats the crap out of you the most. Seriously. If you want to learn to fight good and maybe turn it into a career go to the toughest place you can find.
 
Fairtex is a great school that puts out lots of fighters and has lots of smokers. They definitely have the best facility i.e. huge space with an olympic ring.

However, I've heard of some drawbacks: you have to wait six months to spar, you can't spar the pros, they are more concerned with their experienced fighters so beginners are often overlooked, AND supposedly their billing department sucks. (I know several fighters who left the gym because of their billing dept, even though they loved the instruction)

But that's just hearsay, but definitely take advantage of their free lesson.

Fight and Fitness is a great place but the facilities are very cramped. Co-owner Chris Carioso just won at Golden Gloves. Bunkerd is the man and one of the nicest and humblest instructors I've met. One thing I've noticed, however, is that they put fighters in the ring before they are ready, skillwise. Price is definitely a bonus.

Don't rule out Team USA. We've got some pros that fight regularly on the WCK card in Vegas and Strikeforce in San Jose and they'd gladly spar with you as a beginner (read: beat you up lightly). Statistically we do very well in smokers and at the amateur and pro levels. I stay because of the camaraderie and friendships I've built there. BTW, we are sister schools/style lineage with Master Toddy's in Vegas.

www.worldteamusa.com
 
FAIRTEX SUCKS. you have no idea.

www.fightandfitness.com

a lot of people from fairtex (including me) trains here. Fairtex is turning into one fat mcdojo. FnF literally came from fairtex instructors being randomly fired and bullied for no reason. And yes, we have MMA. in fact, next satuday we have our first MMA smoker (i think it is the first in SF).

I'm so angry at them. They fired not one, but two of my friends (both instructors there) for independent reasons. After the 2nd guy got fired (our boxing coach) I just left fairtex. What upset me the most is fairtex fired him exactly the day before christmas, just to piss him off. I didn't even cancel my membership cuz they were going to charge 200$ to quit, and I have maybe 180$ worth of membership left anyway.

I can say without exaggeration a lot of our new members are just former-fairtex students sick and tired of management.

The reason fairtex sucks is after Alex got murdered, some non-martial artist in Thailand got rights to Fairtex b/c he had married some woman who was related to people who owned fairtex, and his management is very mcdojo philosophy: decorate the place, get lots of rich upper class white people to teach to appeal to rich people than fighters, $endorsements$, and charge more (last i heard, they charge BJJ and MT separately).
 
wait what? I go to the fairtex in SF I really dont see what the big problem is good gym, good instructors, and the price is only like 100 a month not too bad. Although maybe you're referring to the one in daily city. Although the boxing instructor did get fired I think at SF, paris right?
 
ShorinjiRyu said:
wait what? I go to the fairtex in SF I really dont see what the big problem is good gym, good instructors, and the price is only like 100 a month not too bad. Although maybe you're referring to the one in daily city. Although the boxing instructor did get fired I think at SF, paris right?
Click to expand...

paris got fired two days before xmas. Fairtex hated him for concurrently teaching at FnF b/c they find FnF a rival, and they wanted to make him hurt. EArlier, my friend darren who worked got fired. He later explained why he was fired: Fairtex asked him to work overtime and to be paid for it, but later after he did it, he asked for the money, argued a little, and got fired (and so did his wife who worked there, who had nothing to do with it)

Do you know rodney? He was told to wear long sleeves b/c his tatoos on his arm were "discouraging" to potential members (remember, fairtex is aiming for upper class white folk). Some thai instructors were also threatened to be kicked out US (I think nunsiem is one of them.) and back to Thailand if they ever decided to move to FnF. Other instructors fired are Mark, who taught conditioning, and his wife (forget her name), who taught yoga.

BTW there is no "daly city" or any other type of fairtex. There is now only one. There used to be three: SF (another location), Daly city, and a warehouse in south san francisco.

Do they now charge extra for BJJ? When I was there they were like 3 months away from doing that (Last I was there was December, before they fired Paris). At the time, BJJ came with the membership.
 
Yea I always did wonder what happened to Paris, he was cool. Was always a fan of the boxing class now its being taught by a muay thai guy I think. Not really the same but hes still a pretty good instructor. I took like a 3 month break and when I got back I asked some of the people about what happened to Paris because he was no longer there. Everyone just shrugged their shoulders. Yea the conditioning class did disappear and I do remember the yoga teacher also leaving or something. I can see how there may be problems with the upper management and whatnot but the training is still awesome. Some good people there, plenty of equipment and usually enough people to spar with.

Although it sounds like theres some shitty management do you have any critcism of the training itself? Because afterall thats the important part. If you have no criticisms of the training it sounds a little unfair to say it sucks.
 
FCFighter316 said:
I went to their link and noticed the word "Smoker" what is this?
Click to expand...

a smoker is like an amaetuer competiton but much more casual. For example, in boxing, if you rock your opponent, you kinda should let the guy recover. obviously, in a pro or amateur competiton, ifu rock an opponent, you go for the kill. smokers also do not go to your amateur record. smokers also have no winners or losers

edit: I just remembered new fairtex smokers DO have winners and losers. it's really really wrong. B/c of this, it is competitive, and you see newbie sparring guys trying to kill each others off b/c theres that pressure to win instead of just having fun and working out. it doesn't look very friendly and fun for the competitors.

Although it sounds like theres some shitty management do you have any critcism of the training itself? Because afterall thats the important part. If you have no criticisms of the training it sounds a little unfair to say it sucks.
Click to expand...

i have to ask on that. but sometimes, that mcdojo mentality may affect the training environment. as i said earlier, lots of former fiartex guys are coming here. There was a girl who hung out w/ a girl i dated (who was from fairtex) who appeared at FnF yesterday. So I asked if she still went to fairtex she said no.

The actual training, since it's by the same Thais (i'm not sure if upper class whites are teaching or not), I'm guessing is probably still good. And the boxing, when paris left it was temporarily taught by Jongsahnan. But i was at a party last month and talked to someoen who still goes there and he says they now have a new boxing coach, but he couldn't recall his name so I can't look him up and see how good he is. But these former fairtex guys are coming to FnF is still saying something else, ya know? (one of them is a pro MMA guy Josh who appeared in that MTV show that features showing how certain college students pay off their college tuition. I don't watch MTV but I think it's called True Life?)
 
"(i'm not sure if upper class whites are teaching or not)"

What is up with the whole upperclass whites deal? I havnt seen any of that, and the price per month is very reasonable. And as long as Jongsahnon still teaches I see no possibility of mcdojo training.
 
ShorinjiRyu said:
"(i'm not sure if upper class whites are teaching or not)"

What is up with the whole upperclass whites deal? I havnt seen any of that, and the price per month is very reasonable. And as long as Jongsahnon still teaches I see no possibility of mcdojo training.
Click to expand...

i don't know. i wanna emphasize i got most of this information from other people. what i DO know 100% hand is two guys I knew (darren and paris) got fired for dumb reasons, mark and the yoga girl got fired, a lot of members from fairtex are coming over to join FnF.

what is the price anyway? I forgot how much I paid when I was fairtex. I paid a pre-paid 1 year contract which ws 999/12 months for anything; bjj, yoga, mt. I assume its not that great of a deal now. FnF has diff plans. Here is the link: http://www.fightandfitness.com/fees.htm

you probably shouldn't be suprised if faritex costs more since it has that brand name, and their gym is like 100x bigger than ours. But i'm still curious what you pay for cuz that occurs to me (and whether BJJ is an additional charge)
 
welp since I'm a student its like 95 a month for boxing and muay thai I think it includes bjj as well not sure. Normally around 105 or something.
 
Train at Fairtex been there 6 months. I commute 3 times a week (45 min) to workout. the hardest part is trying to find parking in the city (4 tickets). I pass by FnF all the time, hopefully will stop by soon. 1 year contract $105 a month not including BJJ.
 
Any opinions on Team USA? (good or bad) I just wanna know what others think of our gym. I won't get defensive. Just curious.

I pay about $60/month but I think prices have gone up a bit since I started 2 years ago. Summer sale going on right now which is close to %50 off.
 
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