2008 USA Trainers Clinic

Marcus, Mars and Myself After Close to Two Hours of Straight Jack Clinch Training

Last week end I had the privilege of attending the USA trainers clinic for the Crazy Monkey Defense Program. Today I've finally I've been able to get some time to put up a post about the entire experience.

This was my second year attending the trainers program for the Crazy Monkey Defense Program last year was the first year of the trainers program and I feel fortunate that I was able to get on board such a high quality martial arts program from the beginning. With that said this years coaches clinic was awesome and far better than last years.

The clinic began on Thurs night and ran through the weekend concluding on Monday Morning. Here is a quick and very brief break down of the material we covered this year. Honestly we covered enough material to work on for the next several months and most of us where experiencing some severe brain over load by the end of it.

Thursday - Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu
Guard passing both opening the guard and working various levels to pass. We also did some really great side control material.

Friday - Crazy Monkey
In the morning session we worked various drills and games to help improve sparring. During the evening session we sparred and were able to get specific feed back from Rodney and the rest of the trainers. I even got to do some friendly sparring with Rodney himself who helped me realize how much work my clinch boxing game needs. We finished off the evening with a presentation by Rodney on The Martial Arts Game. Here Rodney went into a discussion about his new book titled; The Martial Arts Game what was cool is we were all able to go much further into detail and discussion on information in Rodney's new book.

Saturday- Fight Compass
The characteristics of each style on the compass. Four specific techniques for developing the characteristics of each style. Following two hours of fight compass training all the trainers each did ten rounds of sparring!

Sunday- Straight Jacket
How to enter into the straight jacket. The proper method to get and maintain a control position in a clinch. Striking out of a control position, without giving up control or loosing balance.

Monday - Somatic Martial Arts
This was probably one of the most interesting of all the sessions. We broke down and worked on the jab for the entire session. With the specific focus of learning how to improve the quality of our movement.

Me and Some of My Friends After a Lot of Training

The trainers clinic was so much fun I already can't wait for next years. Needless to say I will be coaching all of the material we learned from Rodney at my Gym Martial Arts Life in San Diego over the next several months.

I will also be putting up a series of posts here on the Crazy Monkey and the Crazy Monkey Defense Program specifically how I became involved in it, what I think about it and what will happen with it in the future.

Creating a Training Environment Together!

In San Diego we finally finished up painting the inside of our Martial Arts Life San Diego gym. This was a fun project everyone helped out with. We started a little over a month ago and knocked out most of the major work in about four hours. After a taking long break from painting we finished up the project just a week ago.


Throwing up the new paint was a lot of fun it was great to see everyone getting involved and helping out. The best training environment we can have is one we all create together.

This new look really helps set the entire tone of our gym. A place where individuals can come together as a team and accomplish the extraordinary.

Special thanks to everyone who helped out; Bruce, Brian, McCray, Jeremy, Ryan, Spencer, Peter, Elizabeth and Greg.

Check out the pictures below to see the finished paint.

Strength Training Area

Back to Front View

Front to Back

We have G.A.M.E.

Stretching with My Daughter