Principles: Aliveness and Dynamic Learning

            In our view, the technique is a means to an end, never the end itself. Its value can only be measured by how much of it you can apply in actual combat. By training with an uncooperative partner, two essential elements - timing and motion, are incorporated into our training. This way we can keep the training "alive". It is this principle of aliveness that our whole curriculum is based on.  The goal of our program is to create an effective and complete fighter.
 
            Our curriculum is not a "once and for all" (static). It is always "in motion", always developing, growing, adapting and improving. All of our instructors from the Gym president on down still train, learn and improve on a daily basis. When we find a better training method or approach, we adapt it and change for better. That attitude and willingness to change and grow is in part what Mixed Martial Arts is about.  You will find that all instructors in Straight Blast Gym have their own unique ways, as you too will begin to develop your own method and way.

            However, you will find some constants in our curriculum. Because everyone only has two arms and two legs, certain concepts, principles and training methods always remain. Principles as simplicity, economy of motion, the four ranges of combat, body mechanics, footwork, interception, the five stages of training, awareness... serve as the common thread that links everything we do together and allows us to flow from range to range. Without these principles we would be practicing an eclectic approach, but it would not be the Straight Blast Gym way.