THE RED CORNER
NEWS AND UPDATES FROM THE NORTH STAR ACADEMY OF MIXED MARTIAL ARTS
WEEK OF JULY 1st, 2024
Happy Monday Team!
Wow, what a weekend!
We hosted over 100 fighters from across the East Coast (coming from as far as South Carolina!) at our PRO/AM Sparring event on Saturday. But don’t worry — the mats are already scrubbed clean and disinfected for your training pleasure 🙂
One of the greatest joys of being an academy owner is having the ability to leverage my position to bring people together. Whether that’s introducing one student to another, or introducing one team to another at a community event — it’s a great privilege and something that makes this role incredibly rewarding.
I hope that the North Star students who attended had a great time and were able to build some new connections. I spent most of the time cleaning up sweat, stocking bathrooms, and just overall making sure we had no casualties, so I wasn’t really able to sit back and soak it all in.. but from the looks of it some great rounds were had. All in a day’s work!
Yesterday, on the heels of our PRO/AM event, we headed to Rami Elite for a sparring exhibition get together in which our very own Makhi Anthony put on a consummate performance. Congrats Makhi, you really showed off your hard work and impressed a lot of people!
As you may know, Makhi has been a part of this program almost from its inception and has built 100% of his skills here at the academy so it’s a proud coach moment to see him execute our signature style and really shine like so many of our other athletes.
Moving forward, we have a big holiday this week — July 4th! Please note the following holiday schedule:
- Wednesday, 7/3 — Classes as normal except 6pm Muay Thai is “all levels” (no 201/101)
- Thursday, 7/4 — Open Mat 10am – 12pm. No evening classes.
- Friday, 7/5 — 6pm Striking 101. 7pm Jiu Jitsu 101 is cancelled.
- Saturday, 7/6 — 8am Competition training is on, then Open Mat 10am – 12pm.
We resume our regular schedule on Monday, July 8th!
On a more personal note, a big thank you to everyone who contributed to making my birthday (6/28) as special as it was. The past year has been filled with a lot of living — both great and challenging — and has really forced me to lean on my support network more than I have ever felt comfortable doing in my entire life. At 42 I am still growing and learning and my biggest take away from this past year is that “it takes a village.” So, thank you to everyone in our little village here for helping make this place super special. I can’t do it alone, and honestly even if I could, I couldn’t do it as well as we, collectively, can. It took me a number of years to figure that out but it has been a powerful lesson.
I promise I’ll continue to do my best to evolve and improve, and I can guarantee you that the next 12 months are going to be, at the very least, a hell of a fun rollercoaster! 🙂
In the meantime, we have work to do. I’ll see you on the mats!
–Coach J
You can find this week’s Junior Samurai Stripe Challenge HERE