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This place is awesome ! I trained with Jackson for years, he's the best trainer around. Extremely knowledgable about the sport, super encouraging! Jackson makes training fun, while pushing me to do my best. I highly recommend !
Coach Jackson is a great instructor who takes on friendly students who are eager to learn. At no point did I feel uncomfortable with the speed or the level of difficulty and the group of people who I am getting to know all seem to enjoy the workouts due to the positive atmosphere that Coach Jackson has created.
Starting with no martial arts experience at all, I've been training at North Star MMA for about 2 months now. It's become something i look forward to every week. Coach Jackson has a great way of describing the intricacies of muay thai in exceptionally easy to understand ways. Lots of personal instruction and the other people in the gym really help with training. I really like the skills I've picked up so far all while getting a good workout in.
North Star MMA is by far the best training I have received as well as the best MMA facility. Fantastic atmosphere to learn, try, fail and ultimately succeed.
Jackson Galka's expertise and technical instruction easily qualifies him as a "fight nerd." However Jackson's passion and wit will have you kicking, striking and probably laughing too.
Jackson does a great job of integrating all levels of training with all levels of fighters.
Doesn't matter what level you are, you will learn each and every training session.
Top notch instruction, astounding technical expertise, challenging sweat soaked training sessions and a wicked sense of humor make for an unbeatable training academy.
I moved to Philadelphia in October and did a lot of shopping around for a new gym. After checking out NorthStar MMA, I quickly knew it was a perfect fit! I didn’t have much Muay Thai or BJJ experience at the time, but I felt both programs were very welcoming for beginners. Coach Jackson and the rest of the coaching staff have been super helpful in helping me to develop my skills and reach my fitness goals. Coach Jackson has created a great sense of community within the gym and does a great job of keeping the classes interesting, fun and effective! I look forward to each class and I couldn’t be happier to call NorthStar MMA my gym home!
Me and my brother came to train at North Star MMA, and we love it. Very good exercise, really good for getting in shape. Classes are very personal and with very good instructions. I would recommend this place to anyone who is interested in learning Muy Thai, BJJ and looking to get in shape in one of the best ways. It is also a very fun environment with great people.
Jackson is a huge asset to the combat sports community with years of experience as a fighter and trainer under his belt.
THE RED CORNER NEWS AND UPDATES FROM THE NORTH STAR ACADEMY OF MIXED MARTIAL ARTS WEEK OF AUGUST 24th, 2026 Happy Saturday team! I’m shooting this newsletter out a few days early to make sure we get ahead of my absence this week. I’ll be in Sunny California until Saturday, the 28th, visiting family […]
HANG LOOSE WEEK OF 8/24/2026 Inspired by my trip to California this week, today’s Monday Mindset is about “Hanging Loose.” Because, you know, California, surfing, etc, right? But “hanging loose” is actually a really important physical cue in the Soviet Boxing system as well. Soviet Boxing is a comprehensive martial art — it encompasses […]
THE RED CORNER NEWS AND UPDATES FROM THE NORTH STAR ACADEMY OF MIXED MARTIAL ARTS WEEK OF AUGUST 17th, 2026 Happy Monday team! Wow! What a weekend! Out team of six athletes put it on the line in Maryland at the WKA 2026 Team USA National Trials. Tournament fighting is its own beast — […]
THE BEST ADVICE YOU CAN TAKE WEEK OF 8/17/2026 The best advice you can take is your own. As a coach, I’m in a position where people come to me for advice. Whether this is smart on their part is up for debate (insert smiley face here) but the fact remains that I’m often […]
THE RED CORNER NEWS AND UPDATES FROM THE NORTH STAR ACADEMY OF MIXED MARTIAL ARTS WEEK OF AUGUST 10th, 2026 Happy Monday team! August 1st marks the 1 year anniversary of moving into the Church! I’d like to give a quick but deeply heartfelt thank you to everyone who helped make that transition possible. […]
HYDROSTATIC PRESSURE WEEK OF 8/10/2026 Catastrophic failures don’t happen in incremental phases. One moment, everything is fine.. and the next, a retaining wall collapses and floods the area below it. When it comes to technical growth in combat sports, a similar dynamic is often in place. It really can feel like we are just […]
THE RED CORNER NEWS AND UPDATES FROM THE NORTH STAR ACADEMY OF MIXED MARTIAL ARTS WEEK OF AUGUST 3rd, 2026 Happy Monday team! Big congratulations to Ade Solebo on a successful debut at USKA sports this past Saturday! Ade put on a 3 round Muay Thai clinic en route to a unanimous, 30-27 finish in […]
TECHNIQUE, LIKE MATURITY, IS OPTIONAL WEEK OF 8/3/2026 Aging is mandatory, maturing is optional. Similarly in training, physical development will occur, but technical development is never guaranteed. It’s a mistake to conflate hard, physically overwhelming training with the optimization of skill. If anything, high intensity work will force you to fall back on what […]
THE RED CORNER NEWS AND UPDATES FROM THE NORTH STAR ACADEMY OF MIXED MARTIAL ARTS WEEK OF JULY 27th, 2026 Monday Mindset, Membership Updates, and Facility FAQ Links all available at the bottom! Happy Monday team! We head into Fight Week for Ade Solebo, as he makes his long awaited ring debut at […]
YES, SOMETIMES IT’S THAT HARD WEEK OF 7/27/2026 Prior to starting in MMA in 2004, I had wrestled in high school and a little bit of college. So I wasn’t a stranger to the demanding, all-encompassing demands of these sports. But my first years of wrestling? A totally different story. Very few things in […]