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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.
Happy Monday Team! Apologies about the lateness of last week’s newsletter. The mass e-mail kept failing to send. Hopefully you’ll receive this one on time 🙂 It’s FIGHT WEEK for Timmy Green! Timmy hasn’t been in the cage in over a year, and we are super stoked to see his evolution on […]
Happy Monday Team! Hard to believe it’s already May, right? We are nearly halfway through 2023 (and it feels like we just celebrated New Years). Time flies when you’re having fun I guess 🙂 In April, we debuted a new monthly competition: the Shout Out Show Down. Both the author, and the subject, […]
Happy Monday Team! We are on the other side of an incredible weekend here at the academy. Over 60 competitive athletes from 10+ schools converged onto our mats for a full day of 20+ sparring rounds at our PRO/AM Sparring event. It’s absolutely important to get good at martial arts. Being an […]
That’s it. There are no secrets to success. All the information you could ever need in order to be successful in combat sports is available, mostly for free, at a moment’s notice. It’s the implementation of this information that creates success. Small, daily habits turn into large, life changing results over time. […]
Happy Monday Team! Big thank you to everyone who came out Saturday evening to support Gianna en route to her championship win. Gianna won all five rounds to secure the title with a dominant score of 50-45, making a big statement in the regional scene. Although Gianna did the heavy lifting, proper preparation […]
There is just so much information to learn in martial arts. Angles, posture, footwork, strikes, positions, you name it. And especially in the grappling arts! Developing some literacy in your art will give you a massive boost in your learning speed. However, literacy isn’t just some emergent ability that comes with time. You have to work […]
Happy New Year and New Monday team! 2022 was an amazing year for the academy. After taking a serious beating over the two worst years of the pandemic, we were able to regain our footing and move forward again. I personally want to thank all the staff and students here for your […]
This week’s entry is going to focus less on actual mindset and more on organizing your skills in a way that maximizes their effectiveness. No skills exist in a vacuum. A world class jab, for example, can’t simply be spammed non stop successfully. The jab plays off footwork, feints, power shots, and so […]
Happy Monday Team! We are heading into an important week here at the academy, with the return of our Striking 101 Review Test on Wednesday! This test is for any student that has completed more than 4 consistent weeks of training in our fundamentals program. Participation is free, but you will need […]
Short and silly one for you all this week! For any of you younger students who are yet to move out on your own for the first time, here’s a piece of advice: buy the toiler plunger before you need it As martial artists, we too need to invest in ourselves so that […]
Happy Monday Team! I am exciting to announce our return to a more formal grading and testing system to both hasten, and focus, the progress of our students in their pursuit of striking mastery. One of my most bittersweet memories as a coach was Wednesday, March 11th, 2020. We had a packed […]
Happy Monday Team! Fresh off another competitive weekend in which we saw a number of our grapplers make some noise at Grappling Industries this Saturday. Big congrats to the veteran competitors Paul, Madison, Isis, and Gianna for their predictably strong performances. Jason and Joe both competed for the second time, which […]
Happy Monday Team! I want to start out by saying a giant, huge, humongous, gargantuan thank you to everyone who came out for our anniversary shindig. A good measure of whether a party is fun can often be how few pictures there are — I was personally too engrossed in hanging out that […]
In one of my earlier emails, I told you that persistence is one of the five core tenets of martial arts. It’s a must for kids to learn to fulfill their obligations and stick to their commitments – but what makes them want to do that? In martial arts, we attribute it to one small […]
You know how good it feels to set your sights on a goal and then achieve it. It’s empowering and invigorating – and it’s not just a matter of chance. Goal-setting is an important life skill. The good news is that studying the martial arts can help your child learn: The importance of setting goals How to […]
There are a lot of emotional benefits available to kids who study the martial arts. We’ve talked about some of them already, but today I’m going to talk about one that sometimes gets overlooked: Martial arts classes are a great place to make friends! Think about how most of us make friends. Friendships often start with commonalities, […]
As adults, we think a lot about stress. Modern life is difficult. We worry about paying the bills, doing our jobs well – and we worry about our kids. That’s part of our jobs as parents, but we don’t want our kids to be affected by stress. It’s not good for them physically or emotionally. Still, […]
It’s time to talk about the emotional benefits of studying martial arts. Let’s face it – kids have a hard time managing their emotions. You’d be hard-pressed to find a parent who hasn’t had to deal with their share of temper tantrums. It’s exhausting. Also, consider the other side of the coin: it’s exhausting for […]
You know how that saying goes, right? Try, try again! And that brings us to our next core tenet of martial arts: perseverance. Perseverance is what keeps us going when it would be easier to give up. It’s what makes us get up when we fall down – and it often means the difference between […]