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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.
MONDAY MINDSET: REVOLUTIONS WEEK OF 8/19/24 Training is cyclical. Be revolutionary. Not in the 1776 American Revolutionary way, with black powder rifles and wool coats. But revolutionary in the sense of revolving back around to the beginning. In anything, you always learn the most important skills first. Stance, positioning, breathing. The basics. As beginners […]
MONDAY MINDSET: YOU GOTTA GET GOOD TO BE GOOD WEEK OF 8/12/24 Real talk, being a successful and capable fighter is cool. You have confidence, your body is an extremely functional instrument, and people respect what you do and how well you can do it. There’s a reason that people endure all the training, setbacks, […]
MONDAY MINDSET: ADVERSITY WEEK OF 8/5/24 “Adversity introduces you to yourself.” That is a quote I heard many years ago, when I was just getting off the ground as an amateur fighter. For some reason, it resonated with me, and became a core tenet of my approach to training and dealing with obstacles in […]
MONDAY MINDSET: WEEDS ARE WEEDS WEEK OF 7/29/24 I’m sure some of you wonder what the creative process is like for these articles, right? Well, would it surprise any of you to learn that I often sit down on a Sunday afternoon, scratch my head a bit, and either dip into the archives (yes, […]
MONDAY MINDSET: CHANGE REQUIRES CHANGE WEEK OF 7/22/24 Change requires change. Obvious statement there, of course. If we want things to be different, then things will need to be different. Yet this seemingly simple idea is incredibly difficult to implement into our lives and habits. As a martial arts coach, I am constantly inspecting, […]
MONDAY MINDSET: SEEING PROGRESS WEEK OF 7/8/24 I often field e-mails from students (at the academy, and abroad – we have a decent social media reach here) – about their frustrations with their progress, or perceived lack thereof. Beginners, or those with the “Beginner’s Mindset,” have trouble seeing progress, as if it’s some opaque, […]
MONDAY MINDSET: FEEL DEEPLY, ACT DEEPLY WEEK OF 6/24/24 Feel Deeply, Act Deeply. That first half–feeling deeply–that is something we can all say we experience. Sometimes it just hits you like a tidal wave, a deep feeling of motivation or interest or affection. Whatever it is, it hits you hard. And sometimes, we define ourselves […]
MONDAY MINDSET: WHAT IS YOUR WHY? WEEK OF 5/27/24 Today marks the annual Memorial Day celebration, often associated with BBQ’s, sunshine, and getting stuck in traffic on the way to/from the shore. Of course, the purpose of Memorial Day has nothing really to do with any of that; it’s a day to remember the […]
MONDAY MINDSET: YOU DON’T NEED A SEATBELT… WEEK OF 5.13.24 …Until you do. As combat sports athletes, we walk a razor’s edge each day as we balance intensity and productivity with risk mitigation. Gloves, shinpads, floor mats, pads, rules, etiquette, no bare feet off the mats (wink wink)– these are all active filters that […]
MONDAY MINDSET: THE SHADOW WEEK OF MAY 6TH 2024 Between the idea And the reality Between the motion And the act Falls the Shadow –T. S. Eliot Although Eliot likely did not write his famous poem, The Hollow Men, about the difficulty of sticking to a health and fitness regimen, this excerpt from “The […]
MONDAY MINDSET: THE KEYSTONE WEEK OF 4.29.24 Coaches, Athletes, and Keystones– There should exist a natural tension between the athlete, who desires to grow, mature, and overcome boundaries, and the coach, who works to contain the athlete inside of a structured training protocol. People generally shy away from conflict or from disagreement, as if […]
MONDAY MINDSET: INSIDE OF US ARE TWO CHIHUAHUAS WEEK OF 4/22/24 Inside of us are two Chihuahuas. You’ve all heard the “ancient wisdom”: inside of us are two wolves. One wolf good, one wolf bad. Which one grows? The one you feed. Blah blah blah. To distance myself from this kind of TikTok brand […]
MONDAY MINDSET: DIALING IN WEEK OF 4.15.24 We’ve all heard the old expression, “practice makes perfect.” This really couldn’t be farther from the truth. We should really think of it more along the lines of “perfect practice, with perfect consistency and appropriate intensity, makes perfect.” There’s a lot to unpack there! When we step […]
MONDAY MINDSET: FEAR IS A COMPASS WEEK OF 04.08.24 Fear is a compass. Well, not always. We don’t necessarily want to run into a pack of hungry, wild wolves. But when pursuing our passions, we often find that fear will not let us freely move forward. Often this is fear of failure, fear of […]
MONDAY MINDSET: THE WARRIOR PATH WEEK OF 4.01.24 Pop-culture often makes a big deal of “The Warrior Path,” making it seem that the apprentice fighter must walk over coals, survive in the wilderness with just their wits, defeat hordes of faceless enemies, and stand on poles for days. And while extreme challenges will confront […]
MONDAY MINDSET: WHAT IS STYLE 03.11.24 STYLE. Some people have it, some people don’t.. but everybody wants it. It’s an elusive thing. What, exactly, is style? Well, style is always defined in relation to some sort of system or instutition–“he’s got great fashion style,” “she has an awesome fighting style,” “his musical style is wonderful.” […]
MONDAY MINDSET: GIVE YOURSELF A PAT ON THE BACK 03.04.24 Seriously! Give yourself a pat on the back from time to time. We start our journeys as wide eyed beginners, wholly focused mostly on whether we can, or cannot, actually do something. That is the beginner’s burning question: “can I do this?” As we grow […]
MONDAY MINDSET: TOUGHNESS 02.26.24 We often confuse the ideas of “toughness” and “dominance.” We see the big, scary bully, with giant muscles and fists the size of cinder blocks, and we think to ourselves: “that guy looks tough.” What we really mean is, that guy looks dominant. Dominance doesn’t require toughness. I guarantee […]
Monday Mindset: Discipline Bridges the Gap I feel like we all know what we should be doing.Eating better, sleeping more, exercising often. It’s not complicated. And yet, most of us are probably not at the level of health and fitness that we’d like to be. Simply put, discipline is the bridge between where we are, and where […]
Monday Mindset: Embrace the Chaos Every year we attend the WKAs, it’s a total mess. And every year we say we’re never coming back. Yet, here we are. (And yes, about 1000 times we said we’re never doing this tournament again but when it was all over we were like “Ok, that wasn’t so bad.. […]