Darla and I started kickboxing 3 months ago and we love it. Class is more of a fitness class with some technique mixed in, so it isn’t straight-up punches and kicks to the ribs. I’m a lover, not a fighter ya’ll. We’re training amongst some great amateur and professional UFC fighters though. We went to our first Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) fight last weekend to cheer on a few people from our gym.

Coach Lauren (AKA Coach Vicious) is one of our trainers. She won her fight and she soooo deserved it too.

And here is the video of her entire 3 rounds.

Our other trainer is Vic and he loves to kick our butts, and in return, I have a love/ hate relationship with his classes. I actually love it 99% of the time. He wasn’t fighting at the event last weekend, but he trained 2 of the pro fighters and both of his guys won as well! Check out Johnny Torres, trained by the fabulous Vic!

Our friend Tim is really into UFC fights so we started watching a few fights on TV with him last year. To be honest, I just thought a bunch of angry men decided to take out aggression on others and it just looked like they enjoyed beating each other up. Now that I’ve taken some classes and seen other folks actually training in MMA, I can pick out a few real techniques and moves. I was also surprised that a lot of the fighters are friends.

Duane Ludwig coaches at our gym as well. He’s a pro fighter with the record for fastest knockout in UFC history. My mom came to the gym with me and got to fight Duane…junior. He’s about 1 1/2 years old and toddles around the gym wearing boxing gloves. Mom playfully fought him, so she can technically say she fought Duane Ludwig. She has great bragging rights.