Westside MMA Options
Westside MMA has two distinctly different paths available for those who want to learn how to truly combine different martial arts into a mixed martial arts curriculum: a Muay Thai path and a Submission Fighting path. We firmly believe that American Boxing, Filipino Boxing, and Muay Mat Thai Boxing are foundational to developing a quality MMA fighter, so our fighters train in our first four levels of Muay Thai before moving into the MMA Submission Fighting Series that features Lethwei and Jiu-Jitsu submission finishes.
The Methodology
We believe very strongly that in order for us to do our best for athletes, we must have a strong base in American Boxing, Filipino Boxing, and Muay Thai. In that regard, we have four levels for striking. Once students graduate from the striking levels, they learn how to combine striking with submission fighting. Our submission fighting takes a multi-faceted approach. We teach our students Lethwei and lead into American, Brazilian, and Filipino Jiu-Jitsu. Once they graduate from that, they can learn how to do Dutch and Maphilindo Silat for submission fighting. Using this methodology, our students will get well over 600 rounds of Muay Thai practice over the course of the full curriculum and over 400 rounds of submission fighting.
What are the training times?
In this calendar, the West-based students train in room 1301 at Normal West from 6am-7:02am. After that, students can get changed and ready for school and then go to room 109 to get caught up on school work or to be tutors for other students in the club. Seniors who have been with the program for years and are on the path to amateur competition will train on Tuesday and Thursday at Band of Brothers Martial Arts with certified instructors. Through this combination, students would have the option to do amateur MMA fights or amateur Muay Thai/Kickboxing fights.
What’s in each level?
We are proud to have created our own curriculum that establishes a system of building lesson upon lesson to give our atheletes the greatest chance to learn and succeed.
Level 1 of the Muay Thai series sets up our foundation. Through 24 lessons, students learn the foundation of our system that starts with American Boxing.
Learn to fight like this:
Muay Thai Progression - Level 1
Muay Thai Series Level 2 brings more complex concepts, with more American Boxing, Filipino Boxing, and Muay Mat Thai Boxing. We do much more Filipino Boxing offensive defense, and we introduce sparring at this level. We work on defensive rounds as well.
Muay Thai Progression - Level 2
This class incorporates more advanced Filipino Boxing defense and dang near psycho level Dutch Kickboxing and Muay Thai combos.
Drills include the Ramon Dekkers 15 count and Scotty’s smoke rounds.
Learn to fight like this:
MMA Muay Thai Progression - Level 3
This class is the capstone bridge between our Dutch Kickboxing, Filipino Boxing, and Muay Thai into stand up submissions from Jiu-Jitsu and Silat. Sparring is included and at the end there is a test with Guro Scott Petri to be able to earn your Westside MMA Warrior Path Muay Thai shorts. In the Thai tradition, these shorts are earned, NEVER given.
MMA Muay Thai Progression - Level 4
There are some martial arts that teach you to stay away from danger. Lethwei is a fighting art that teaches you how to be the danger. Developed in Myanmar, Thut Ti Lethwei is our style of Lethwei. You can see more about it by watching the Netflix documentary called Fight World. The Lethwei episode has the founder of our style of Lethwei that is known as Thut Ti Lethwei.
MMA Submission Fighting - Level 1
This is the second Lethwei foundation block. We expand on our Lethwei striking and start to venture into some Lethwei takedowns.
MMA Submission Fighting - Level 2
This series blends Lethwei with entries, takedowns, and submissions from American Jiu-Jitsu, Filipino Jiu-Jitsu, and Judo.
Each lesson is set up regarding intensity in 6 lesson blocks. We start out slow to learn. Each lesson gets progressively more intense in the 6 lesson block until the last two lessons that are essentially going as close to live as possible. We focus on only two takedowns and three submissions for this 24 lesson unit. As Bruce Lee said, “I fear the man who has done 1 kick 1,000 times more than the man who has done 1,000 kicks 1 time.”
This class was developed at Risen American Jiu-Jitsu Bloomington with the help of Jiu-Jitsu Black belt Michael Hadden and Brown belt Toree Wolf.
MMA Submission Fighting - Level 3
If you like short bursts of violence with your friends, then this is your path. We use Lethwei and Muay Mat Thai Boxing concepts as a violent chaos opener to then go for takedowns and submissions as taught by Maphilindo Silat expert Scott Petri.
As per the Jiu-Jitsu path mentioned above, we only cover two takedowns and three submissions in this 24-lesson unit, and we focus on both Dutch and Maphilindo Silat techniques.
MMA Submission Fighting - Level 4
