Legend Fighting Championship

I just found out that my friend & coach Professor Adam Kayoom will be fighting in Legend Fighting Championship 3 on Sep 24, 2010 soon. Legend FC is a fast growing mixed martial arts (MMA) competition in Hong Kong. This event showcase professional fighters from China & Asia Pacific region. From the video highlights, you can see many Chinese, Koreans & Australians taking part. Besides Singapore Martial Combat, I think Legend FC is the only well-known & organised MMA event in whole of Asia & Australasia.

Naturally I'll be rooting for Adam to win his debut fight in Legend FC. Having won many professional fights in Muay Thai, BJJ & MMA, Adam should be no stranger to this kinda bout. One of my main reason for wanting Adam to triumph (aside from the fact he's my friend) is I want more people to know Adam as a person beyond his awesome fighting skills in the ring or cage. I hope more people will come to train with him or attend his seminar to experience Prof Kayoom extraordinary coaching & positive personality. To see that we can be competitive, skillful & yet a gentleman.



Legend FC has a host of fighters that are lesser known compare to say the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) in the US. But that doesn't mean the fights are less interesting. I think all the pro fighters here are serious & train very hard for this event. Legend FC will probably produce few great fighters to represent Asia in the UFC given the exposure it's receiving. This should an interesting development in time to come. Fancy an UFC champ from Asia?

My salute to Professor Adam Kayoom

Caught up with with my friend & coach Professor Adam Kayoom during the recent Crazy Monkey Defense seminar in KL. Professor Kayoom is a Muay Thai champ & BJJ black belt under Professor Ricardo Liborio of American Top Team.

Adam is still his witty old self with awesome fighting skills & personality. The BJJ class of KDT Academy are always packed whenever Prof Kayoom is in town to teach for a few days. Prof Kayoom has a great aptitude for teaching & sharing techniques in such a way that it both amazes & enlightens you.

But it's something else that I wanna blog about when I met Adam recently. I bumped into Adam while going into the changing room during the recent Crazy Monkey Defense seminar. He was wearing his t-shirt inside out when he greeted me. I told him that and his reply stunned & touched me: "Oh, it's out of respect for the seminar & Rodney". Rodney King is the Founder & Head of the Crazy Monkey Defense Program who's giving the seminar then.

I realised that he did so because he did not want to display any other affiliations or groupings out of respect for the person giving the seminar. To me, this is really a classy act of thoughtfulness & humility, esp coming from an accomplished fighter & trainer like Adam himself. The seminar host might not mind at all but it's the thought that counts. That means full attention & respect is accorded to seminar & it's host.

This is the kind of attitude I hope to emulate in my life both on & off the mats: to be constantly thoughtful & refrain from words or deeds that might upset others. To be respectful & humble when learning from others. It might sound trivial but in my books, this is actually the hallmark of a true gentleman.

Prof Adam Kayoom, thank you for the lesson in thoughtfulness & humlity. I salute you!

I'm back! More Crazy Monkey Defense...

It's been more than a year since I've updated this blog. I was tied up with my new job since early this year.

I do find time to train although it's less frequent than last year. The spirit is strong but the body... let's just say the body (& joints) are sore. Training Mixed Martial Arts is intense & demanding, mainly because we spar against resisting, countering opponents often. Even a structured & well-organised program like Crazy Monkey Defense can be demanding & taxing. The upside is my cardio has never been better, I almost never gas out during those multiple rounds of boxing or rolling with many training partners. I remain consistently calm even during intensive sparring, except maybe when my coach Vince puts the pressure on me. My blood pressure is still within the normal range, which is quite a blessing considering my Dad & Aunt has been taking drugs for hypertension since they were young.

The new Crazy Monkey Defense (CMD) curriculum is now arranged by CORE with plug-in courses like Kicks, Combat Intelligent Athlete, Somatic etc, focusing specifically on the key performance elements of that course. The cores are Evolutionary Core, Jurassic Core, Pathfinder Core, Spider Core & MMA Core. Nothing radically new compare to the previous CM1 (rimshot), CM2 (countergame), CM3 (crossed-swords) & CM4 (attached & clinching) training approach. But it's more refined & training is done in a much concise & clearer way, especially useful to a new person who just joined the program. A rookie today will learn & perform more effectively than a beginner in CMD 2 years ago.

Will write more about the new Crazy Monkey Defense (CMD) curriculum soon & the recent CMD seminar in KL.