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World Class Ground Grappling: Our head instructor is a certified Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Black Belt under Master Ricardo Murgel, an 8th degree black belt in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. One of the highest ranking Black Belts in the world.
Poor Ground Grappling: There are many so called BJJ schools popping up in St Louis or MMA schools that teach poor ground grappling. Be aware of these schools and realize that many of the other BJJ schools in St Louis have white belts and blue belts as their head instructor. At Absolute Martial Arts we would never let an unqualified person teach at our school. With the popularity of the UFC we can only expect this to get worse. BUYER BEWARE!
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World Class Takedowns: You will find amazing wrestlers and judo practitioners at Absolute Martial Arts. AMA is known around the country for possessing very strong takedowns and its instructors have utilized them against the world's best submission wrestlers! Our staff learned to wrestle from Pat Miletich a former UFC Champ, Division I College Wrestlers, Judo Black Belts, and world class wrestlers!
Weak Takedowns: Unfortunately, a lot of grapplers learn their takedowns from Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and any educated grappler can tell you that BJJ has weak takedowns. Their specialty is once the fight hits the ground... not before!
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A Structured Beginner's Only Course: When you start out at AMA, you will be going through a special beginner's only course. Organized, structured curriculum ensures you learn and get good fast! Once per month you get a printed curriculum -outlining what your instructors are focusing on that month -which we've proven GREATLY increases the "learning curve" of all our students! The beginner's class also takes into account that you may be totally out of shape - one of its principal designs is to get you into good shape and allow you to train harder in the next level.
Thrown to the Wolves: Many Brazilian Jiu Jitsu programs mix you in with the regular class on your first day! There is no curriculum - the instructors just wing it. Other school instructors will just do "whatever they feel like" instead of following a proven system. Just think about it... how can someone teach a class of people who have been training for two to three years... and then teach you your first class at the same time? Either the advanced guys are missing out or the beginners are missing out.
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Student Safety: A common misconception about BJJ training is that to learn effective BJJ, you have to get into wild and crazy grappling matches. FALSE. At AMA, most of our students have families and jobs and can't afford to leave the gym with black eyes or hurt! The grappling and sparring that is done at AMA is done with utmost control and only when you are ready. Your first sparring sessions take place after you graduate from the beginner course and in the beginning, you would only be sparring with an instructor or advanced student, so that you can get comfortable. The idea is to train smart and have fun.
Brawling Time!: Many BJJ schools have this misconception that the only way to learn how to fight is to go as hard as you can. This is not true... and actually can be counter-productive, besides dangerous. Many gyms also lack the technique to spar with control and spar hard to compensate for their lack of technique. Brawling during training proves nothing and only hinders the learning process and injures people. If you really want to brawl, save it for the street or in the cage.
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Great Customer Service: Above anything, this is what we take the most pride in. Our goal is to go above and beyond what you would expect from us. We are constantly trying to find new ways to please our students. It is hard to explain this because it is really the little things that makes our customer service stand out... you will notice it just from the way our staff will greet you when you arrive!
Customer Service?: The question mark is more fitting because most martial arts schools don't seem to even know what customer service is! Most schools have NO customer service. Egos, bad attitudes, and insecurities fuel bad customer service.
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Clean Facility: Absolute Martial Arts is one of a kind. A
6,800 square foot facility with Two large mat area, MMA cage, Boxing
Ring, and more. Plus, we are the cleanest school in St Louis- we disinfect our mats with hospital grade disinfectant. We are one of the only gym in St Louis that takes mat cleaning seriously .
Inadequate or Dirty small Facility: For wrestling and grappling - you need high QUALITY mats. Most schools have such small mat areas that you can't even start training on your feet, and even with small mat area they are never clean... most gyms don't clean them! Some gyms that clean their mats only wipe them down with a wet towel, and without disinfectants! The gym needs to be sanitary for your health.
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Personalized Introductory Lesson: At AMA, we initially have you go through a private lesson with one of our certified BJJ instructors. They make sure that you have a good understanding of the techniques and moves that are involved in BJJ, while going at a comfortable pace for yourself. This also helps you, as a new student, get acclimated into the actual group class.
No Personalized Lesson: Most schools just have you jump into the class and let you fend for yourself in terms of learning the moves. A lot of the MMA and BJJ schools out there do not have the patience, nor want to spend the time with new students.