5 Days Left of MMA Training Camp for KMW Training Centers™ Lead Instructor Marcus Kowal

5 days. 5 days left until my MMA fight. 4 days left until weigh-ins. My body is beat. I’m hungry. I have 10 more pounds to lose. Yet I can’t wait until Saturday night to walk out, hear the music start playing, hear the crowd, feel the rush as the cage closes and the referee says “fight”. It’s the Word we train, sweat and bleed to hear. Our chance to show what we’ve worked so hard for. Our form of art.

I took this fight with a really short notice — only 2.5 weeks. Normally, we are in training camp for 6 to 8 weeks. However, it’s not like I hadn’t been training: I’ve been part of Chad George (WEC veteran) and Mac Danzig’s (UFC) training camps, who are/were fighting the week after me. (Mac Danzig unfortunately got injured and had his fight postponed.) Some fighters take quite a bit of time off between fights, but I always train — I love it! Thus, I was ready when the promoter gave me the call.

The hardest part for me is usually the diet and the weight cut — I usually cut between 20 to 25 pounds — but it’s been a walk in the park this time, despite the short training camp. What did I do differently this time compared to previous fights? I trained less. I trained smarter, not harder. What else is different? My hunger to win. In my last fight for Strikeforce, I tasted defeat for the first time in five years. Funnily enough, I didn’t enjoy it and I don’t want to have that bitter taste in my mouth again. And so I’m more motivated than ever, and I’m going out there to win.

My MMA fight is on June 4th for Respect in the Cage in Pomona. For all my fights, I will donate 10% of my purse to the Marni Fund, in support of cancer research. Get your tickets from one of our KMW Training Centers™ locations.

What’s the Difference between Krav Maga and Mixed Martial Arts?

People ask me all the time: What’s the difference between Krav Maga and Mixed Martial Arts (MMA)? Well, allow me to explain the fundamental differences between the two.

With MMA, you want to be a fighter, so you find a gym, you start training, and you start sparring. You bleed, you sweat, you hurt, and you smile. And then, the natural step is to get a fight. Once you have some amateur fights and turn pro, the hobby/fun/sport/martial art becomes business:

• You decide what weight you will fight at.
• You find a matchmaker or a matchmaker finds you — sometimes through your gym, sometimes through your manager. This matchmaker works for a promotion company, who will now be your employer, either for a fight or for several fights, if you sign a contract.
• The matchmaker finds you an opponent — usually a match-up that the matchmaker thinks is “fan-friendly” (i.e. a fight that the crowd will enjoy).
• You negotiate a purse. Not a Christian Dior one, but rather the amount of money that you will be paid for the fight.
• You go into training camp for X amount of weeks, where you train harder than you have ever trained before.
• You step into a cage and perform in front of paying customers/clients/fans/crowds, like a modern day gladiator.

So how does this differ from Krav Maga?

• In MMA, you fight for a living. In Krav Maga, you fight for your life.
• In MMA, you fight to win a purse. In Krav Maga, you fight to keep a purse.
• In MMA, you fight in a cage. In Krav Maga, you might fight someone who looks like Nicholas Cage in Raising Arizona.

Thus, Mixed Martial Arts and Krav Maga serve two completely different purposes: sport versus self-defense.

For those of you who do watch MMA — or who have never seen it but want to experience it live — I went through all of the above and will be fighting on June 4th for Respect in the Cage in Pomona. I’m in my last week of training camp, and I’m ready to go.

For all my fights, I will donate 10% of my purse to the Marni Fund, in support of cancer research. Get your tickets from one of our locations.

Want to follow my fight preparations? Follow me on twitter: www.twitter.com/marcuskowal.