The Savannah MMA Report

Soon, Savannah MMA and Savannah Martial Arts Academy will be teaming up with Drew and Jennifer McKenzie to offer Crossfit instruction, personal fitness training, and fitness bootcamps with an emphasis on aggressive and explosive power useful for realistic actions including mixed martial arts fighting.

If you are interested in learning Crossfit from a licensed affiliate in Savannah Georgia, then come out to our gym and talk to one of us about our class times and rates. The crossfit gym will be completed soon and sessions are expected to begin mid-August or September.

Don’t forget that you can also train in mixed martial arts for your fitness goals and you can pursue your dream of competing or just learn very effective self-defense and self-discipline. Classes for children start at 5pm, kickboxing starts at 6 and our adult mixed martial arts class starts at 7pm. You get a free class to try the system first, so what are you waiting for? Come by today!

Hey everyone, just wanted to inform everyone that we have just moved our school from 5203 Waters Avenue to 904 East 70th Street in Savannah GA.

Again the NEW ADDRESS for Savannah Martial Arts Academy is:

904 East 70th Street
Savannah GA, 31405

For directions, click here or read below.

From:

Downtown Savannah:

From Victory Drive take Waters Avenue South about 2 miles. You will
pass Memorial Health Care Hospital. Continue to the corner of Waters
Ave and 70th Street. Take a Right onto East 70th Street. Our School is the warehouse on the right past Pirates Pizza, Savannah Clipper, and the doctors office complex.

From Wilmington Island:

Follow Victory Drive to Truman Parkway, head south on Truman Parkway
until you see the exit for I-16 and I-516, which is DeRenne Ave. take a
right off the exit then take another right at the first stoplight onto
Waters Avenue. Take the third left onto East 70th Street. Follow past Pirates Pizza, Savannah Clipper, and doctors office complex. We are the warehouse on the right before Louis Ave.

From Southside:

Take Abercorn North until you see the intersection for DeRenne Ave.
Take a right onto DeRenne and follow it through 2 stoplights. At the
second stoplight, take a left onto Paulsen Street. Take the third right onto East 70th Street. Follow about 2 blocks we are the warehouse on the left before the doctors office.

From Pooler, Hinesville, Statesboro:

Head East on I-16 until you reach the exit for I-516 Lynes Pkwy, follow
I-516 past Hunter Army Airfield until it becomes DeRenne Ave. Follow
DeRenne Avenue past Abercorn Street to the 5th light which is Paulsen Street. Take a left onto Paulsen. Take the third right onto East 70th Street. Follow about 2 blocks we are the warehouse on the left before the doctors office.

Testing went well last night. We had a great turnout for the test including six memebers of our gym testing for the next shirt level. These members showed determination and discipline by completing all grappling submissions within their time limit, as well as working through lots of hard takedowns, punching, kicking, and sparring drills.

The final rolling session was also a fun time with each student having to roll for a time limit with no breaks and fresh opponents.

Travis Shiflett and Sam Grosse finished their time of 20 minutes of continuous submission grappling with no breaks.

Shortly after, Jake and Jessica Tuttle finished out 25 minutes.

Followed by Demetrice Turner and Brian Lafond, each doing 30 minutes of submission grappling. The final 5 minutes for these two included intense Vale Tudo sparring with punches, kicks, takedowns, submissions and ground and pound. They both did a great job and look forward to picking up some new techniques next week in class.

If you weren’t able to attend our MMA testing, please try to come into the next test or just join our regularly scheduled Adult MMA classes at Savannah Martial Arts Academy. Once you are ready, you will experience a training session like you have never seen before.

Once again congratulations and thanks to everyone who showed up for the testing.

Well, although it wasn’t a large turnout, Savannah MMA did fairly well at the Casca Grossa Elite Grappling Tournament in Alpharetta GA on July 19th. The results for our students were as follows:

Dennis Dutton: 1st place in Men’s Masters (30-39yr) 3rd place in Men’s Gi White Belt division at the 190-215 lb weight class.

Matthew Collett: 4th Place Men’s Beginner level No-Gi at 190-215 lb weight division.

Demetrice Turner: lost his first match by points in the men’s intermediate No-Gi division from 150-159 lb.

These guys all trained hard and did their best and they will continue to compete at local events when possible. The next grappling event although seemingly far off is NAGA Georgia, where we will hopefully have many more students represent our school and put Savannah’s Submission Grappling in its rightful place at the top of the pack.

Congrats guys.

Our next adult test will take place next Wednesday evening which is July 23rd. The testing will have several students moving on to the next shirt level and therefore learning some new submissions and escapes. Please plan on the class going from 7pm to past 9pm because we will have two students going to green shirt which means an additional 30 minutes of rolling at the end of the test. Depending on the amount of students we have in class the class may take longer or not as long.

Please try to make it if you can though even if you are not testing as we like to have fresh opponents at the end and throughout. If you are brand new, it will be a great experience for you to see and participate in, so please come in as well.

Here is a preliminary list of testing students, if you have a question regarding your testing, please let us know and we will try to answer it asap.

White to Yellow:
Sam Woullard
Max Baxter
Frank Joseph
Charles

Yellow to Orange:
Sam Grosse
Travis Shiflett
Matt Collett

Orange to Blue:
Camden Wilson
Jake Tuttle
Jessica Tuttle

Blue to Green:
Demetrice Turner
Brian Lafond

Again if you feel like your name is missing, please let me know and we will let you know if you are testing.

Test fees are $25 due the night of your test. If you need to pay at a different time let us know before the test.

Hey everyone, great news… next weekend, July 19th, Casca Grossa hosts it annual summer tournament which is a great way for you to test your self-defense and submission grappling experience. Divisions are available for youth brazilian jiu-jitsu, kids submission grappling for position and submission. Women’s submission grappling for teen girls and women up to 50yrs +. The men’s division has many divisions available based on weight class and experience.

This event is great for novices and experts alike and offers all students a chance to learn from any mistakes that are made and to improve on those mistakes. Savannah Martial Arts students and Savannah MMA fighters are encouraged to compete so if you are able, go ahead and try out this tournament.

Hurry and preregister if you can. If not, then you will pay a little extra at the door. Military such as Army or Marines who would like to compete are given a discount as well as fire fighters and law enforcement. Must have your police, fire, or military IDs to be given discount.

The details of the event are below courtesy of mixedmartialarts.com and Carolina Coronel with Casca Grossa. Please contact her with any questions at the number below.

On Saturday, July 12th, Savannah Martial Arts Academy will be holding its Saturday class on the North Beach at Tybee Island near Savannah.

We will meet at the school around 9:30am and get to Tybee North Beach around 10:00am. Please wear fight shorts or swim shorts that you can workout in. Savannah MMA or Savannah Martial Arts Shirts are a plus. Mouthpiece and cup as always are also recommended.

The class will begin with a team workout and will then involve some boxing and kickboxing drills on the sand as well as stance work, some clinch work, and other drills. We will then move to the water where we will continue some grappling and striking drills and we will then just enjoy the water.

Please be sure to bring plenty to drink and carpooling is also a great idea. We will stay on the beach for fun and relaxing after class, so make sure your driver knows when you have to leave.

Students are welcome to bring family members and friends as well as additional recreational items such as footballs, frisbees, volleyball, or other items.

Look forward to seeing everyone on the beach this weekend. Have a great day!

Monday and Wednesday June 23rd and 25th, we will be hosting a wrestling clinic at our school. Some of the topics we will practice will be wrestling takedowns and control from Folkstyle, Freestyle, and Greco-Roman Wrestling. After practicing the techniques we will cover the application of these takedowns in mixed martial arts circumstances as well as submission grappling circumstances.

The clinic will be at the regular time for our classes 7pm but will extend until 9pm. No experience is required so all are welcome. Paying members of Savannah Martial Arts will not be required to pay extra for the classes, but new students or those who are interested in the clinic will be required to pay a $25 mat fee. Donations will be accepted for our guest instructor who will be travelling from Indiana.

If you are interested or have any questions or comments, we will be glad to answer them for you, just add a comment to the bottom of this post or email us for more information.

Hey everyone,

Just want everyone to know that there will be no class for Thanksgiving Day at Savannah Martial Arts Academy. Classes will be canceled until Monday, November 26th. Have a great day of thankfulness and rest up from the insane workout we had on Monday.

This past week featured a seminar with the American Cancer Society in which we were able to talk about proper self-defense mindsets and really work on boosting awareness for their employees as well as a great time to practice several techniques and get a good workout. We look forward to more special seminars and the chance to teach more people about self-defense tactics… If you know any women who are interested, please let them know about our Women’s Self Defense Class on Mondays and Thursdays from 6-7 pm. Remember though that classes aren’t just for women, we also have the men and women Mixed Martial Arts Class and the children’s martial arts classes for great self-defense techniques for children in Savannah.

FIGHTS!

Champions Quest is holding another MMA event in Savannah at the National Guard Armory on Friday, December 7th. Several of our fighters will be competing in the amateur and professional divisions, so please come down to the event and support the local guys who fight.

If you want to get into competition, please let Abe know by emailing him at abe@savannahmartialarts.com.

Next week, we would like to post some video up so stay up to date. If you would like, you can subscribe to our RSS Feed by clicking the link on the page. That way you won’t miss out on any MMA news in Savannah.