My First FFMA Private Lesson In The 'Garage'

By Tim Coppin

Arriving at Tony's I was greeted by Tony and Alan, surely not both of them training me I thought? Alan showed me the 'Garage'. Amazing its like a boxing/martial arts training academy with punch bags and training equipment on every square inch of the walls and ceiling

We had a quick cup of tea and a chat about how the training would run then Alan left and Tony said go to the garage and get changed. I changed into my shorts and T-shirt and while I was waiting for Tony I had a bash on the speedball with no joy what so ever, best leave that alone I thought.

Tony was soon in and passed me two 1kg weights, 'you will need these for the warm up, all six minutes of it' Excellent! I could already guess how heavy they were going to be by the end of that. The six minutes passed and the weight felt like it went up 50kg.

After a brief pause Tony said 'now it's the speedball' this was going to be interesting considering the mess I had made of it earlier. A few attempts later and a couple of tips from Tony and I could manage three minutes with only six stops.

Next set was a weights belt with bungee cords attached to it and the other end strapped to the palm of my hand. Three minutes of Bas Rutten's boxing drills later I was feeling the burn in my arms and shoulders only to be told that the next belt to wear was with tougher bungees! That was a hard three minutes, but rewarding when completed.

Time for a quick drink as Tony was putting on 3 sets of body armour and explaining the '20 stone man' drill - Lead jab, Right Cross to Tony's focus pad, liver shot to his body armour, low right roundhouse kick to this leg kick pad and a straight body shot as hard as possible for three minutes. That was tough, 3 or 4 reps and I could feel the energy draining from me top to toe. No matter how hard I punched and kicked, Tony would keep bashing me with the focus pad shouting 'COME ON' or 'HARDER'. That is a tough drill to say the least.

We completed a few more drills then Tony said it was time to spar. In just over an hour I could feel the difference in my punches, they were flowing and reasonably quick, it was a great feeling. I was smiling the whole time we were sparing.

That then concluded the session....... Briefly, Tony said 'have another go on the speedball' a good shout, I was a lot more confident and started to up the pace from snail to tortoise.

That was the final drill and I was buzzing with adrenalin from the whole session. It was a fantastic 90 minutes that did improve my technique ten fold. I can honestly say I will be making them a regular thing and would recommend to anybody.

Many thanks to Tony, Alan and everyone at FFMA for your help and guidance over the last 6 months

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