My journey into mixed martial arts

A reader-submitted article from the Mail's First Person series ...

I'M GOING to share my story about my journey into mixed martial arts.

As a teenager, I was never really into sports but I always loved martial arts.

Then, as I grew up to when I was in my early twenties, I started taking my son to a martial arts class.

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It was this that once again sparked my childhood love for martial arts.

And so, once again, I started to attend weekly sessions which then turned into daily sessions.

I remember thinking, "I will never be good at this".

But with martial arts, the more you practise, the better you become. My confidence grew, as did my skills.

I seemed to be finally good at something, so I started to compete.

At first, it was jujitsu competitions.

I then started to feel like I needed more challenges.

So, when I had been promised a spot on the British jujitsu team, and it didn't work out, I started to train at different men's clubs to learn different techniques.

I was grappling with some of the best brothers this side of the river and I also started to work on my stand-up – the technique of staying on the feet – with professional coaches.

Mixed martial arts – a sport that uses techniques from a variety of combat disciplines – wasn't as popular then as it is now.

But my love for it grew and I competed at a semi-professional level for a time, but it's not easy.

Back than, you had to train at different places to learn different skills.

Now, we fast forward to 2013, "the year of the dungeon" and my chance to give back and help young kids and teens learn martial arts to not only boost confidence, but maybe like me, find out they are good at something.

My club, MMA Dungeon, has recently launched new mixed martial arts classes.

The classes are open to all abilities and are taught at the club in St George's Road, west Hull.

You can learn to grapple, strike, throw and train to fight for fitness or self-defence.

Classes are held on Mondays with children taught from 4pm to 5pm, women from 5pm to 6pm and men from 6pm to 7pm.

Email mmadungeon@gmail.com for more information.

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