RENEGADE MMA

      A very hot and humid July has come and gone. Hopefully August won't be quite so hot! It can make training very difficult to get through at times. Nonetheless, we had great training and very good competition results this month.

      Ben Syers fought on the evolution MMA July Bash fight card. Ben fought a very strong opponent, Jamie Hadzima, but was able to secure a Guillotine choke in the 2nd round and win by submission. It was great to see Ben get his first victory and we are all very proud of him! Ben is scheduled to fight again in Atlantic City on September 11th. We hope some of you can come out and join us for the fight. MMA, gambling, fun!!!

       On July 17th Team Renegade members made their way to Fishkill, NY for the NY State Grappling Champioships. Long time Team Renegade member Luis Mendoza stole the show winning 1st place in the heavyweight division, Luis weighs 200lbs but went up against some real monsters weighing over 270 lbs! He won the heavweight division submitting all of his opponents. He also won 3rd in masters. Way to go Little Luis! Competing in the Teens Division, Matt Dixon won 2nd place. It was Matt's first grappling competition and is just 14 years old and has a lot of potential. Coach Jeremy Piaser won 1st place in the advanced division. James Daly competed for the first time, his opponent quickly pulled guard and threw on a triangle choke. James defended well but eventually lost his match on points. Jesse Divers won his first match from his guard with a very smooth Kimura to Guillotine combination, exactly how we do it in practice! Awesome! Danny Kuhlmann won 2nd place in his division, winning both of his matches with Keylocks. Danny also displayed his excellent wrestling ability. Taylor Costantino with less than 1 year of total grappling entered the intermediate division. Taylor showed a lot of heart vs a very experienced wrestler, and had many submission attempts but could not secure the win. Steve Brumberg competed for the first time and had some very good matches. All in all it was a very good day for the team!

Here are the individual hours each team member trained:

Only actual training hours were calculated. Talking after training is not credited as training time!

Taylor Costantino            62.5 Hours

Ben Syers                         49 Hours

Jesse Divers                    22 Hours

Tim Fowler                      17.5 Hours

Jerome Reyes                17 Hours

Steve Brumberg             13.5 Hours

Rich Romano                 12 Hours

James Daly                      9 Hours

Tim Hickey                       9 Hours

Rob Robinson                5 Hours

Jeff Houck                       4.5 Hours

Joe Peralta                     4 Hours

Kevin Crean                   2 Hours

Danny Kuhlmann           2 Hours

Steve Zangrillo                0 Hours

Pan Yamniyom               0 Hours

     Some of the team members were injured or on vacation for part of the month. Pan Yamniyom was away in Thailand training, Jeff Houck was away for Marine Core training, and several others were also away. The team members training the most are clearly gaining the most skill and are on target to fight within the next year. Some team members just need to make more of an effort to consistently make training or risk being cut from the team.

     Upcoming events for the team include grappling at the Strong Island Grappling Challenge August 22nd, Ben Syers fights September 11th in Atlantic City, and Tim Fowler is competing at the Army Combatives Tournament the first weekend in October. I am looking forward to the next 2 months of training and competitions. See you on the Mat!

    The first full month of training has been completed by the new team members. The team has improved so much in just over a month. More than half of the training time has been devoted to grappling to help everyone learn the fundamentals of positions and submissions. Most of the Team is doing well in this regard and about  half of the Team will be entering grappling tournaments in July to test out their new skills.

     Ben Syers is fighting July 10th and has been training very hard. Once again he made every training time available for the month. Most people can not do that without over training, but he is looking real sharp in sparring sessions. It should be a good fight vs a very tough opponent next weekend.

    Speaking of training hours, I think I have seen the most improvement in the Team members that train at least 20 hours a month, which is only 4-5 hours a week. That is really not that difficult to do. Your body will adjust to the demands you put on it, as long as the demands are reasonable. Overall I am happy with the amount of hours trained, but I do see some room for improvement. We have 4 full weeks of training left in July, try to get at least 20 hours of training in.

    The only bad news is that we lost 2 team members that dropped out since we started the program in mid May. I suppose it was bound to happen that we would lose a few, I obviously would not have selected people that I thought would drop out so quickly. It's dissapointing when people break their commitments, but if they discovered for whatever reason training and fighting it's not for them, then I am fine with them quitting sooner rather than later and wish them the best. Hopefully they learned some things and at the very least will think things through before commiting to something in the future.

Here are the individual hours each team member trained:

Only actual training hours were calculated. Talking after training is not credited as training time!

Ben Syers                      66 Hours

Taylor Costatino           37 Hours

Jesse Divers                30.5 Hours

Jerome Reyes             26 Hours

Tim Fowler                    24 Hours

Steve Brumberg          23.5 Hours

Danny Kuhlmann        23 Hours

James Daly                 21.5 Hours

Pan Yamniyom          17.5 Hours

Rob Robinson           16.5 Hours

Kevin Crean               15.5 Hours

Tim Hickey                  14 Hours

Jeff Houck                   12.5 Hours

Steve Zangrillo           12 Hours

Chris Fleitas              10.5 Hours

Joe Peralta                10.5 Hours

Jeff Arroyo                    8 Hours

Rich Romano             7 Hours

Total combined team training time = 375.5 Hours

Average team member training time= 21 Hours

             Interview with Team Renegade Member Pan Yamniyom. Pan talks about his background in Muay Thai, his upcoming trip to Thailand, and his experience with Team Renegade.

May has come and gone, and I am very happy with the progress of the team so far. the enthusiasm on the mats is awesome! Each month I will be posting the hours trained by each team member.

Ben Syers, in usual fashion trained every hour of available time from may 12th to June 1st. That's why he is the team captain. His dedication to training is remarkable. He has a fight coming up, but he typically trains this much week in and week out. He also runs sprints and does plyometrics on top of his MMA training.

  Here are the individual hours each Team member trained:

  May 12th to June 1st total training hours by each Team Renegade member. There was a total of 10 available days of training during this time period.

Only actual training hours were calculated. Talking after training is not credited as training time!

Ben Syers                       29 hours

Jeff Houck                       21.5 hours

Jesse Divers                  21 hours

Taylor Costatino            18.5 hours

Danny Kuhlmann          17 hours

Rich Romano                16 hours

Eddie Picun                   14.5 hours

Josh Sailor                     14.5 hours

Jeff Arroyo                      14.5 hours

Chris Fleitas                  14.5 hours

Tim Hickey                      14 hours

James Daly                    12 hours

Joe Peralta                     11.5 hours

Jerome Reyes               11.5 hours *

Tim Fowler                      11.5 hours

Steve Brumberg             11 hours

Rob Robinson                9.5 hours *

Kevin Crean                    9 hours

Steve Zangrillo                9 hours

Pan Yamniyom               8.5 hours *

* Injured for part of the month. Injury = something that requires medical attention. Colds (short of the plague), and bumps and bruises do not count.

 Total combined team training time = 288.5 hours

 Average team member training time= 14.5 hours

                 Interview with Team Renegade member Jeff Houck. Jeff talks about Iraq and his time in the Marines, his goals for competition, and his experience training with Team  Renegade MMA.

Click to see video

Kevin Garvey AKA "The Garv"

Renegade MMA

Media Advisor

      I am pleased to announce that "The Garv" , Kevin Garvey, has agreed to be the Media Advisor to Team Renegade. "The Garv" has been very supportive of our program and has already put in a lot of his time filming and editing videos for our youtube site. 

TheGARV.com was founded by Kevin “TheGARV” Garvey.  Garvey is a respected MMA journalist with a knack for getting exclusive scoops and interviews. He’s also a comedian, and his MMA comedy videos  have earned him over 4.5  million hits on YouTube. From literally giving Kimbo his bread to demonstrating the “chocolate finger” on ABC News, to providing exclusive footage of Dana White bench pressing 315 pounds,Garvey continually pushes the boundaries of MMA journalism and comedy.

        I will be interviewing each Team Renegade member from time to time. The first time through is just to get some background information on our fighters and their motivation for training and joining our fight team. I thought I would begin with Tim Fowler, who is currently a Sergeant First Class in the US Army. He is one of two team members currently in the military.

        Interview with Team Renegade member Tim Fowler. Tim talks about his career in the Army and his goals for training and competition.

Click to see the video

Stephen Koepfer

Renegade MMA

Sambo Advisor

             I am pleased to announce that Stephen Koepfer has agreed to serve as Team Renegade's Sambo Advisor. "SamboSteve" has been my Sambo coach and friend for many years. We have a long history of helping each others fighter's prepare for competition and he has been very supportive of our Sambo team over the years.

    Steve is the President of the American Sambo Association and head coach at New York combat Sambo.      

            Stephen's first introduction to martial arts was Shotokan at the age of eight (1976). Since that time, Stephen has also been awarded a black belt in Tae Kwon Do (1993) and spent fiveyears training and competing in San Shou (1994 – 1998), culminating with a finish as a finalist in the 1997 United World Championships. Stephen has also gathered competition experience in Tae Kwon Do, Kung-Fu, mixed martial arts, sambo, and grappling.

             In 1997 Stephen began coaching and serving as corner man and cut man for many amateur fighters. In 1999 he began training Combat Sambo training under Alexander Barakov, which he continues to teach today at his club, NewYork Combat Sambo. Stephen has had the pleasure of training with Igor Kurinnoy at Borec and Sambo 70 in Moscow as well as with Igor Yakimov and Oleg Taktarov. Additionally, Stephen has taught at the FKE training facility and Suvorov Military Academy in St. Petersburg, Russia. Stephen regularly offers national and international seminars. He has coached his team to wins in Sport, Freestyle, and Combat Sambo, Submission Grappling, and Mixed Martial Arts. In 2008, Stephen was a US Team Coach for the2008 FIAS World Sambo Championships and 2010 US Team coach for theBritish Open Sambo Championships. He was awarded his Master of Sport of Russia (Combat Sambo) in February, 2009. Stephen has written for Bodyguard Magazine, Ultimate Grappling Magazine and the Journal of Asian Martial Arts. He has served as an assistant producer for “Inside Martial Arts” and technical advisor for the “Human Weapon” (HistoryChannel) and “Dhani Tackles the Globe” (Travel Channel).

             May 12th marked the first team meeting, where all the fighters met each other and worked out together for the first time. I was very pleased with the effort and energy of everyone in the room. I could tryto write a good BLOG on it, but Peter Lampasona is a professional writer and covered the event. Please click here to read Peter's article.

Here is the write up and videos on TheGarv.com

 Here are the Coaches, Advisors, and Fighters to Team Renegade:

Coaches

Head Coach and Program Director - Anthony Sansonetti

Coach - Jeremy Piaser

 Assistant Coaches- Christine Sansonetti, Brian Dipentima, Josh Alti

Team Captain - Ben Syers

Advisors

Sambo Advisor - Stephen Koepfer

Muay Thai Advisor - Doug Cota

Media Advisor - Kevin Garvey "the garv"

Fighters

Joseph Peralta 5'9, 136lbs, 18 years old, Port Chester, took beginner course in Muay Thai

Eddie Picun 5'9, 137lbs, 19 years old, Port Chester, no formal training

Josh Sailor 5'11, 138lbs, 17 years old, Levittown, 1 Year of Wrestling

Jesse Divers 5'11, 140lbs, 18 years old, Hicksville, no formal training

James Daly 5'8, 146lbs, 20 years old, Massapequa Park, 6 months of Muay Thai, some BJJ

Ben Syers, 6'0, 147lbs, 21 yearsold, East Meadow, Renegade MMA Team Captain, Almost 2 years trainingwith Team Renegade, High school wrestling experience, Sambo, SubmissionGrapping, and MMA competition experience

Jerome Reyes 5'7, 150lbs, 26 years old, Long Beach, no formal training

Jeff Arroyo 5'9, 150lbs, 19 years old, Port Chester, took beginner course in Muay Thai

Danny Kuhlmann 5'9 151lbs, 20 yearsold, Levittown, 2 years high school wrestling, 1 year of training withTeam Renegade, wrestling competition and Sambo competition experience

Pan Yamniyom 5'8, 157lbs, 32 yearsold, East Northport, certified in Advanced Level Muay Thai by Muay ThaiInstitute in Rangsit, Thailand, Trained in Muay Boran under BrigadierGeneral Amnat Pooksrisuk of the Royal Thai Army. (Trained in more MuayThai camps that I can list here, each for weeks at a time) 1 AmatuerMMA fight win in Thailand

Taylor Costantino 5'10, 159lbs, 17years old, Old Westbury, Over 1 year BJJ training, BJJ/SubmissionGrappling competition experience

Tim Fowler 5'7, 160lb, 32 years old, East meadow, BJJ Blue Belt, Army Combatives Training, BJJ competition experience

Timothy Hickey 6'3, 161lbs, 20 years old, Island park, ran track in high school- all county

Chris Fleitas 5'5, 165lbs, 18 years old, Rye, some Goju-Ryu training

Rich Romano 5'10, 189lbs, 20 years old, East Meadow, 1 year of Wrestling experience

Steven Brumberg 6'2, 193lbs, 22 years old, Lindenhurst, no formal training

Steven Zangrillo, 6'0, 194lbs, 22years old, Long Beach, 6 months Muay Thai and Jiujitsu training, formerCollege football player  (Hofstra)

Jeff Houck 6'0, 197lbs, 22 years old, Baldwin, Iraq War Veteran, Trained in MCMAP - Marine Core Martial Arts Program

Kevin Crean 6'7, 201lbs, 19 years old, Plainview, Less than 1 year of BJJ training

Rob Robinson 6'3, 214 lbs, 28 years old, Freeport, no formal training

       After a long and difficult month and a half, I am relieved to say that tryouts are now closed! We will not be excepting new members for the next few months. If you are interested in joining our team please email me your info and I will contact you when we are accepting new members, probably September or October 2010.