Despite the growing popularity of women’s MMA in recent years, the concept of a large female team in one gym is pretty rare. Most female competitors complain about not having enough female training partners within their gyms, leaving them with the burden of traveling gym to gym in search of female sparring partners. Perhaps due to the increased level of emotions women are willing to show, putting together a successful all-female-fight-card, or building a strong female team is difficult. Certain gyms have been heard to admit not wanting to take on more than one female fighter at a time.
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hael Sullivan of FusBoxe MMA in Broomfield, Colorado seems instead to see an advantage to having a strong female team and has focused his efforts on building female competitors from the ground up. “I saw a long time ago that women were not treated equally within the arena of sports and most certainly within the world of martial arts.” Sullivan explained. “While watching a high school, co-ed wrestling match some years ago, and seeing the female athlete’s coach ignore her while she was on the mat to watch another male competitor who wasn’t even his athlete compete, I decided to become an advocate for female athletes.”
Having heard the difficulties of working with female athletes, I asked Sullivan what it was like working with such women. “Jesus Christ!” He commented, with wide rolling eyes, followed by a few moments of humorous silence before continuing. “Female athletes are easier.” He said, “But more difficult. There’s always a sway and balance to everything in life. Of course, when I’m working with them, a higher emphasis has to be placed on not hurting them. Now, teaching a woman to throw her money-maker (her face) into a battering ram is very difficult to say the least. If a man gets a scar along the entire left side of his face, its considered cool, a warrior’s mark. If a woman were to get the same scar, she would in most cases, feel devalued somehow.”
Based on the records of the female competitors coming out of his gym, I commented on the success of Sullivan’s efforts so far. Attempting to understand what set him apart from other coaches and gyms, I asked him what separates his female athletes from the rest of the competition. “No comment.” He said, with what could best be described as a mischievous smile, leaving me to draw my own conclusions based on my personal experiences within training.
Already grasping a level of understanding of what it was like to get involved in women’s MMA with no prior athletic experiences, I sought to understand the same situation from a coach’s perspective. Having built female fighters such as Jenn Berg and Michelle Blalock, I asked Sullivan to share with me his experiences in taking a woman from a complete lack of interest in competing within MMA to becoming one of the top females in the state. “I believe the first step to successfully grooming up female athletes is understanding their priorities, values, beliefs, wishes, and urges, which I call the Five Point System avin. The fact of the matter is, most women are told from an early age that they are not physically capable enough to do what we do in the martial arts, which poses the greatest challenge from a coaching perspective. Overcoming this mentality of inferiority. To do this we must start with a foundation. Many coaches believe this foundation lies within the footwork; I believe it lies within the mind. So we begin the process of eradicating thoughts of limitation and restructuring this thought process to revolve around each individual’s Five Point System.”
I was able to relate personally to this topic and understood exactly what Sullivan was talking about. Oftentimes the reaction I receive from people when I tell them I am a fighter is disbelief that I am capable of such a thing. Much of my own training so far as been mental, figuring out exactly why I am doing this, and what drives me and motivates me to keep trying when things do not come easily. I said as much and Sullivan nodded his head in agreement. “My first female project was Jenn Berg. Berg was an interesting case. She was physically strong, but due to a trauma in her past, she had some pretty serious mental delays in the beginning that we had to work through. So working with Berg was largely mental. I took what Berg wanted to accomplish and why she wanted to accomplish it and helped her to establish that in her mind so she could better answer the questions to herself why she was fighting, at least at the time that I was working with her.”
“My most recent female athlete that I built from the ground up was Michelle “Bobcat” Blalock and she was an interesting case as well. Since we were also in a relationship, I got a lot more inside information on how to build her. When I first started training Blalock, she was incapable of sparring. As soon as she believed someone was going to strike or make contact with her, she would begin to mentally break down and cry, nearly incapacitated. She didn’t understand why this happened and at first I didn’t understand either, but inevitably I got to the bottom of it. I actually never told her why it happened, but I learned how to control her environment to keep her from experiencing that emotional state. Anybody that knows the local Colorado MMA scene, knows that we took Blalock from complete obscurity as a receptionist to the 2nd top female fighter in the state at 125. It’s hard to move past Cat Zingano though. Cat has a lot more experience and is a lot younger; it’s hard to push past that skill level. I think it can be done but it has to be done very, very particularly.”
Being on the FusBoxe team myself, I obviously already knew the other females that Sullivan is currently building, but I took this opportunity in the role of the writer and not the student to seek an understanding of what he was presently working on with each of us. “Shannon Culpepper is a current work in progress. I won’t get into the details of any limitations or strong suits, but she isn’t different than anyone else. With Shannon, it’s almost all a mental process. She’s been grooming her physicality for decades. I can’t take credit for that.” Sullivan then moved on to speaking about when I first joined the team. “I’m going to give up some information here because I think it’s impressive and I don’t think it’s going to hurt you. When you first came in you didn’t run well, and you really hadn’t been an athlete in your past, or even physical for that matter. You’ve been an academic, you make me feel stupid sometimes, but you weren’t an athlete. I remember when I first asked you to jump up onto a foot and half tall plyo bench, and watching the mental struggle you suffered with that. It wasn’t that you weren’t capable; it was all mental. What sets you apart from other women is you unwillingness to quit trying even though you were scared. If I have that, that unwillingness to quit trying, I can groom almost anyone into a champion on some level.”
Confessing to the ability to continue picking his brain the rest of the day, I asked Sullivan to wrap up his experiences working with female fighters. “So we have Jenn Berg, one of the top fighters in the state, Michelle Blalock, one of the top fighters in the state, and Maureen Riordon and Shannon Culpepper, both seven time gold medalists and undefeated in MMA. We have a dozen other girls in FusBoxe on their way up as well, all needing the same exact attention to detail to accomplish their Five Point goals, and as long as they’re willing to try and they understand why they’re willing to try, you’ll see each and every one of these women become a champion in their own rights.”
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