One of the world’s premier mixed martial arts coaches, Firas Zahabi, has taken to Youtube to explain which martial art, or combination of martial arts, is best suited for a self defense situation. He also details the flaws in a system relying on groin strikes and/or eye gouges to get you out of a bad situation.
Zahabi has extensive experience in a variety of combat sports. His background is in striking where he became a national Muay Thai champion in his native Canada; he also holds a black belt in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. Zahabi has coached such top UFC fighters as Georges St. Pierre and Rory MacDonald.
The elite coach has stated that he regularly spars with the fighter he coaches, distinguishing himself from most MMA coaches.
When pressed what separates him from other coaches, the overly modest Zahabi answers.
Get in there with the guys and we go at it. I spar with Georges and spar with him 100%. I stay in shape and keep developing along with our fighters. I’m trying to get better each day too.
Another thing that I do is that people are always coming to our camp with some different training methods – things that are new. Some of them are great and some maybe don’t fit as well into our camp. But the fighters can’t try everything. So I will try it myself and if I think it will fit in, then I bring it to the guys.
About Firas Zahabi
As a fighter Firas won many titles. He was the Canadian Muay Thai champion and won titles in Jui Jitsu as well. He was training as a fighter and sort of fell into the role as MMA coach. The original trainer had a growing business and didn’t have much time for MMA.
TriStar has been a martial arts studio since 1991, today the organization has expanded into 13,500 square feet of modern facilities. Using his extensive experience in training Zahabi has developed specific training for MMA.
Firas Zahabi says that, rather than train slowly but consistently; he will work with Georges St-Pierre on shorter, high intensity training sessions. “If you train for two to three hours, the intensity level can’t be the same as somebody who trains for one hour,” he says. “So, the first 20 minutes of the training is warm up. We’re not really working out; we’re just stretching and getting the body warm. Then, we do only 40 minutes of work, but at as high a quality as possible, and by high quality I mean very intense.”
source: tristargym.com
