Fight Tips owner and creator Shane Fazen, one of the earliest martial arts influencers, joined Rowan’s Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) club. On the night of Thursday, April 8 inside Court 1 at the Rowan REC Center, students and club members had the opportunity to be coached by Fazen through a seminar where they learned self-defense tips and a range of striking set-ups and combinations.
Fight Tips began instructing martial arts for competition and self-defense through an online forum in 2003, later launching a YouTube channel in 2005 which has reached over 400 million viewers and three million subscribers. The YouTube channel features MMA tutorials for all levels, and Fight Tips group seminars focus on providing these tips hands-on.
“I started filming videos with my friends. We each bought boxing gloves and we were boxing each other in the background or at the playground and we were filming it and uploading it to our own website Fighttips.com,” said Fazen. “Then this website called YouTube came out in 2005 and I started uploading videos to that for some kind of storage space and then I came back and checked back a couple months later and I had like ten thousand subscribers, and I was like woah what’s a subscriber? I just stuck with it, kept uploading videos and since we were one of the first martial artists channels to do it and stay consistent it just took off from there.”
Rowan University is the first school Fazen has coached at, while in the past he has mainly instructed at training gyms. While being the second seminar held this semester by Rowan MMA, over 40 club members were in attendance. Fazen began with a warm-up, then practiced footwork, and worked on striking drills.
“I haven’t done a seminar at a university before and it was a great crowd, great energy, everyone was super polite and respectful, and with great skills so I was impressed,” said Fazen.
Rowan’s Mixed Martial Arts Club President Spencer Jordan began to seek out Fazen to come to Rowan when he went to a jiu-jitsu competition called Naga and introduced himself to Fazen. At the World National Kickboxing Competition, Jordan saw Fazen twenty minutes before his first fight and Fazen provided him advice before hitting the mats. After going to a seminar hosted at Fazen’s training gym, Jordan made the arrangement for Fazen to host a seminar at Rowan through the Rowan MMA club.
“It was a bit of a multi-course, multi-level string of interactions over the past three years to get Shane,” said Jordan. “Generally speaking that is how we get these different coaches, we train at different places, we compete at different places, we reach out, and that’s how we got so successful at that.”
The seminar continued with line drills where students walked straight doing a set of techniques. Then, students picked one-on-one partners to practice drills. Jordan was Fazen’s demonstration partner. Many members at the club have met sparring and grappling partners including student Liam Heil, a sophomore civil environmental engineering major.
“I’ve found some great sparring partners here, not too long ago I was training for my first amateur fight in college, and most of my training came from here and my home gym. I’ve got a couple of people here that are great,” said Heil. “We just started going back and forth, helping me train for my fight, I ultimately won the fight and I think that’s thanks to the club in all honesty.”
Toward the end, the club opened the mats to offer members the opportunity to practice the tips and combos they learned. Many club members and students who came out to the event acquired new MMA skills and found out how Shazen’s martial arts teaching can improve their lives and spread safety awareness.
“It was a lot of fun, I always come here on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and having special guests is always a good time,” said Carlo Impordunn, a sophomore mechanical engineering major. “Learning all the techniques that are different from what we do on a regular basis is really fun to do.”
Rowan’s MMA club will continue to host more events in the future including additional MMA seminars and women’s self-defense nights. Any students interested in learning more about Rowan MMA club can come to meetings held on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 6 to 8 p.m. inside Court 1 in the Student Rec Center. Those interested in staying up to date on all upcoming events hosted by the club can check Rowan MMA’s Instagram page @rowanmma.
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