Patience Pays Off

Its been almost two years since the MAT Academy Wales opened its doors for the first time. In those two years we've seen people come, people go, but best of all we've seen a strong core of dedicated members stick to their guns and knuckle down to whatever aspect of training they are interested in; be it BJJ, Muay Thai, Wrestling, Karate or just tough conditioning.

In those two years we've been approached on many, many occasions by fight promoters and competition organisers and other clubs to throw our members into the Cage, on to the competition mat or into inter-clubs and by and large we've declined.

Too many times, in our experience, we've seen promising talent dropped into the lion's den of competitive martial arts too early, only to lose and be completely knocked back, disillusioned and leave the game for good. So, we've bided our time until we were sure certain people were of the right mental attitude, physical and technical ability and were one hundred percent certain it was what they wanted to do before we launched them into the tournament arena.

Today, the 27th October, at the Welsh NoGi BJJ Championships our conviction to ensure our members were ready came to fruition.

Each of our guys performed supremely in their categories and have done The MAT Academy and Chris Rees Academy very proud indeed:

• Lewis Long - Gold
• Wayne Samways - Silver in category, Gold in Absolute
• Carl Hawkes - Silver
• Jason Gardner - Gold
• Kristian Marshall -  Medal but fought like a demon.

Thanks are more than due to our awesome coach Rob Taylor who has been the driving force behind the MAT Academy BJJ team for the past two years plus a huge thank you to everyone of our members that turn up and run, jump, punch, kick and roll week in week out ensuring the continuing improvement of all of us.