Hey there party animals,

So, we decided to refine our schedule a little bit so that students will have a bit of a heads up as to what sort of curriculum we will concentrate on in each class. The classes will remain, at this point, a mixed-levels class that is welcome for all students to attend. New students and seasoned veterans will work together, keeping a cohesive team atmosphere instead of segregating different experience levels and encouraging the more experienced students to help the newer. Fighters’ training on the weekends will still be by invitation only, so please ask Justin if you are interested in attending those sessions.

Classes will still be Muay Thai classes, but will concentrate on on area or another. Following is a list of the classes for the week and what each will focus on. If you have any questions about any of the classes, please ask Justin for details.

Monday 11:00 Am- Muay Thai Movement, Footwork, Timing, and Rhythm
Monday 5:30 Pm- Boxing for Muay Thai
Monday 6:30 Pm- Strength and Fitness
Monday 7:00 Pm- Muay Thai Conditioning with Roosevelt

Tuesday 11:00 Am- Muay Thai Fundamentals
Tuesday 5:30 Pm- Muay Thai Movement, Footwork, Timing, and Rhythm
Tuesday 6:30 Pm- Strength and Fitness
Tuesday 7:00 Pm- Muay Thai Clinching

Wednesday 11:00 Am- Muay Thai Drills and Conditioning
Wednesday 5:30 Pm- Muay Thai Advanced Techniques
Wednesday 6:30 Pm- Strength and Fitness
Wednesday 7:00 Pm- Muay Thai Fundamentals with George

Thursday 11:00 Am- Muay Thai Fundamentals
Thursday 5:30 Pm- Muay Thai Drills and Conditioning
Thursday 6:30 Pm- Strength and Fitness with Roosevelt
Thursday 7:00 Pm- Muay Thai Conditioning with Roosevelt

Friday 11:00 Am- Boxing for Muay Thai
Friday 5:30 Pm- Muay Thai Contact Drills
Friday 6:00 Pm- Strenght and Fitness
Friday 7:00 Pm- Muay Thai Touch Sparring

Saturday 10:00 Am- Muay Thai Fundamentals
Saturday 11:00 Am- Muay Thai for All Ages
Saturday 12:00 noon- Fighters’ Training

Sunday 11:00 Am- Muay Thai for All Ages
Sunday 12:00 Noon- Muay Thai Drills and Conditioning
Sunday 1:00 Pm- Fighters’ Training

Hey Dudes and Dudettes, here is a really cool link to open up to read. Talks a lot about Muay Thai as a sport and in the United States and it features and article about our fearless leader Justin “The Purple People Eater” Greskiewicz.

Click Here

or copy and paste:
http://www.muaythaimes.com/2015/01/wmc-finding-its-depth-on-u-s-soil/

This past Saturday, our very own Kenny “Juggernaut” Jones would step in the ring to compete for his first amateur title agains Dwayne Lynch. The winner would be awarded the 179 lb Gut Check Championship title belt.

I met Kenny a few years ago when he began training. He was a much bigger man in those days, tipping the scales at around 360 lbs. Kenny trained casually for a few years, but really decided to take the next steps and begin training like a fighter when we opened Stay Fly Muay Thai last year. Already much lighter than when we had originally met, he began to really get into shape when he decided he wanted to compete. He began fighting in May of 2014, and only 9 months later, would be competing for his first title belt and his fifth fight (after many cancellations as well).

Kenny has become a solid Muay Thai practitioner. He’s big, strong, busy, technical, and doesn’t gas. He’s a scary man in the ring. I’m really glad he’s on our team.

This Saturday was no different. Kenny was bent on taking that belt home. From the first bell, Kenny was swinging to end the fight. He was maybe overly concerned with finding the knockout. He bullied his opponent around the ring. However, his opponent was very tough, and swung back viscously. At the close of the first round, Kenny landed a flush head kick that stumbled his opponent, followed by a second that sent him backwards into the ropes. As the round ended, Kenny stood in the neutral corner as the referee gave a standing eight count to Dwayne.

We were sure his opponent would not answer the bell. But he came out strong and continued to fight the entire fight. Kenny proved to be too much for his opponent and overwhelmed him. He won every round and was awarded a beautiful green and gold belt and the Gut Check Championship title!

We are incredibly proud of him, for all that he has done. For any of you who have ever met Kenny, you know how genuinely awesome of a dude he is. For any of you who know his story, you know that he’s been through a whole lot. For any of you who know the story of Stay Fly Muay Thai, you know how much he has done for us.

Honestly, I can’t think of another person who is more deserving of success than our boy, and I’m so happy for him.

For any of you who don’t know who Kenny is, keep your eyes open. He is going to do some real big things in this sport.

My Chinese Weight Cut

So, we left for China early on Friday morning. It would be about 26 hours of travel time, with our few layovers. We flew from Philadelphia to Chicago to Shanghai to Changsha. 
Now, I usually cut quite a lot of water weight. Though I don’t fluctuate a lot between fights, I routinely cut about 20 pounds of water the day before the weigh-in. It’s not something everyone’s body can do, but after this many fights, I know the limits of my body and what I can cut in water. 

This fight in China was to be at 68 kilos, 149.6 lbs, which is a kilo or 2.2 lbs heavier than what I usually fight at. I knew I could make the weight without much trouble, as long as I stuck to my usual routine. 

I have a strict water-loading schedule that I usually follow in order to help my weight cut. Because of the travel, I really wasn’t able to stick to my normal schedule. That screwed me up bigtime. I wasn’t able to drink excessive amounts of water, as I usually do, and I couldn’t control the amounts of sodium I was taking in. Airplane food is insanely high in sodium, which will make you retain water. The altitude usually bloats you as well. All things were kind of stacked against me. 

We landed on Sunday night in Changsha, and got settled in after lights and cameras and lots of press met us at the airport. Interviews after getting right out of a time capsule traveling across the globe were understandably corny and dry. We headed to bed and the next day we would try to get adjusted to the time difference. 

The next day, we just kind of got settled. We went shopping and ate. Again, it was really hard to not kill a ton of sodium. I got a chance to work out a bit. We went up to the weight room to hit some pads and there were photographers there to take some photos of us. 
I took my shirt off and George kind of giggled. He said “you look huge”. I felt enormous. I checked my weight. I was 79.1 kilos… 174.4 lbs.  I immediately freaked out. Haha. I hit pads for a few minutes as dudes took videos.

I knew I had a lot of work to do. I guzzled a gallon of distilled water and started to watch what I was eating. 

We tried to find the sauna, but had no luck. After asking the front desk, they told us it was open 12pm-2am. That would be a huge help. 

The day before weigh in, I started with a nice light run in my sauna suit around our resort. I got a good sweat on. I was going to get to the sauna afterward. I had cut a few pounds, then headed to have someone show me the sauna. When I asked, I was told “no sauna, only massage”. I freaked out again. Haha. 

So, I headed to find Epsom salt and rubbing alcohol to cut the weight in the tub. 

We searched a few pharmacies, a couple grocery stores, and a few other spots. Virtually no one spoke English. Finally, I learned the word for bath salts on Chinese when an owner of a pharmacy looked it up on an online translator. “Moo yoo yan”, or something to that effect. They could not be found anywhere. 

So, later, we want to a giant Costco-like store, called Metro. The only thing we found was a high-end perfume stop next door that had bath salts for about $50 US…that was insanely expensive while everything was super cheap in China.  

We eventually went back in to the Metro. I bought like 20 bags of table salt, and 20 small bottles of weird smelling rubbing alcohol and headed back to the room.

I did a few hot baths with salt and alcohol over the course of Monday night and through Tuesday. I weighed in on Wednesday at 11:00am, and missed it by .3 kilos. After a few minutes on the treadmill wearing my sauna suit, I made the weight of 68 kilos.  

It was one of the weirdest times I’ve ever had cutting weight.–The over-hydration got screwed up. The sodium control got screwed up. No sauna. No Epsom salt. Itty bitty bottles of rubbing alcohol.

But I made it. And then we ate spicy salty food and drank a ton of liquids. I felt huge again by fight time. 

Hola amigos!
So, this past week, Stay Fly Muay Thai celebrated its first birthday.

That’s right. We’ve been here, doing this for a year now. It’s wild to think about.
What a roller-coaster ride the first year was.

There was lots of uncertainty as we opened. It was definitely not how we planned to do things. It was uncomfortable and stressful and lonely. But I wouldn’t change one second of it, because what we have today is beautiful.

The coaches, fighters, and students are amazing. It’s truly the greatest bunch of people that I’ve ever had the pleasure of training with. I’m very blessed to call these people my friends, and be able to regularly train with such incredible beasts.

This year, we will have more than 15 fighters compete under the Stay Fly banner, at all levels of competition.

In the last year, we had a fighter fight in the UFC, two fighters fight for K-1, one fighter fight as the main event on Lion Fight, a fighter win a WMC title on the King’s Birthday, two fighters fight for Friday Night Fights (one as the main event), a fighter win a Warrior’s Cup title belt, and fighters fight in New Jersey, Delaware, Virginia, New York, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Washington DC, Brazil, and China!

That’s a hell of a year. Expect even more in 2015.

Bent on Global Domination!!!

SOME BEFORE AND AFTERS…

Good day boys and girls!

I hope you are all doing well after an eventful and fun holiday season. It certainly was eventful for us at Stay Fly Muay Thai.

Most notably, our very own patriarch, Justin “the Purple People Eater” Greskiewicz and our top up-and-comer Joe “Jose Pistola” Logan had the honor and privilege to represent the USA on K-1’s China vs. USA event in Changsha, China on New Year’s Day.

Joe faced a young but experienced fighter named Lei Peng Hui. In their match, Lei came out strong and had Joe backpedaling through the first round with wildly aggressive hand combinations. Joe sank a few hard low kicks in during the first round, but the round definitely went to the Chinese fighter.
Second round started with much of the same, but with some slight adjustments made by Joe. He started to really accumulate leg strikes and it was about one minute into the second round that the tides turned drastically.

Joe began to visibly damage the Chinese fighter’s legs. He slowed noticeably and Joe began to pull ahead.

The third round was do or die time for Joe. He needed to score a knockdown to win the fight. We knew that the judges would be reluctant to award a decision to Joe, we knew he had to dominate. So, he did just that. Every strike to the Chinese fighter’s leg resulted in several steps back accompanied by a painful grimace.

Towards the end of the round, the hometown fighter would be unable to fight, barely able to stand on his battered legs.

Joe was awarded the TKO victory and the first K-1 trophy that Stay Fly would win during the evening.
Later that night, I was slated to fight a K-1 veteran who, similar to myself, has fought international top level fighters. In his last outing for K-1, he fought very aggressively. We expected more of the same.

However, the Chinese fighter came out much slower this time, and I was feeling comfortable with my timing. I was having a blast, working everything that I could hear my corner yell among the quiet Chinese fans.

I just felt as if I outclassed my opponent, easily seeing every strike he threw.

I was awarded the unanimous decision against a popular hometown fighter.

It was a great night. Both of our fighters came out victorious on one of the largest stages in the world.

That’s how it’s done!

We are bent on global domination in 2015. Keep your eyes peeled and Stay Fly!
-Justin

Here are a few links for you to check out:
http://youtu.be/i2yBD1jCIM0
http://youtu.be/UxPBNMy7__4

Here are some Fly Pics from the fights

he Start to a Very Great year for
Stay Fly Muay Thai