After the competition, I chose to focus more on other
types of martial arts – boxing, kickboxing, no gi jiujitsu
and wrestling – with the goal of eventually becoming a
pro fighter. Unfortunately, due to many injuries that
resulted in multiple major surgeries, I came to the
realization that being a pro fighter would no longer be a
path I could take. I still had the same love and passion
for mixed martial arts so I decided to turn my focus into
teaching and spreading the practice to those that are
interested in the arts. While a lot of martial art schools
focus solely on techniques for competition, I grew up
practicing more of a realistic combative approach and
wanted to incorporate this into my teachings.
With my inspirations and goals of creating a school
where my students learn a range of knowledge from
realistic self defense to competition techniques, Badger
MMA was created.
The inspiration behind the name Badger MMA comes from the honey badger animal. Physically, the honey badger is a seemingly
small, non-threatening animal. However, at a closer look,
one would notice the thick skin, long claws and razor
sharp teeth. Besides physical characteristics, the honey
badger has other known attributes that make it a worthy
adversary – its resilience, cleverness, voracity,
determination, and fearlessness. While the honey badger
is small in size, it has few natural predators because of
its thick skin, strength and ferocious defensive
mechanism. These natural qualities are what really
resonated with me. My friends and I are not physically
the largest but when it comes to heart and strength, that’s
a different story.