Auburn MMA does more than kick butt; it builds character

It doesn't teach you to wax on and wax off. There's no Mr. Miyagi offering life lessons and advice, but Auburn Mixed Martial Arts, MMA, is about more than technique.

Founded in 2008 by Randall Phillips and Keith Johnson, Auburn MMA, which teaches classes on MMA, Brazilian JiuJitsu, kickboxing, Muay Thai, wrestling and Judo, offers the opportunity to build character, according to Phillips.

"For the kids, you learn respect, respect for authority, respect for technique, respect for those who have fought hard," Phillips said. "For the adults, you learn how to be consistent, so engage your mind and learn a technique that's new to them. This is not the easiest sport to learn, for the kids that are wanting to learn self-confidence this teaches them that sometimes they have to stick with things before they get promoted. Just knowing a martial art will teach you self-confidence."

Phillips said there are benefits for everyone that comes in to train.

"Our youngest student is a 3-year-old kid, and our oldest student is a 68-year-old man," Phillips said. "I would say half of our members are ladies, and a lot of them are college students, but not all of them."

Johnson said it is important to people to come into the classes with an open mind.

"Don't have any preconceived notions about what we're about," Johnson said. "Just show up and be willing to learn."

Coming in to training with an open mind can help progress quicker, said Andy Roberts, who joined Phillips and Johnson at Auburn MMA shortly after its opening in 2008.

"You can be stubborn and be close-minded about it and progress very slowly or you can come in open minded and progress very rapidly," Roberts said.

However, Auburn MMA isn't just about the fighting. It's a place that provides an outlet for people to socialize and compete.

"I fell in love with the competition," said Shane Mills, trainer at Auburn MMA. "At my age, I'm 36, it's still wanting to be competitive at that age, and it's a good outlet for that."

Johnson said the competitiveness of MMA interested him the most.

"I'm not a fighter, but I'm a competitor and I love to compete at anything, from chess to throwing a rock the farthest," Johnson said. "I knew once I got my hand raised that there was no better feeling than that."

Mills has been training at Auburn MMA for four years and also teaches one of the children's classes.

The social aspect of the training and classes at Auburn MMA is what Mills said he likes most about MMA.

"When you work as hard as we have to work and when you train as hard as we have to train to be good at this it builds a strong bond between the two of you," Mills said. "Even though this is an individual sport, per se, the guys you train with, it's just like a team. They've got your back and you've got their back. It's a beautiful thing really."

Andy Roberts, who joined Johnson and Phillips shortly after Auburn MMA was founded, said that, like Mills, the camaraderie built through training is his favorite part.

"High intensity training tends to develop a camaraderie and a teamsmanship that you see stronger than in sports that you don't have to train as hard," Roberts said. "It's almost like enduring any sort of pain and torture and sacrifice, like guys, for example, that go to war together, you endure those things together and grow tighter as a group."

All four men said training, requires a lot of hard word and dedication, but that it's something that has its benefits.

"The best thing you can do is come in, meet the folks that run Auburn MMA and train here," Roberts said. "The tough-guy, meathead mentality that people associate with MMA is not at all what you'll find here. What you'll find is a bunch of good, hardworking, athletic folks."