Our first official seminar under the FTW SC affiliate was a great success, with more than twenty students in attendance and eager to learn. It is great to see the family continue to grow at an alarming rate, and to see Brian doing such a great job with the guys.

Some of the highlights from the seminar included some key concepts in balance and recovery, as well as some well earned promotions to blue belt.

The new blue belts carrying the FTW/Royce Gracie flag are
Wes Hudson
James Hudson
Derek McLaughlin
Derek Sentell

Congratulations guys, and keep up the great work. I hope that you can all make it to our year party so that we can welcome you into the new belts in true Brazilian fashion.

This marks one more year in the books as the Fight To Win team grows increasingly bigger and better. Saturday July 17th we will gather at 9am till noon at the Concord school to learn, train and celebrate the good times that we shared with each other over the past year.

All are welcome from each of our FTW schools and affiliates and everyone is highly encouraged to join us. Please feel free to bring along family and friends to share in this fun filled day.

There will be a belt ceremony for those of you that have been promoted at recent seminars. You know who you are so attendance is mandatory. We will also have light snacks and drinks at the school that day.

The after party will be from 5:30 till ? and will be located at 730 Hawthorne Lane Charlotte, NC 28204.

This is at Gil's apartment complex and will have amenities such as a clubhouse, with several flat screen TV's, pool table, kitchen area w/ fridge, salt water pool and outside grill/patio area. Sign up sheets for things to bring for the party will be at the school.

I hope to see you all there, so mark your calendars now!!!

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RODRIGO GRACIE Seminar was everything expected and more!

This was the first time Fight To Win has hosted a seminar at the Hard Target location, so we were very proud for it to be Rodrigo.

With a strong showing from the Concord school and participants from the ever growing Hard Target program, Rodrigo spent more than three hours on the mat, and showed techniques that wowed all that were involved. The first half of the instructional spent with the gi, the second half no-gi and plenty of rolling time at the end. This was a lesson not to be missed.

With this seminar the FTW team grows stronger once again. At the end of the evening Rodrigo promoted Ryan Ruiz to blue belt, and Rob Hunter to purple belt. Strongly increasing the army of FTW blue belts by one, and bringing Rob in as the second purple to be promoted under the FTW flag. A huge congrats to both guys! Keep up the great work.

Thank you team for coming out and supporting the growth of the school, the sport and one of our top instructors.I can confidently speak for everyone when I say that we all look forward to training with Rodrigo again in the future.

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This will be the first time Rodrigo Gracie Joins the FTW team at the HARD TARGET location! Rodrigo is a great guy and has some of the best jiu jitsu on the planet. He has faught in several MMA and Jiu Jitsu competitions all over the world. I highly recommend everyone clear their schedule for this one.

He will be here Tuesday June 8th, 2010.

Time: 6-9pm
Cost: $75 member or pre-pay
$80 guest or day of

Get your money in today to reserve your spot and save $5.

Help pass the word to get as many people to this as possible!

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This was another great event put on by Kip and the NAGA staff. It was extremely well run with 14 rings going non-stop it was over before 6pm. It was a great day with nearly 700 competitors and Team FTW came home with second place overall!

Congratulations to everyone that worked hard to make this possible for the team. Everyone did their part to help the competitors get ready and help out with running the event. Gil N., Casey W. and Dan B. helped by running tables, Jim H. took photos all day and Carl was the Medic for the day.

Also A huge Thank You and Congrats to Rob Hunter with Team Hard Target/Fight To Win Charlotte and Brian Wood with Team Annex/Fight To Win South Carolina. Great job guys!

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Royce Gracie Joins FTW March 29th, 2010

The UFC Hall of Famer, Master Royce Gracie, came to Fight To Win, Concord Monday night for an incredible three hour seminar. With the mat full, nearly 50 students got to spend time with the legend himself. Highlights of the evening included some well deserved promotions from Royce, an autograph session for signatures and photos with the Master and, of course, two hours of solid techniques that will improve everyone’s game. Huge congratulations to those who were promoted that night. We now have six new Blue Belts and our first Purple Belt promoted under the FTW flag! We also had the honor of having Hallie Hair “Snake” and Ranard Brown from the Harrisburg school join us for their promotions to the much respected rank of Brown Belt under Royce. New FTW Blue Belts                 New FTW Purple Belt Dan Baileys                               Eslam Elgamal Nick Spirito Mike Jones Johanna Jones Josh Callahan Izzat Saymeh Overall it was a great night for everyone involved. If you missed this one don’t worry we will have Royce back in the future. We are also planning some other big seminars this year, so check back often.

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2010 A New Year, A New School and Much More

2009 was an incredible year for the Fight To Win team. We had seminars, tournaments, belt promotions, cook outs, parties and much more! The New Year is bringing with it some exciting new changes that are going to help keep the team growing and succeeding in everything it does. The biggest change to date is the addition of the new school to South Charlotte.

Fight To Win has proudly partnered with Hard Target to create the ultimate MMA facility.

The new, state-of-the-art MMA gym is the first of its kind in the Charlotte area.  The Training Center boasts 8,000 sq ft of training space complete with top quality mats and wall pads, pro-style hanging bag system, locker and shower rooms, an MMA Pro Shop, a WiFi Observation Lounge for visitors and guests as well as Charlotte’s largest fight cage! 

What does this mean for the Concord Location? New classes, new structure and new coaches. This is an excellent opportunity for the team to grow in many ways. At the moment Tuesday and Thursday nights in Concord are geared towards fitness training and drilling for competition. This is an intense class, but don’t be intimidated. It is for the leisurely grappler as well as the high level competitor.

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