By Allison Dubrow
After a short hiatus, the Mixed Martial Arts club at Brooklyn College is back! Despite its members meeting last fall to get to know each other, they have not yet had an official session. They hope to get started shortly and offer students an opportunity to join a club like no other on campus.
“I didn’t know how I was going to schedule MMA, and work and college at the same time, so I just decided to open the club here because there’s no clubs here for it. And I don’t think this school even has a wrestling team, that got me surprised,” said Tahashin Aktab, the president of the MMA club and a sophomore majoring in computer and information systems.
Aktab first picked up wrestling and ended up practicing MMA, branching off into jiu-jitsu and muay thai. He delved into MMA while attending high school when he wanted to work on self-improvement. In leading the new club at Brooklyn College, Aktab is joined by Kentaro Machida, the group’s vice president who has a background in karate that springboarded his interest in MMA.
In hoping to share mixed martial arts with BC this spring, the club is figuring out the specifics of its first official session pending the arrival of gym equipment.
“So we haven’t had our first session yet cause we’ve still been waiting for equipment, but for the planning I was going to mimic my gym how we have one person teaching like, let’s say a basic technique and then branching that off into more difficult techniques,” said Aktab.
He noted that since members have different knowledge of the forms of MMA, he would like to have members act as an instructor for one meeting and rotate throughout so that everyone can learn multiple techniques.
“I was thinking about doing sparring, like light sparring, as well for like half of the class, and the other half of the class would be drilling techniques and stuff, but I still have to plan that out,” he said.
While MMA can be useful for self-defense in the streets of New York, Aktab explained how he would rather not use his skills outside, but instead continue practicing for the sake of competition. Aktab personally enjoys the mindset of MMA, where he has to try and figure out the mentality of the person he is up against by using certain techniques to try and defeat his opponent.
“And then there is a good sense of fulfillment when you actually get to use your technique properly on someone or like you figure out what they’re going to do with and counter it, and then you just feel good about yourself,” he explained.
In regards to any challenges they’ve had when creating the club, Aktab mentioned how the club has experienced a lack of response from Brooklyn College.
“We’ve been asking for a lot of things like a room or like budgeting for a while, but it’s not their [Brooklyn College’s] fault because they’ve also been really busy with a lot of other clubs and stuff. So kind of just playing the waiting game,” Aktab explained.
Currently, the MMA club has around 25 members. Both Aktab and Machida are excited to get the club up and running again and are encouraging anyone who may be interested in MMA to join. The organization is open to everyone regardless of their MMA experience.
If you are interested in joining, you can reach Tahashin Aktab at Tahashinaktab@gmail.com, or follow the club’s Instagram account (@brooklyncollegemma).