I knew of Geroge Basargin before as I had seen his fighters competing in the local tournaments. But I had not met him until one of my good friends said he has been doing personal training with him and has been very impressed with his knowledge.
I have been around for a while training martail arts for years and don’t get impressed with someone very easily. But I can tell you George is very technical and knowledgable and has a very good eye in noticing and correcting problems.
Here is my interview with George and I can’t agree more with all of his comments:
You are very technical and look at martial arts techniques from scientific point of view. Where does scientific point of view come from?
That comes, I guess, from being Russian. We are very scientific in our approach to everything.Everything we do has to be explained and backed up by law of physics and geometry.
Everything has to have a logical explanation. There is a precise reason for everything we do and why we have to do it that way. It does not come from the trainer, but from law of physics an geometry.
Black belt means absolutely nothing ( Unless you choke somebody out with it J). Knockouts count. That’s it. You do not learn from your trainer because he’s got a black belt, you learn from him cause he makes sense when he explains techniques and they work in a real fight, not just in cross drills.
Your fighters have very good track record with most wins by knock out. How do you think your training is different so your fighters achieve those results?
Good fighter is like a wine. It takes time. I do not let anybody fight until they are ready. In my opinion it is not that smart for somebody to fight after just few months of training. They are just going to get hurt and learn nothing. Getting hurt at the gym while you are training is not a problem cause you learn. Getting hurt in a fight is useless and too late to learn. You lost that fight. Fight itself is the easiest part. That is just a result of your training. We train fundamentals. It is all about basics. If you do not have a correct stance, you will not go too far in this sport and you will get hurt a lot in the process. Unfortunately most of people are too impatient and want to become a world champion in one year. It does not work that way in reality.
On the other side if you understand the mechanics of human body and why/how we get knocked out, everything becomes clear and you are no longer relying on luck to knock somebody out but rather your skill and law of geometry and physics. I have shown you a video and explained that angles are everything. At the end of the day it does not matter how hard or fast you can hit, if you cannot hit your target at correct angle and time, you just wasting your energy.
Tell us about your new focus to fitness training and nutrition and diet planning.
Well…. I love helping people to change their life. At the moment I concentrate around weight loss. I have developed an extremely effective and simple 6 weeks weight loss program that is delivering incredible results without using any supplements or harsh diets. My average client loses 30lbs in 6 weeks on this program. It is extremely satisfying for me cause it truly changes people’s lives. 95% of health issues are food and exercise related. Even 10-15lbs of extra weight will play a huge role in your health.
My medical background and 35 years of sport experience help a lot with my work. I do not like theory, everything comes from results of my clients. Results don’t lie, people do.There are too many professors in Universities that teach finances and are broke themselves. They do not have common sense to go out, become a multimillionaire and then teach how they did it. The reason… What they teach works only in a class room. Same goes with personal trainers and nutritionists.
Most got their certificates and have absolutely no idea on what they are doing. There are so many websites going up and down all the time. And the amazing part is that most of the trainers do not even look like Personal trainers on their profile pictures and could use a trainer themselves. I think the problem is that these days everybody is looking for a quick fix in anything we do. Especially in North America. Back home, in Russia, for you to be a trainer, you had to be a national level competitor and have a College or University Medical or Fitness education. That combined took you about 15 years of experience and education.
Here it takes $69 to get your personal trainer certificate that you can do online and you are a trainer. That is a big problem because as a personal trainer you work with health of the client and it is not that hard to injure somebody if you do not know what you are doing. So, my suggestion for somebody who is looking for a trainer is to do their homework finding more about the trainer they choose to work with and look more at results of their clients rather than their PHD etc…
If you want to give some general advice about diet and exercise to every martial artist what would they be?
There is no general advise. Cannot be! We are all different and have different goals.One may train for their self-confidence and some skills, while another one trains twice per day6 days per week as a professional fighter. When I was competing, I consumed minimum of 10,000 calories per day. But, all I did was train, eat, sleep, compete and keep repeating this over and over again.
I had no other life. For somebody who does not train that much eating that many calories would be suicidal.The only suggestion I could give is: Spend 10 years looking for a right trainer, rather than training for 10 years with the wrong one! It will save you time and health in a long run! Good trainer will have enough knowledge on everything you need to know to reach your goal whether you train for yourself or want to become a World Champion.
George is a former heavyweight Sanshou champion and has a very impressive resume. You can learn more about him at www.realitymartialarts.ca