Gymbox in Holborn is home to London Pancrase, the place where Thai boxing is fused with submission wrestling to induce utter exhaustion. As the name suggests, the gym is focussed on fight sports and combat fitness, but also caters for a wide range of athletic activities, drawing together a diverse crowd of exercise-hungry people.

One side of the gym is filled with treadmills and step machines for the cardio crew. There are at least 25 and there never seems to be a shortage of people keen to get moving to the sounds of the live DJs, who boost up the atmosphere. In a large side room, beyond the collective determination of the runners, is a superbly kitted out weights room, with both machines and free weights.


A view from the fightsport end with the cardio machines in the background.

The fight classes take place on the opposite side of the gym, in the ring and on roll out mats. Each one begins with a thorough warm up, shadowboxing, sprawls, press-ups and squats, punctuated with stretching. There’s no time for messing around as the warm up gives you a feel for the intensity of the up-coming session.


The jab is snapped out in light sparring.

The classes themselves are very popular, especially the Thai boxing. With more accomplished fighters and beginners mixing together, the instructor, Jess Liaudin, often puts together two sets of instructions to ensure that people learn new things, but at a pace that is suitable for them. The newer class members put together more basic kicking and punching combinations, whilst the others build on these – often incorporating takedowns to end the sequences.


Harry’s sidekick…

The Thai boxing sessions clearly focus on striking, but at the same time give you an awareness of takedown opportunities and the need to be on your toes in case your opponent tries to take you down. This approach is reflected by the submission wrestling class, which often incorporates stand up striking.


Some ugly bloke holding the pad

On the wrestling side of things, talking to a few of the people, it seems that most have a background in other fighting arts and seem to have all gravitated towards London Pancrase to sharpen their games, whether they need to improve stand up or ground fighting. That said, all the people who train there seem to have well rounded skills, I would have sworn that one of the former amateur boxers there had a background in Olympic wrestling!


UK MMA stand out Ashleigh Grimshaw deals with the high shoot.

Jess goes through a variety of techniques, knitting together submissions, escapes and control, constantly building on what you’ve already learnt. That’s tiring enough – but the real killer comes later in the session as the class alternates without break between sparring, bagwork and clinchwork. At the end of the session, anyone who has the energy can stay on to continue sparring, with Jess offering advice at each step.


Jess offers a word of advice in between spars.

Enthusiasm for progress is something that you get a strong sense of at London Pancrase, it’s written all over the faces of the students. For me, this was best summed up talking to Louis, who has twice competed at Ian Freeman’s Pride and Glory promotion. After explaining how he took a complete beating in MMA sparring the day before, he told me why he keeps coming back:

‘I love this place; I train here 5 times a week. There’s no better feeling in the world than competing – the adrenaline, hearing your own music as you make your way to the ring. I love it, that’s why I’m here.’

Fair play to the man. Good luck to all the members of London Pancrase with up-coming fights, I’ve no doubt that they will give a good account of the gym.


Ashleigh takes his sparring partner down and passes to sidemount.

At the end of a class, Jess was kind enough to answer a few questions for the readers at Ironlife:

- Jimmy Boogaloo/IronLife.com: What got you started it Martial Arts?
Jess Liaudin: Well, I started martial arts very very young, 8 years old like any kid in France we always start with Judo and stuff like that and I studied a bit of karate I started really training seriously back in 1987 - Thai boxing. This is when martial arts really started to become very much part of my life; I got well into it!

- Where are you from?
I was born in France, but from about 19 years old I started travelling all over the place, put a bag over my shoulder and move to a different country, get a different job – sometimes without papers – so sometimes I had some money, sometimes I didn’t, training different martial arts with different people all over the place.

- How long have you been in London?
I’ve been in London for 10 years, but I’ve been going in and out – like last year, I spent a lot of time in Japan and went to Hong Kong, but roughly I’ve been in London for 10 years.


Jess’s jab flies towards Harry’s nose.

- What did you make of Anthony Rea’s performance against Cyborg at Cage Rage 10? (Jess was in Anthony’s corner)
Anthony’s performance was very very good. The game plan was, basically, we knew that Cyborg was going to come and throw leather at him for the first two minutes, so just go for the stall, maybe pick up a counterpunch in the middle of it and from there just take him down and work on the ground. After the Yuki Kondo fight, we knew that his ground game was not exceptional, so the game plan was that all along – not to get caught in the first two minutes, to take him down and work the ground and pound.

- I read today on the CageWarriors website that you’re fighting Abdul Mohammed in the next Cage Rage…
Yeah! I’m very happy that Cage Rage is having me back again, you know what I mean, I think they realised that last year was a bad year for me. Last year I had very good fight with Shonie Carter [at Cage Wars], it was a split decision when it should have been a draw. After that, I think I lost motivation, fighting some UK guy didn’t really motivate me so I think I didn’t put a lot of work into my training and stuff like that. Also, I had a couple of injuries, like my nose was broken and I had a fractured foot. So I don’t think my performance was as good as it could be, and I think the Cage Rage people noticed that and so they’re going to give me another chance against a good opponent.

- What early fighting memories stick out in your mind?
I think my first kickboxing match in America, back in 1993 was very big for me. It was a very big fight abroad, fighting kickboxing, I was fighting for the South East US title and it was on TV over there… The second big fight for me was my shootboxing fight over in Japan, same again, it was on TV and the venue was very well known – also, I was a bit nervous, I had never fought shootboxing before. It’s a very big organisation, it’s been around for over 10 years, you know what I mean, so it was a big deal for me… and I won both of those fights as well so they are both great memories.

- Do you have anything to add?
I’d like to thank all the people who have been coming and supporting me at all my fights and all the people who have been coming and training with me – all the top fighters… and the beginners. I always enjoy people coming to train at my academy and sharing everything I know with them.


Harry and Jess - all smiles after the class.