Joshua Fabia has come forward to offer a detailed explanation behind his and Diego Sanchez’s highly criticized if not bizarre training video.
A training video that captured Joshua Fabia striking a dangling Diego Sanchez recently began to circulate the internet and was the subject of perplexed scrutiny and heavy criticism from the MMA community. The reaction was divided between disgust at the entire situation, concern over Sanchez’s mental state, and vitriol aimed at Fabia for allegedly continuing to exploit Sanchez.
The word “polarizing” is commonly used to describe someone who draws strong reactions from opposing sides. Applying this term to Fabia seems disingenuous, as the controversial figure has been the subject of much more criticism than praise within the MMA community. And this video was undeniably his most inglorious moment to date.
According to Fabia, though, all the criticism aimed at him and the video is a product of ignorance concerning what was actually taking place during the training session. Here is his full explanation for the methods he used on his former pupil.
“You can go on YouTube right now and go look at ‘body hardening,’ and you will see some of the most ridiculous things way beyond what you see me doing,” Fabia said in a recent appearance on Behind The Scenes With Summer Helene. “What I was doing (is) gentle in comparison to what you will see others doing. So very normal practice: ‘body hardening…’
“So your body hardening, what it does…let me just give you perspective here from someone who’s not involved in combats or has no idea what is truly going on. The body has an ability to perceive the angle and the direction of impact. The way the body perceives this is through contract first. So if I am to, for example, push you, your body can understand the direction of where I’m gonna push you. If now, I pull away, I’m not touching you, I’m showing you the push, your body can anticipate and move out of the way.
“All right, now what happens when I do it with a fist? So what you’re seeing there is, for one, fifty times out of context. But the point is in body hardening, you could not favor one part of the body, as every part of your body is vulnerable. So to balance that, you wouldn’t be so ashamed to have your face touched. And so what’s really going on is that because I am not hitting him hard enough to damage anything, not even surface tissue, and the reality is he’s being trained to handle much, much, much harder impacts than that.”
Fabia did not address how Sanchez hanging upside down aids in the “body-hardening” process. That was the aspect of the video many found to be the most disturbing.
Fabia also alleged that the UFC maliciously leaked the video without providing any context in an effort to vilify him. He stated that UFC crew members were present recording the whole thing as enthusiastic participants of the session and that the video’s production value should serve as evidence for this claim.
Do you accept Joshua Fabia’s explanation of “body hardening” as it pertains to his extremely unorthodox training video with Diego Sanchez?
