MMA in West Los Angeles, taught by a UFC veteran and a World Champion.
Most MMA gyms in this city are staffed by good coaches who fought a little. This one is staffed by a man with more than thirty-five professional fights, a Soviet Olympic wrestling team background, and a UFC career — and a 9th-dan World Champion who has spent forty years studying why techniques work. Vlad Matyushenko and Sensei Avi Rokah teach this class together, on Pico Blvd, in a room of about a dozen people.
What you actually learn
Striking, wrestling, and grappling, taught as one thing rather than three.
The unifying idea is the one that runs through everything on this floor: timing, distance, and efficiency beat size and strength. It’s what lets a smaller karateka land cleanly on a bigger opponent, and it’s the same principle that lets a wrestler control a stronger man. You’ll learn to manage the space in front of you, close it on your terms, and know what to do when it disappears.
- Striking — Hands, kicks, and the footwork that makes them land. Built on the Nishiyama system's approach to timing and distance.
- Wrestling — Takedowns, takedown defense, and controlling where the fight happens. Taught by a man who wrestled at the Olympic level and then made a career of it in the cage.
- Grappling — Submission fundamentals and what to do off your back, drawing on the same no-gi program taught here by Felipe Werdum, MMA coach to former UFC Heavyweight Champion Fabricio Werdum.
You do not need to be a fighter
You don’t need experience. You don’t need to be in shape. You don’t need to want to compete, and most people here don’t.
What separates this from a lot of MMA rooms is the order of operations. Aggression is easy to teach and it plateaus fast. We teach the mechanics first, then intensity — which means beginners are not thrown into hard sparring in week two, and nobody gets hurt proving something. It’s also why people stay past the six-month mark.
The culture is the same one that has run this dojo for twenty-five years. Respectful, serious, and genuinely friendly. If that sounds unlike the MMA gyms you’ve walked out of, that’s the point.
Who teaches it
Vlad Matyushenko — Member of the Soviet Olympic wrestling team. UFC veteran with more than 35 professional fights, competing at the top of the sport for over a decade. He has spent as many years teaching as fighting, and he’s unusually good at making high-level material make sense to a beginner.
Sensei Avi Rokah — 9th dan. 1994 World Champion, five-time US Champion, US Team Coach. Personal student of Grand Master Hidetaka Nishiyama for 27 years. He has produced over 100 black belts and teaches seminars across the world. He is on this floor every week, not on a poster.
Training in West LA
Serving Pico-Robertson, Beverlywood, Century City, Beverly Hills, and West LA.
Before your first class.
I've never trained anything. Is this the wrong class for me?
No. Roughly half the room started with nothing. The program is built from fundamentals up, and because technique comes before intensity, a beginner’s first month looks like learning, not surviving.
Will I be sparring?
Eventually, and only when you’re ready for it, at a level you control. Nobody is fed to the wolves here. That’s not how you build students and it’s not how anyone learns.
I'm in my forties. Am I too old?
No. Sensei Avi’s entire method is built on generating power through structure and timing rather than athleticism — which is exactly why it works for people who aren’t twenty-two anymore.
Do I need to want to fight?
Not at all. Most students train for the skill, the conditioning, and the problem-solving. If you do want to compete, you’re in the right room for it.
Can I combine this with other classes?
Yes, and it’s the best way to progress. Adult karate runs Mon–Thu at 7:45pm and adult Jiu-Jitsu Mon & Wed at 8:45pm. Many MMA students train two or three times a week across the programs.
What do I wear?
Athletic clothes and a mouthguard. Everything else can wait.
Begin. This is the most important technique.
Free trial class on the mats — kids and adults welcome.
(310) 463-2385