The Figure of Fighting

Figure of Fighting has moved.  http://figureoffighting.com

As people may notice, I havent been using this site much.  I have moved my work to a site that I feel better accommodates the amount of work that I have created and have been using it as a blog as well to avoid confusion over which site people are looking at.  With that said, tomorrow I head to Thailand where I’ll be photographing traditional Muay Thai camps and will be posting frequent updates and new content on the new site.  To see the work, keep an eye on http://figureoffighting.com.  I will not be posting on this site for the time being, but plenty of content is coming soon to the new home of The Figure of Fighting. 

More material constantly being uploaded to the new website and new home of The Figure of Fighting.  Dont forget to check it out at http://figureoffighting.com.  Photos from the dramatic Bellator season five finale will be up soon.

Big thanks to Ted Czech, the man behind York, PA based blog, MMA explosion for a write up on The Figure of Fighting.  I met Ted recently at a Bellator event in Atlantic City.  Ted runs an excellent blog focusing on local MMA.  Even though now a days the internet is flooded with countless websites of all formats covering the world of Mixed Martial Arts, Ted is highly aware of the importance of covering the sport locally.  He is highly focused on giving the east coast MMA world a venue on his blog and I am honored that The Figure of Fighting is now a part of that coverage.  Check out the article, and the rest of MMA explosion at the link below.

http://www.yorkblog.com/mma/2011/11/23/philly-photographer-jacob-klensin-does-what-he-loves-with-figure-of-fighting-project/

I am currently working on building a new site that will hopefully better present the amount of work that I have recently been producing.  I will keep this blog running, however under a new domain name.  Both sites may be down for a short period of time as I do this work.  I will be sure to post as soon as the new site is up and running and will be anxious for feedback on the new look.  Thank you so much to everyone who has appreciated this work, and to those who have been a part of it and helped me to make this all happen. 

After an incredible and busy week, I am now back in Philly and trying to find where to start with all the work that was done on the road.  Between LA and Vegas I checked in and revisited gyms and the people at them that I photographed last year and started to build countless new relationships with fighters and gyms that I’m now able to make a part of my project and body of work.  I got the chance to work with fighters that I have watched and admired for years and met amateurs hungry to move to the top.  I saw gyms over 20,000 square feet and intimate gyms not open to the public.  Be assured, the amount of work coming out of this trip seems endless, but eventually it will be edited and viewable on a brand new website that I’m working currently to develop.  I’m working hard to move this project to the next level, whatever that may end up being.  I have a lot of ideas and am open to more, but I will continue to do what I love and work hard to do even more of it.  After this trip I have not only the new material, but a replenished motivation to build this body of work into everything it can be.  For the success of this trip, I want to thank Wanderlei Silva, Fabricio Werdum, Rafeal Cordeira, Matt Horwich, Alexander Schlemenko, Alexei Zhernakov, Chris Reilly, Chris Brady, Conor Huen, Eddie Bravo, Joe Rogan, Tito Lo, Kimi Couture, Micheal Kosta, Sidney Silva, Dennis Siver, Dan Hardy, Frank Mir, Eric Thatcher, and Kekoa Quipolta.  As well any staff and other members of Kings MMA, HB Ultimate, Systems 8 Fight Club, Legends MMA, Wand Fight Team, Xtreme Couture, and Tapout Training Center.  I know, its a lot, it was a great week.  If I photographed you during this, or even shortly before leaving, I apologize for the delay, but I assure you it will all be up soon.  Thanks again to everyone involved, I loved every second of it, and I look forward to working with you all again in the future.  Back to work…

Its been almost a year since I’ve gone anywhere further than NYC to photograph for this project.  I arrived back in LA at around midnight last night though and never thought I would be able to pack in what I have in the last 24 hours.  Every bit of today seemed to almost hit major snags and then eventually work itself out even better than I could have expected.  My first stop was Kings MMA in Huntington Beach where I first watched the pro MMA training led by Master Rafeal Cordeira.  At his request I waited until after class to shoot during their open mat session.  While I love sitting back and just observing sometimes, at others its torture to watch and imagine the great shots I could be getting.  But shooting Wanderlei Silva spar with Fabricio Werdum more than made up for it.  There is something about watching fighters of that level that is exciting in ways far beyond being starstruck.  I love watching up and coming fighters that are hungry and still learning and seeing them progress.  But watching guys that have dedicated their lives to this, and always will and have succeeded in the way that those two have that is pretty inspiring.  Had I been at home, the excitement of that sparring session most likely would have been enough to tie me over for weeks, but I like to go hard when I’m on the road.  So I headed over to HB Ultimate, partly to say hi, since I photographed there last year, but mainly in hopes of catching Alexander Schlemenko and his camp working out.  I was at Alexander’s bellator win in AC last weekend and spoke to them about possibly shooting today, but hadn’t set any details.  While I had a great time visiting with some of the people I had met last year, I eventually was getting a little nervous that the Russian camp wasn’t gonna show.  As I was considering leaving, they did indeed roll up, explain to me that they would just be doing some weight lifting to give him a bit of a rest before preparing for his next fight, and then immediately jumped into it.  His whole camp, especially his manager Alexei were incredibly inviting and accomodating, not to mention straight to the point with their own work.  I’m aware there was a good deal of communication that wasnt clear to me for language reasons, however they seemed to go about a fairly serious and intensive weights workout with very minimal discussion or question.  Just straight business.  Unfortunately it looks like I wont be able to make the Bellator finals where Alexander will take on Vitor Vianna, however I have no doubt it will be a great fight.  Again, my day could have easily ended there, however at the last minute i heard back from Tito Lo, one of the owners of the Academy of Mixed Martial Sciences where I photographed last year, and who just recently opened a new gym called Systems 8 Fight Club in Hawthorne.  I went straight there, and this time instead of only shooting, I jumped on the mats for a BJJ class.  I’ve done very little BJJ anytime recently, and really not much at all in general, but it felt great to do some work.  But after being submitted repeatedly by Tito (a Brown belt who used to weigh 250, although now stands at 170) during free rolling at the end of class, I picked back of my camera and got a bit of shooting in at the new spot, which by the way is incredible.  5,000 square feet facility thats nothing but business, with a full size ring and cage and one of the more dedicated, passionate, and hardworking owners I’ve seen in action. I’d say an all around successful first day.  Tomorrow is Legends MMA day, which I’ve been looking forward to since this trip was thought up.  Legends and the guys that train there is on a very short list of things that I like about LA, although the list is growing with the people that I have met through this project.  Then Friday I take this whole thing, whatever it is to Vegas.  Hopefully this means the next step for this body of work, but whatever it means, and whatever it leads to, I’m looking forward to it.