Team Effort Personifies Team Quest
Team Quest
Josh Gross Apr 15, 2005
LAS VEGAS, April 15 — If Saturday night Chuck Liddell resembles anything
close to Team Quest kickboxing coach Dave Hagen, those betting on the
underdog light heavyweight contender to beat UFC champion Randy Couture won’t have to bother
standing on line at the MGM Grand Sports Book after the fight.
Sandwiched between a shirtless Couture and “protective” blue padding covering a small section on the inside of the Ultimate Training Center, Hagen winced while shielding his face from the 42-year-old fighter’s punches, which fortunately for him thudded off his mitt-covered hands and not somewhere else.
Because Nate Quarry demanded it of him, Hagen, mimicking Liddell,
also attempted to regain his feet; but for the long-legged trainer
it invariably led to a Couture’ cross-face or the discomfort that
comes with a knee jammed in your belly.
With the hardships of training camp behind him, Couture has moved into maintenance mode, downshifting to what seemed — except to Hagen — like 70 percent during Wednesday evening’s three rounds of mitt work.
After a quick “blow out” of his lungs, irritated this week by allergy-wielding pollens made worse by an abnormally wet winter, Couture headed back to the MGM Grand for an adjustment from his chiropractor/nutritionist, Ryan Parsons.
It’s a team effort, keeping this champion at the top.
Hagen, Quarry and Parsons are just three of the men who helped prepare Couture in the champion’s Gresham, Oregon gym for Saturday’s rematch with Liddell. Chief among them is Robert Follis, a lanky 35-year-old former mixed martial arts junkie who, beginning with Couture’s stoppage of Kevin Randleman in November 2000, seconds “The Natural.”
They met eight years ago while Follis ran Portland’s Straight Blast Gym — the only place, said Couture, where he could find a decent sparring partner.
When Couture and fellow wrestler-turned-fighter Dan Henderson offered Follis a chance to run their Performance Quest gym — primarily a fitness center with a small martial arts area in the back — he declined, opting instead to remain where he was.
A year later, Performance Quest was done. Henderson had moved back to California. And Couture, now partners with Olympic silver medalist Matt Lindland, opened Team Quest, which was located in the back of the car lot Lindland bought after returning home from Sydney.
For Couture, Lindland and a handful of others the lot was simply a place to workout, ill suited, it seemed, for the general public. “We’d been kind of running it as an open gym and not really making money,” Couture remembered. “It wasn’t a business.”
Frustrated with his financial situation, Follis approached Couture about the possibility of partnering up in Team Quest. Within weeks of coming to an agreement, public classes had been upped from two to 12.
“He, of course, had the sense to run a membership, do all the things that needed to be done to make it run like a business,” Couture said of Follis. “And that’s when things really turned around.”
And thus, a business — and a major force in mixed martial arts — was born.
Today, the gym holds nearly 300 members. Plus, as it turned out, Follis’ ability to run a facility wasn’t his only attribute. “I wanted to be the coach,” he told Sherdog.com after the workout room quieted Wednesday. “I wanted to be the guy that wasn’t in the limelight. I wanted people to recognize me over somebody’s shoulder.”
A long-time basketball fan, Follis consulted books by the sport’s best motivators — John Wooden, Phil Jackson, Pat Riley — and listened to the words of people like Anthony Robbins. He watched others teach and analyzed tapes of fights he cornered, critiquing himself each step of the way.
While he had only studied Brazilian jiu-jitsu for a year and half when he began working with Couture and Henderson, Follis offered them the closest thing to a jiu-jitsu coach they could find. Meanwhile, the fighters helped him shape a teaching style by filtering out the things that didn’t make sense.
“As time moved on it fell more into where I felt like I was the coach,” he said. “It’s been kind of a gradual process until I was kinda that main guy. I was the guy that was getting turned to to work the corner.”
Out of those experiences, his training style bloomed.
“A lot of guys get caught up in watching someone else’s fight that they develop a plan on how to fight in that guy’s style — and I think that’s a big mistake,” Follis said. “Or they try and be reactive to that style rather than saying, ‘We’re going to look to put that guy out of his game plan and into our style.’ That’s something that we’ve worked real hard — not just myself but as a whole in the gym — with that kind of philosophy.”
“He’s a great trainer,” Couture said. “He’s a great technical coach. He reads people real well and he’s real good with people — not that I need a lot of that — but it still makes a difference.”
Sandwiched between a shirtless Couture and “protective” blue padding covering a small section on the inside of the Ultimate Training Center, Hagen winced while shielding his face from the 42-year-old fighter’s punches, which fortunately for him thudded off his mitt-covered hands and not somewhere else.
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With the hardships of training camp behind him, Couture has moved into maintenance mode, downshifting to what seemed — except to Hagen — like 70 percent during Wednesday evening’s three rounds of mitt work.
For the men whose goal it is to make Couture victorious, however,
there is no such tapering.
After a quick “blow out” of his lungs, irritated this week by allergy-wielding pollens made worse by an abnormally wet winter, Couture headed back to the MGM Grand for an adjustment from his chiropractor/nutritionist, Ryan Parsons.
It’s a team effort, keeping this champion at the top.
Hagen, Quarry and Parsons are just three of the men who helped prepare Couture in the champion’s Gresham, Oregon gym for Saturday’s rematch with Liddell. Chief among them is Robert Follis, a lanky 35-year-old former mixed martial arts junkie who, beginning with Couture’s stoppage of Kevin Randleman in November 2000, seconds “The Natural.”
They met eight years ago while Follis ran Portland’s Straight Blast Gym — the only place, said Couture, where he could find a decent sparring partner.
When Couture and fellow wrestler-turned-fighter Dan Henderson offered Follis a chance to run their Performance Quest gym — primarily a fitness center with a small martial arts area in the back — he declined, opting instead to remain where he was.
A year later, Performance Quest was done. Henderson had moved back to California. And Couture, now partners with Olympic silver medalist Matt Lindland, opened Team Quest, which was located in the back of the car lot Lindland bought after returning home from Sydney.
For Couture, Lindland and a handful of others the lot was simply a place to workout, ill suited, it seemed, for the general public. “We’d been kind of running it as an open gym and not really making money,” Couture remembered. “It wasn’t a business.”
Frustrated with his financial situation, Follis approached Couture about the possibility of partnering up in Team Quest. Within weeks of coming to an agreement, public classes had been upped from two to 12.
“He, of course, had the sense to run a membership, do all the things that needed to be done to make it run like a business,” Couture said of Follis. “And that’s when things really turned around.”
And thus, a business — and a major force in mixed martial arts — was born.
Today, the gym holds nearly 300 members. Plus, as it turned out, Follis’ ability to run a facility wasn’t his only attribute. “I wanted to be the coach,” he told Sherdog.com after the workout room quieted Wednesday. “I wanted to be the guy that wasn’t in the limelight. I wanted people to recognize me over somebody’s shoulder.”
A long-time basketball fan, Follis consulted books by the sport’s best motivators — John Wooden, Phil Jackson, Pat Riley — and listened to the words of people like Anthony Robbins. He watched others teach and analyzed tapes of fights he cornered, critiquing himself each step of the way.
While he had only studied Brazilian jiu-jitsu for a year and half when he began working with Couture and Henderson, Follis offered them the closest thing to a jiu-jitsu coach they could find. Meanwhile, the fighters helped him shape a teaching style by filtering out the things that didn’t make sense.
“As time moved on it fell more into where I felt like I was the coach,” he said. “It’s been kind of a gradual process until I was kinda that main guy. I was the guy that was getting turned to to work the corner.”
Out of those experiences, his training style bloomed.
“A lot of guys get caught up in watching someone else’s fight that they develop a plan on how to fight in that guy’s style — and I think that’s a big mistake,” Follis said. “Or they try and be reactive to that style rather than saying, ‘We’re going to look to put that guy out of his game plan and into our style.’ That’s something that we’ve worked real hard — not just myself but as a whole in the gym — with that kind of philosophy.”
“He’s a great trainer,” Couture said. “He’s a great technical coach. He reads people real well and he’s real good with people — not that I need a lot of that — but it still makes a difference.”
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