Cody Garbrandt, former UFC bantamweight champion, hosted a workshop at Algonquin with students in the Impact Zone Nov. 19.
The training session was followed by a Q and A, meet and greet in the Commons Theatre on Nov. 19.
Garbrandt spoke at length about the law of attraction and how visualizing something mentally and setting your mind to a goal can bring it into existence. He used this mindset to become a wrestling state champion while he was a freshman in high school.
“I was projected to place 10th, they did a breakdown before the season,” said Garbrandt. I was like ‘I’m gonna win it’. I was the first one in my county to become a freshman state champion. No one really believed in me but I believed in myself. I used that law of attraction.”
During the training session, which was open to all students, Garbrandt demonstrated different MMA techniques. Business and marketing administration student Benjamin Koleman was among them.
“We went over multiple positions of the guillotine choke, from the back position, from the guard position we learned different transitions and different variations of the move,” Koleman said. “The experience was fascinating. You get to experience how high-level UFC fighters are, and how much training they have to do on a daily basis and how much they play a chess game in their daily training. Every day they have to follow a different regimen and have to do specific training and if they don’t follow that specific training, they end up falling off the edge.”
Many attendees chatted among themselves, talking about Garbrandt’s past fights and who the former champion would be fighting next.
Once Garbrandt got on stage the questions aimed at him ranged from how he prepares for his fights, whether or not he has a routine to how he got into fighting in the first place.
Calvin Dolson, a student in the personal support worker program at Algonquin and avid UFC fan, asked Garbrandt about his last two fights and ongoing rivalry with current UFC bantamweight champion TJ Dillashaw.
“Do you think you should face Cejudo first and then the winner of that matchup gets TJ or would you rather just face TJ right away?”
Although not official yet, it’s rumored current UFC Flyweight Champion Henry Cejudo and TJ Dillashaw will be fighting at the UFC’s next event in January.
“I’m working to get back to TJ,” Garbrandt said. “Whatever I have to do, if I have to knock out five to six opponents to get back to him, that’s what I got to do. In this downtime, I’ve gotten a lot better, physically, emotionally and mentally.”
Garbrandt went on to give a prediction for a Cejudo and Dillashaw match-up.
“Him going to 125 pounds [the weight requirement for the UFC flyweight division] I think Henry does beat him at 25 just because the weight cut is just too much.”