Miami Dolphins news and update #1-Mike Storms Combat Football-

Hi Students and Friends!

What a day! Spent last night reviewing the Combat Football program I was going to teach to the Miami Dolphins. Little side bar, when I was a kid the Dolphins were my favorite team. So coming here to coach is such a great blessing! I got up bright and early this morning, had my old style Irish steel cut oats with walnuts and fresh strawberries, a bottle of water and cup of coffee then off to the airport for the first flight to Miami, actually Ft. Lauderdale. Great flight, direct. I arrived at the airport and connected with one of my best friends, Jared Tomich. Many of you know him. Jared played for the Saints in his 7 year NFL career, after being an All-American and winning 2 national championships at Nebraska.

He and I became best friends when I was coaching the New Orleans Saints. He is the only NFL player ever to receive his black belt from us. He's also our daughter Shea's Godfather!

After we were picked up at the airport in the Dolphin team van, we got to the team headquarters. We were equipped with our official "Coach" uniforms, and we also got a tour of the facilities, fields and weight rooms. Our good friend and Head strength coach for the 'Fins, Coach Evan Marcus, who is the one responsible for bringing us into the team, took us to meet with the two men that we had to convince this would help their players get better. We grabbed some lunch in the Dolphins headquarters and planned out the details of the player training for tomorrow.

We met with the general manager, Mr. Jeff Ireland, to discuss the format and information we would be teaching. He was a very nice man. He played football at Baylor and at the Chicago Bears. He wanted to know how I would transfer karate to football players skills, and how each position would benefit from the training we do. I was able to tell him how each player will increase in balance, power, speed in their hand movements and position skills.

Then we met with head coach Sparano. I can say he is the 'easiest to talk to' head coach I've ever met. He was excited to see how the program would make the players succeed, and the team succeed even more in the 2009 NFL season.

After those two successful meetings we got dressed and went to the "Bubble", a giant air filled practice dome, not the metal structure that just collapsed in Dallas. Just material filed with air. We went through the combat football Class format, the warm up, stretches, strikes, escapes, and karate arm toughening training (koteketai) and completed a run through of the entire class. It went great! Coach Marcus trained at the Mandeville Dojo when he was a Saints coach, and his assistant, Dave Peluka, participated with us as well. Great guys, hard workers, and very very strong!

We showered, got changed and went out to eat. I'm headed off to sleep now. 5 am wake up call. Then training the entire Dolphins defenses at 7 am. There's sure to be some guys that want to test the Sensei to see if he knows what he's doing. It'll be great. Then we train in offense later that morning. Then lunch, meet again with the coaches, then back on a plane tomorrow night.

I'll see you all Thursday. Look for another blog after the training sessions tomorrow.

Until then, go Dolphins!!

Master S