Meet Coach Porter

Coach Porter had the first MMA school in NYS when he opened in 1998.  Very few people were aware of MMA and those that were familiar with MMA visualized the early days of the UFC as being the only aspect of MMA training.  Coach's goal was to educate the public on the tremendous benefits of training in MMA.  

He wanted people to see that there was a lot more to the sport than what people were seeing in the UFC.  Coach Porter's earliest influence was his martial arts and life mentor, Sensei Steve Wren.  Sensei was an early advocate of cross-training in other systems, today it is known as mixed martial arts.  Access to Sensei Wren's approach to martial arts and his urge to seek out and understand other martial arts systems was the basis for Coach Porter's training and development of his own systems of martial arts.  MMA wasn't as readily available as it is today. 

Coach had to seek out and train with numerous martial arts instructors and systems over the years, taking what was best from each of them to create functional systems.  The concept brought forth by Bruce Lee, “Adapt what is useful, reject what is useless, and add what is specifically your own.” (Mugen, meaning No Limits).  With Sensei Wren's direction, Coach Porter's eagerness to train and learn as much as he could about every system he trained in, his unwavering dedication to knowing the "why" of a technique, and his uncanny ability to look at each system and technique from a scientific, reverse engineering approach, is what has made his systems of martial arts so effective.  Along the way he has met a number of influential martial artist. 

Sensei Wren, Sensei Joe Wright, Sensei Jamie Lupole, Sensei Pete Petrosino, Coach Mike Darpino and Coach Robert James have been the most impactful in his own martial arts growth.  Over 25 years of Coaching has led to numerous changes to each system.  The goal is for these systems to never stop evolving, to always be growing and becoming more effective.  This evolution is in no small part thanks to the 1000s of students Coach Porter has had over the years.  A small number of these students have gone on to achieve a Black Belt in one of his systems.  Their hard work and dedication to the growth of Mugen is invaluable and will be forever cherished.