About
Allied MMA is a family-friendly mixed martial arts gym in Santa Cruz providing best instruction and training for everyone, from absolute beginners age 3+ to professional athletes competing at the highest level. We offer classes in boxing, kickboxing, Muay Thai, and Brazilian jiu-jitsu (BJJ).
Whether you are trying to get in shape, learn correct offensive or defensive techniques, looking to compete or fight, or simply want a positive environment for your child to grow, Allied MMA is for you.
Our Values
Allied MMA is guided by the principles of respect, excellence of instruction, inclusion, and community.
We believe that martial arts come with a strong drive to self-improvement and develop strength, confidence, leadership, and other personal qualities that benefit in one’s everyday life. We also believe that fighting arts are about fighting and our members compete regularly.
Our Story
Allied MMA is founded and run by two long-term friends and partners Sam Radetsky and Aaron Oreb.
Martial arts have always been at the center of Sam’s life. He has trained amidst high rises in Tokyo, on a small island off the coast of Japan, in the famous favelas of Brazil, deep in a sweltering basement under the teeming streets of New York City. He has lived in dormitories above the gym, in the same rooms that famous fighters, his heroes, had lived in years before. Another time, Sam slept on the training mats for months, trying to ignore the noise and vibration of the 5 am training session going on next to him as he lay curled up in his sleeping bag. But he started my martial arts journey as a teen age kid here in his home town of Santa Cruz, in a school since destroyed in the 1989 earthquake. And it was always in Santa Cruz that Sam envisioned starting his own school and teaching all that he had learned from the great instructors that he had been so fortunate to train with.
Aaron was born and raised in Santa Cruz. He has trained with Santa Cruz-based champions Francis Farley and Pauly Silva, and has competed successfully as an amateur fighter in boxing and kickboxing. He now sees teaching as his true role in martial arts and is passionate about sharing Allied MMA with the local community.
For Sam and Aaron, a martial arts school is a special place, a place that changes lives. They started Allied MMA because they want everyone to have the opportunity to have the same experience in the martial arts that they have had. The friendships, the community, the health and fitness, the skills, the toughness of spirit, the joy of learning, the strength of will, and the fun.