The Ultimate Fighter: Two MMA Champions Give Our Writer A Taste Of The Tough Girl Lifestyle

Okay, so I like to consider myself to be pretty fit.

I'm no Jen Selter, but I work out three or four times a week, I do some weights sessions with my personal trainer and I've entered the odd race.

None of these things prepared me for an hour and a half with Joanne "JoJo" Calderwood and Aisling Daly, two of the toughest girls in sport.

What's New Pussycat?

On first meet, JoJo and Aisling are both polite, sweet, good-natured girls.

In fact, JoJo seems almost bashful - she's quieter than Aisling and looks up at you, doe-eyed, through long lashes as she talks. If it weren't for her partially shaven locks and shoulder tattoo, she wouldn't fit the fighter stereotype at all.

But hey, stereotypes are for losers anyway.

These girls might be sweet as you like over a post-sparring sandwich in Prêt-A-Manger, but meet either of them in a ring (or a cage) and you'd be lucky to come out with all your teeth.

Actually, you'd be lucky to walk out still conscious.

What Is MMA Anyway?

MMA stands for "mixed martial arts."

It is a blend of other full-contact combat sports and it involves wrestling and grappling, as well as punching and kicking.

Within most organisations, these fights take place inside an eight-sided cage.

JoJo and Aisling are both Mixed Martial Arts fighters, and JoJo is currently ranked fourth in the world, in her weight class. They are both competing on FOX Sport's televised series The Ultimate Fighter - A Champion Will be Crowned (which you can watch on BT Sport).

MMA has steadily found traction in the USA and is now growing in popularity in the UK, but it still remains a fairly elusive discipline for women.

However, after nineteen previous series' of The Ultimate Fighter, for the first time FOX have decided to use an all-female cast of fighters, to prove that women have just as much mettle as men in the MMA arena.

Let's Get Down To Business

A notoriously tough, full-contact and male dominated sport - it doesn't sound like the most inviting post-work activity.

I turned up to the session shattered, after seven days straight running around putting together Yahoo's Fashion Week projects.

No time for excuses though, after a short warm up and a few example sparring moves, JoJo and Aisling put me to work.

Three drills, consisting of punches to a static bag, kicks, sit ups (with punches), burpees, press ups and sprawls (where you leap back and drop your hips to the ground to protect yourself from an attempted "take down") -  each lasting for three minutes non-stop, with a one minute break in between.

I was assured that this was a gentle, "amateur" set of rounds.

Hmm.

After that, JoJo and Aisling showed me some more sparring moves, before we moved on to some circuit training.

Circuits that work a really wide range of muscle groups are very important, they explained to me afterwards, because: "you need to have a very strong core to grapple and wrestle. You need to be strong at weird angles, because you’re picking people up and moving them around."

By the end of my first MMA session, I might not have been at the elbow striking, hammerfisting or spinning back-kicking stage yet, but I can tell you, I felt more empowered and bursting with drive and energy than I have in a while.

No Cat-Fights Round Here

When I spoke about heading off for some MMA training, a male work colleague scoffed at the thought of girls going at it in a cage.

There's a popular misconception about girls in contact sports - that we are either unsuited to it or, if we are, it's because we were aggressive and scrappy in the first place and therefore weren't really "ladies" anyway.

Nicola Adams, who won a gold medal for GB in the 2012 Olympics, has gone some way to challenge this idea and hopefully the Ultimate Fighter girls will go some more.

This pair are as dedicated and professional as it comes.

In Aisling's own words: "There’s such skill involved, there’s no place for anger. If you go into a fight emotional, you’re not going to perform well."

"When we have a fight coming up we train six days a week, twice a day, probably two hours at a time. We just have so many aspects to cover, it’s hard to find the time to fit it all in," she continued.

And The Boys?

I suggested, with a smirk, that it was probably quite hard to meet guys in bars when your opening line is "Hi, my name's JoJo and I could probably kill you with my bare hands, you know...if I wanted to."

The pair laughed and conceded that they don't usually confess to being professional fighters the first time they meet someone.

"Usually it takes me a while 'til I tell them I’m an MMA fighter – I usually start off saying I work in a gym then, eventually, I can see where the conversation is going," said JoJo.

"I usually get the response: 'But you don’t fight?!'. And I have to say, 'Yeah I do MMA, that’s my job, I’m a professional athlete' and then I just kinda leave it at that. And then the next time I see them, they’re like 'Oh I looked you up on Google! You really are a fighter!'” she finished.

You Can Too

Seriously, I can't recommend it enough.

Even if you're only in the market for a bit of stress-relief - repeatedly hitting a solid object goes quite some way to getting out the frustration of a gruelling work day.

Don't be put off by all the boys - hearing remarks like "girls can't fight" should only spur you on to prove what a load of silly sexist garbage that idea is.

Most men who're involved in the MMA discipline will have respect for any woman wanting to give it a go, and most amateur classes will accept a gender mix.

There are plenty of places to give it a go:

KO MMA has classes in North and East London.

Check out Gym Box's 'Ladies Who Punch' concept - they also have a UFC Fit class.

The London Fight Factory has beginner and intermediate MuyThai and MMA classes, with trial sessions for those who've never done it before.

Leeds Cage have a range of class types, with women only classes coming soon.

Birmingham's UTC UK have plenty of stuff for the girls too.

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What do you think? Would YOU try MMA, even if it meant you had to train with the boys?