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I just spent three days at the Muhammed Ali Training Camp outside Deer Lake, PA, which Ali sold in 1997 to Grandmaster George Dillman, the head of the martial arts style I study and one of Ali's old sparring partners. Dillman has maintained it as a training camp, including conducting classes in the same gym Ali used to train in.
There are 18 total buildings, including the gym, the kitchen (which was originally the cabin that Ali lived in when he was staying at the camp to train for a big fight, but he couldn't get any privacy from his sparring partners, etc. there so he moved into a different one ::G::), a small mosque, and several cabins. There are several boulders around the main entrance to the camp (which is where the gym and the kitchen are), and Ali's father painted each one with the name of a different great fighter that Ali admired -- Rocky Marciano, Sugar Ray, Jack Dempsey, Joe Frazier, Sonny Liston, Angelo Dundee, Youngblood (presumably for Youngblood Williams, and done in a horror-movie poster style, with blood dripping from the letters) and of course there was one for Muhammed Ali himself. There were plenty more, but those are the ones that I can remember.
Ali referred to the place as "fighter's heaven" -- and I can see why. The energy in that place is nothing short of phenomenal! Even folks who are not particularly energy-sensitive talk about being there, partying all night, and waking up the next morning after only very few hours of sleep but still feeling fresh as a daisy.
There was a ton of interesting stuff from the weekend, both on and off the training floor, which I will post about in greater detail later.
Once we got to Philly, we stopped at a Ruby Tuesday's restaurant for some food before heading over to the airport. It was just too ironic that the booth they put us in had a picture of Ali and The Beatles from when they visited the camp back in 1964!
There are 18 total buildings, including the gym, the kitchen (which was originally the cabin that Ali lived in when he was staying at the camp to train for a big fight, but he couldn't get any privacy from his sparring partners, etc. there so he moved into a different one ::G::), a small mosque, and several cabins. There are several boulders around the main entrance to the camp (which is where the gym and the kitchen are), and Ali's father painted each one with the name of a different great fighter that Ali admired -- Rocky Marciano, Sugar Ray, Jack Dempsey, Joe Frazier, Sonny Liston, Angelo Dundee, Youngblood (presumably for Youngblood Williams, and done in a horror-movie poster style, with blood dripping from the letters) and of course there was one for Muhammed Ali himself. There were plenty more, but those are the ones that I can remember.
Ali referred to the place as "fighter's heaven" -- and I can see why. The energy in that place is nothing short of phenomenal! Even folks who are not particularly energy-sensitive talk about being there, partying all night, and waking up the next morning after only very few hours of sleep but still feeling fresh as a daisy.
There was a ton of interesting stuff from the weekend, both on and off the training floor, which I will post about in greater detail later.
Once we got to Philly, we stopped at a Ruby Tuesday's restaurant for some food before heading over to the airport. It was just too ironic that the booth they put us in had a picture of Ali and The Beatles from when they visited the camp back in 1964!
