- Black Belt Magazine
- 2 minutes ago
- 7 min read
It’s mid-afternoon, and Andrea Meneses is in the middle of a break between training sessions.
Meneses – born in Barcelona and raised in Gava by a single father – is a lifelong resident of Spain, but she is in the trendy Wynwood section of Miami, preparing at the Goat Shed Academy for her upcoming Combate Global MMA fight against undefeated American Janet Garcia.
“This is the best training camp I have ever had as a professional,” said the 27-year-old Meneses, a former national amateur MMA champion, who has been grinding away to make a name for herself in Combate Global’s atomweight (105 pounds) division and the highly competitive combat sport, overall.
She hit a snag in her last fight against fellow standout Kayla “Kayrock” Hracho, losing a unanimous decision to the American fighter, and is looking to get back on the winning track when she faces Garcia.
“One of the best advantages of training (at Goat Shed) is that I can train with more women, and women at the same level as me because, at home, the women I train with are amateur fighters”.
Life for Meneses wasn’t always about pursuing MMA greatness, though.
Wind the clock back nearly two decades. An 8-year-old Meneses is walking down the street with her grandfather in the town of Gava, when the pair suddenly come across Kyodai, a neighborhood Kyokushinkai karate dojo.
The school catches their attention and, after a quick visit inside, she is registered for her first class.
“When I was young, my family wanted me to latch onto a sport and start practicing it, but I didn’t want to get into traditional sports that are very much a part of Spanish culture, like volleyball or soccer,” she said candidly.
Meneses was instantly hooked on the martial art, thanks, in great part, to her instructor and newfound mentor, Sensei Herman Calado, the man that she says has had the greatest influence on her life and her career as a combat sports athlete.
“He made me the fighter that I am now in terms of not only technique, but also values. He taught me everything I know,” she proclaimed.
Meneses describes Sensei Calado’s curriculum as very “intense” and “physically demanding” but was quick to point out that sensei was very adamant about proper conduct amongst students.
“He promoted respect among training partners,” she said. “Even if you started moving up level-wise, he never promoted or allowed someone to be a bully to the students who were lower ranked, or below you level-wise.”
As she became more and more engrossed in training, she found herself wanting to achieve something that would distinguish her within the art.
It was that competitive edge that pushed her to enter her first karate competition event in Barcelona, just 10 months after she set foot in the dojo.
Meneses went on to fight in dozens of regional tournaments over the course of the next five years, winning numerous titles along the way.
“I was regularly finishing in first or second place, so I always took home a trophy,” she said.
It was in 2013 that she reached her first national level tournament – the “Copa Seishin” in Barcelona, where, in one day, she defeated two opponents to become Spanish national champion.
“(Winning the tournament) was an incredible feeling because I had trained for it for seven months,” Meneses said.
Two years later, she returned to the ‘Copa’, this time conquering three opponents in the same day to become a two-time champion.
The tournament championships were a career milestone, indeed, but testing for her black belt when she was 16 years old was a moment that was also of massive importance to her.
Like she had to do in order to attain previous belts, Meneses was required to perform a kata to be considered for a promotion.
“I prepared for the exam, but I was still really nervous because you don’t get the result right away. You have to wait like a week or so,” she explained.
Then, decision day arrived. She had passed.
“It was really exciting when I got the black belt because I felt like I had achieved one of my main purposes from when I first started training,” said Meneses.
“Even after I achieved that, though,” she continued, “I still wanted to pursue higher levels and techniques.”
Around seven years ago, Meneses, a decorated, two-time national karate champion and experienced black belt, came across video footage of Ronda Rousey tearing through opponents in the UFC.
Meneses loved what she saw on screen and, like she had for many other women, Rousey became a sudden inspiration for the Spanish martial artist, convincing Meneses to pursue the life of a professional MMA fighter.
She started out on the amateur circuit in 2017, defeating opponent Sheila Medina by way of guillotine choke in Meneses’s first-ever fight that took place on her 21st birthday.
Meneses described the feeling of stepping in the cage as a mix between “imposing” and “exciting”.
“I was kind of naïve because I didn’t know what I was getting myself into. I was really familiar with the Tatami, but getting into a cage was very different.”
After less than two years and four amateur fights, Meneses made the leap to professional status.
“I actually wanted to do more amateur fights, but back in the day, there were very few female fighters,” Meneses explained.
Fortunately, she partly made up for her lack of experience in the cage by finding a home at Uppercut Training Center, the Barcelona-based MMA camp led by retired former MMA fighter Oriol Gaset and Ramón Maneiro.
“It was mere luck that I came across an MMA gym,” she said. The Barcelona-based Uppercut, which represented Spain in the 2022 COMBATE GLOBAL ‘Exclusivos’ competition reality television series, was already home to a number of seasoned MMA athletes that Meneses could train with and learn from.
She also quickly discovered a key difference between her daily training in karate and training in her newfound love, MMA.
“The physical conditioning in MMA is more important and different because of all the things you have to do in the cage; You have to wrestle, grapple, strike and move around the cage,” she explained.
Meneses got off to a fast start as a professional winning her first four fights and has still yet to suffer a knockout or lose by submission. “I will never settle down because I am really competitive. The bigger picture for me is becoming Combate Global in the atomweight division.”
While she does not have Sensei Calado in her corner for her MMA fights (Gaset or Maneiro travel with her to the U.S. for Combate Global fights), Meneses said she remains close with her beloved instructor and that, even though MMA tends not to be the “favorite” sport of karate instructors, Sensei Calado respects “my decision and supports me.”
How does your family feel about you competing in MMA and, before that, karate?
“Some members of my family are not really happy that I practice a contact sport, but my close family has been really supportive of my career. My dad is my number one fan. I have always felt supported by the closest members of my family.”
I really feel the sport even now. I am aware of the fact that this is something that my family might have not wanted for me but, for example, everyone supported me going from Spain to the U.S. for training. That is the kind of support I need to pursue this career.
What kind of positive impact did karate training have on your childhood?
One of the main things would be discipline and the other is respect – not only to my opponents, but also to the discipline and the trainers. From the beginning, I grabbed onto these values, and they have stayed with me for life.
What I also learned is that I wanted to pursue a professional career in the sport. I knew that I wouldn’t become a professional karate (player) because that’s not something you can really pursue, but when I made the switch to MMA, I knew I wanted to become professional and that’s when I started to link all the disciplines.
What was the transition like at first when you went from karate to MMA training, and how were you able to adapt?
Even though I had a bunch of mobility and kicking technique, I really had to learn new skills because I didn’t know the fundamentals of wrestling, grappling and boxing that are critical to being successful in MMA.
I had perfected mobility and kicking, but there was a period of time that I spent transitioning.
Describe the difference between stances in karate and MMA. How challenging was it to change fighting stances after all the time you had spent training and competing in karate?
I really feel that it wasn’t much trouble (transitioning) between the stances, because the type of karate I was practicing was very straightforward.
So, when I started learning a new stance, some of the adjustments I made were to keep my hands up more, since you hold your hands lower down in Karate. It was a pretty easy transition, though.
When you say “technique”, from a technical standpoint, how did your existing Karate technique and fundamentals carry over to MMA?
It was mainly kicking. Kyokushin is very technical and focuses on accuracy with kicking. When I fight, you can see how experienced I am in Karate because I started learning how to properly kick when I was eight years old.
Describe what kinds of traditional moves you use in La Jaula (the Combate Global competition cage).
In my striking, I kick hard and I am determined regardless of whether I am fighting on a Tatami or in La Jaula. I am not afraid of kicking, even though I might get (hit with) an elbow or punch in return, because I’ve been kicking ever since I started Karate. So, I’m very confident in my kicking and have no problem committing to my kicks.
What do you have to say to critics of traditional martial arts, who claim it is dated, doesn’t work in real life and that MMA is much better if you want to learn how to fight?
If you’ve never done any type of martial arts before, and you want to start getting involved more, then Mixed Martial Arts is a great way of getting into that.
But, if you come from a place like karate or taekwondo, you understand that having that base is really important. I feel like I wouldn’t be the MMA athlete I am nowadays if I had never trained karate before because of the fundamentals and discipline it teaches.
