A SCHOOL teacher by day and mixed martial arts fighter and coach by night, Rob Freedman's nine-to-five job couldn't be much different from his other life.

But the coaching guru at Blackburn's Predators' Mixed Martial Arts and Boxing Club has managed to link the two as he focuses on improving the behaviour of some of the children he has to deal with at Belmont School, in Rawtenstall, an education facility for boys aged five to 18 with social, emotional and behavioural difficulties.

Rob, whose club is going from strength to strength, said he had been amazed at the improvement in some of the troubled children he had encouraged to come down for a session.

And he puts the development down to the discipline instilled in his young charges and giving them the platform to let off steam.

"If I get any children with real difficulties who I think would benefit from it I often encourage them to come down for a few sessions," he said.

"It gives them something to focus on and get rid of some of their energy.

"I have seen some dramatic changes in some of them. Some of these children have had serious charges against them at a young age and they have managed to focus themselves on the training and really get rid of some of those problems.

"I had one in particular who I thought we had absolutely no chance with, he was threatening to stab everyone at the club early on, but we managed to work with him and calm him down and the improvements have been amazing.

"He's still got a bit of devil in him but we've managed to find a focus for that."

Rob insists there are two main reasons why coming to the club has helped improve the behaviour of some his more unruly members.

"It does give them some discipline working with people like myself," he said. "It gives them some role models and they know they have to show us respect.

"When you get on that mat you can't be swearing at people, which is something I get often in the classroom. You've got to show respect on the mat.

"It also gives them an outlet to let off steam and aggression. They are doing that in a controlled, professional environment. If they weren't with us they would be doing that out on the streets and smashing things up.

"So I think getting them engaged in something like this can be a real success and give them great benefits."

The Chadwick Street Mill club recently secured three medals at the Grapple Nation European Championships, with Chris Price returning with two golds and John James a silver.

The success of the two 17-year-olds delighted Rob and the rest of the coaches, and the club has been going from strength to strength in recent months.

"Every week we seem to have more and more people turning up," he said. "It never ceases to amaze us how popular it is.

"The popularity of the sport is very high at the moment, that is definitely one reason for the success.

"I also think children today want something other than the traditional oriental robes and bowing before a bout, they can come to us in shorts and t-shirt, I think today's generation prefer that."

While numbers continue to swell, Rob is now looking into being able to offer the sessions for free.

"I know a lot of the children come from disadvantaged backgrounds where money is tight," he said. "I would love to be able to do it for free.

"At the moment it's not possible but we are considering looking at lottery funding to perhaps be able to do something like that in the future.

"I didn't even realise we would be eligible for lottery funding but another kick-boxing club has recently got some money, so it's something we will look into."