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Archive for the ‘Brazilian jiu-jitsu’ Category


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Advice for A Frustrated, Clumsy & Uncoordinated Grappler

Tuesday, December 7th, 2010

——————-  A Question ——————-

Hi Stephan

I’ve recently started learning BJJ with some friends at their garage.  I am by far the slowest student.  We’re following a DVD series with very clear & thorough breakdowns of techniques.

I know that in BJJ, you drill, drill and drill some more, but it feels like everyday is my first day in class.  We have classes at least twice a week, and each class, a technique I had memorized a few days before I can’t pull off. Or a technique we just watched for that matter.

Have you taught any students like this?  Do you have any advice for me?  It’s very frustrating.  Also worth noting, I’m pretty clumsy and uncoordinated.  Thank you for your time.

Sincerely
G.

——————-  My Comments ——————-

Hi G.

First of all, congratulations on training at all.  I’m a huge supporter of garage training as well as learning from non-traditional sources like DVDs and the internet.

Of course it’s frustrating to compete with natural athletes (damn them all) but I’ve also seen some incredible transformations over the years.  People who originally had two left feet can and do break through to the next level, often reaching a very high level of skill.

Someone with a high level of athleticism has a head start on you for sure, but often these people don’t have the discipline to actually continue training for very long.  They get bored or distracted by the next shiny object and stop training.

It’s like the fable about the tortoise and the hare – stay the course and often you (the tortoise) will end up overtaking all those pesky natural athletes (the hares).

It’s also possible that the way you’re training and absorbing information might not be optimal for you.  Check out this article on learning styles in grappling and see if it gives you any insight into the best way for you to process and absorb information.

Here are two more suggestions…

First: try to train MORE often.  Three times a week would definitely be better than two.  You’re trying to wire your body and your brain to do a new activity, and the more hours you spend on a mat the better.  (Malcom Gladwell – the author of “Outliers” – contends that it takes 10,000 hours of mindful practice to master a new activity.  So take heart; this stuff takes a long time but it’ll be worth it in the end.)

The second piece of advice is to slowly add conditioning to your weekly training regime.  If you’re clumsy and uncoordinated then I’m guessing that you also avoid activities like weightlifting, running, soccer, XC skiing, etc.

Here’s a few insights on conditioning to get you started…

Getting more physical will have several benefits.  Your endurance will improve and that will allow you to better retain your mental game while sparring.  It will also improve your general athleticism which will help you close the gap with those pesky natural athletes!

Good luck with your training!

Posted in Brazilian jiu-jitsu, conditioning, fitness, teaching, techniques, the mental aspect, training | No Comments »

Grappling Concepts Course Re-Released!

Wednesday, November 17th, 2010

I’ve just reopened registration to the Grappling Concepts Course!!

In the past I’ve been worried about about running out of time to properly deliver this course – it is my flagship instructional product after all – which is why I’ve only opened it up for short periods of time (despite getting rave reviews from participants).

But I’m going to try making it available again, along with the five bonus DVDs you can’t get anywhere else.

If you’re thinking about signing up do it soon, because I really have no idea how long I’ll leave registration open.

Click here for more info about my most powerful grappling instructional product: www.grapplearts.tv. This material took almost 30 years of research and a solid year of product development to get ready to share – and I’m very proud of it!  It really is my flagship instructional product.

Posted in bjj, Brazilian jiu-jitsu, concepts, grapplearts, Grapplearts DVDs, MMA, no gi, submission grappling, teaching, training | No Comments »

More on Self Defense, MMA and the UFC

Wednesday, October 20th, 2010

I’ve received lots of email recently, so today I thought I’d dip into the mailbag and share a few emails. I’ve also quickly jotted down some quick comments, and some links to a few relevant articles.

****** A READER WRITES ******

Hello Stephan

I just wanted to tell you that I placed second place in the Senior Class at the Pan Ams No Gi and second in the Absolute division.

It was my first competition.  I applied alot of your training principles so I wanted to thank you for everything!!!!!

Frank Soto

~~~~~~ MY COMMENTS ~~~~~~

Thanks Frank, and congratulations on your performance!!  I hoped that you learned lots by competing.

You mentioned using training principles…  I’ve been and advocate for principle-based training for a long time and really believe one concept is worth a thousand techniques.

Along those lines, have you seen Erik Paulson’s article “10 Principles to Prepare for Battle” that you can download for free from  Grapplearts?  It’s a very cool and informative document!

****** A READER WRITES ******

Hi Stephan,

About the video that you recently posted on Facebook: Is grappling and BJJ useful for self defense?  Yes, it’s definitely very useful. I completely agree here.

But does the UFC favour striking?  Well, your points are definitely valuable but I would like to add arguments why it actually favours grapplers.

Strikers are forced to strike `non-dangerous` areas.  Which, to me, is like trying to apply a choke on the forehead or a joint lock on a body part that has no joint.

You want to strike where it is the most effective.  Examples: back of the head after a failed takedown attempt.  Front kick/stomp to knee.

Some other MMA organizations allow more strikes, like the old Pride FC. They allowed stomps, soccer kicks and knees to the head of a downed opponent.  This makes a failed takedown attempt much more dangerous.  (You can still see Wanderlei or Shogun having to suppress this tendency in their UFC fights.)

Also groin kicks, can be very effective. I think there are more types of strikes banned than types of locks and chokes.

To wrap things up.  Grappling and striking go hand in hand into any fight.  You need both, and both are fun to train.

Please keep posting those great videos of you, as I learn a lot (I also like that they are short and to the point).

Kind Regards,

F.S.

~~~~~~ MY COMMENTS ~~~~~~

Hi F.S. Well first off, I think we agree on a lot of things.

And thank you for keeping the conversation civil even through we disagree on a few points.  That means I won’t have to challenge you to crossed swords at dawn!

I watched a lot of Pride FC before that MMA organization went under – there were some really exciting match-ups, weren’t there?

And yes, Pride gave their strikers a lot more leeway when it came to striking a downed opponent, although the lack of elbows meant that ground and pound was a little less effective too.  (Btw, here’s former Pride fighter Denis Kang talking about how to throw elbows on the ground).

I haven’t done the exact math, but I seem to remember a lot more submissions in the old Pride FC fights than in today’s UFC, despite the supposedly ‘more deadly’ strikes allowed in Pride.

If you got rid of judges and referees in MMA, locked fighters into a cage and didn’t open the doors until one of them gave up (or was unconscious) then most fights would be decided on the ground!  It’s a sport, I get that, but it’s important to recognize that there are a lot of rules shaping the sport, currently biasing it towards striking.

But lets talk about self defense for a moment.

I’m not saying that rolling around on the ground in an alleyway is a good idea, but YOU OFTEN DON’T GET A  CHOICE IN WHETHER TO GO TO THE GROUND OR NOT!

You could trip, get tackled, get knocked down, get blindsided, etc., and if that happens to you then you’d better be prepared for it.

And going to the ground against your will happens a LOT (if you don’t believe me then check out the next letter…).

Ultimately, the genius of grappling is that you can train frequently and almost at full-force.

Because you can spar against heavy resistance, you get really good at dealing with heavy resistance.  And being able to perform your skills under pressure is incredibly important for self defense.

To illustrate this concept, let’s assume for a minute that the groin kick IS the ultimate weapon…

Well in order to add the groin kick to your repertoire and make it effective you’re going to need to train it against resisting opponents, i.e. people who are doing everything they can not to let you kick them in the groin, while trying their very best to kick you in the groin themselves.

How many training partners are there who will let you kick them in the groin full force?  And how many times a year could you train this way?

Not very many…

By contrast, grappling allows me to REALLY try to choke you, and you REALLY try to resist me, and the result is that we BOTH get really good at attacking and defending.

****** A READER WRITES ******

Hey Stephan,

I just watched the Facebook video on grappling, self defense and MMA, and as usual I agree with you.  As someone who has been a NYC police officer for 14 years I can tell you that every use of force type incident I had went to the ground.

I should also point out that unlike a scheduled fight the most likely scenario on the street is a bigger vs smaller opponent and of course that goes back to Helio Gracies notion of BJJ being for the smaller, weaker guy against the brute.  I do not really watch the UFC much (I prefer the WEC, seems to be more submissions) but I agree with your comments.

By the way – just to let you know – thanks to you and your help after over 2 years of bjj my claustrophobia issue is almost non existant.  Thanks for that!!

Now that I feel better with claustrophobia and bjj my next project is the adrenaline dump from competition and for me I feel exposure will be the best agent for that just like it was for claustrophobia.

Thanks and be well.
M.D.

~~~~~~ MY COMMENTS ~~~~~~

Wow.  Every use of force incident in your 14 years on the job ended up on the ground!  Well if that isn’t an incentive to take the time and make the effort to get good at this grappling stuff (fast) then I don’t know what is.  Thanks for contributing that to the conversation!!

And congratulations on making headway on your claustrophobia issues – that’s huge!

I don’t have problems with that myself, but I talk to enough people to know that it affects a large number of grapplers.  And I totally respect those people who’re trying to come to terms with it.

Incidentally there are more than 400 articles, blog posts and tips on Grapplearts.  Wanna guess which one I get the most feedback about?  It’s this one:

http://www.grapplearts.com/Grappling-BJJ-Claustrophobia.html

So help me get the word out about that article: send the link to someone you know who is bravely working their way through claustrophobic sensations while studying BJJ, MMA or submission grappling.

Posted in bjj, Brazilian jiu-jitsu, claustrophobia, grapplearts, MMA, self defense, UFC | No Comments »

Get Off the Ground!!!

Wednesday, September 8th, 2010

Once you get good at Brazilian jiu-jitsu the ground will be your happy place.  Rolling around and hunting for submissions will feel as natural as walking!

But there’s a time and a place for everything…

Spending a long time on the ground in a street self-defense situation might not be the best idea.  And getting back to your feet from the guard is an option that MMA fighters simply need to have in their repertoire.

So even if you love groundfighting, you ALSO need to know how to get the heck off the ground.

There are right ways and there are wrong ways to get back to your feet.  Here’s a link to my article which breaks down some of your best options for how to get back to your feet properly.

Make sure you check it out – it’s a really important article.  And feel free to forward this email or the article link to your training partners so that they can read it too.

Also, for an in-depth analysis of different techniques, strategies and drills to get off the ground and back to your feet check out my Mixed Martial Arts DVD.  It’s NOT just about MMA – there’s a ton of stuff on it that’s directly relevant to self defense too!

Posted in bjj, Brazilian jiu-jitsu, butterfly guard, escapes, self defense, unorthodox strategies | No Comments »

Tips for Female Grapplers

Tuesday, April 13th, 2010


Recently I’ve received a flood of emails from women and smaller men, wanting to know how to deal with larger, stronger opponents.

The thing is that – at 200+ lbs myself – I’m NOT the best person to address these questions. Of course I’ve had to deal with a few huge steroid monsters who outweighed me by 100+ lbs, but those were the exception, not the rule.

So my solution was to draft the ever-eloquent grappler Krista Scott-Dixon from Stumptuous.com. Weighing in at a massive 113 lbs Krista deals with larger stronger opponents almost every time she steps onto the mat. And to figure out how to survive and thrive on the mats despite this inequality she’s picked the brains of some of the best smaller grapplers in the business!

Over the last couple of days Krista has put together a really good piece called Tips for Female Grapplers for you. It’s got tips, techniques, principles and lots of practical advice for the smaller grapplers among us. I really enjoyed it, and I’m sure you will too!

Posted in bjj, Brazilian jiu-jitsu, submission grappling, women | 1 Comment »

BJJ Training in Brazil

Monday, April 5th, 2010

Have you ever wanted to go and train in the homeland of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu?

An former training partner of mine recently shared his experiences of training BJJ in Brazil at the Carlson Gracie Academy in Rio de Janeiro, including some of the differences in training styles between typical North American schools and Brazilian schools. Check out the article – it’s pretty inspiring!

Posted in bjj, Brazilian jiu-jitsu, Carlson Gracie, Rio de Janeiro | No Comments »

The Most Important Thing For Improving Your Grappling

Tuesday, September 29th, 2009

You know, I used to think that if I just learned enough ways to pass the guard, mastered enough submissions, memorized enough pin escapes, pick up enough guard sweeps, received enough tactics and just had enough techniques at my fingertips, then… someday… I would master the art of grappling.

Techniques, techniques, techniques! I was pretty sure that these were the critical things to learn. Well, guess what? When I look back on my grappling journey it’s obvious that my greatest successes and most exciting breakthroughs all had one thing in common.

And it was never about learning a new technique.

Instead the biggest leaps forward were those suddent insights when, all of a sudden, you see that a whole bunch of different and seemingly unconnected techniques are just different expressions of the same underlying principle.

Some people call these ‘ah ha’ moments. The light goes on, something falls into place, and you can never look at something in quite the same way ever again.

Breakthrough moments like these have been on my mind a lot recently. (In fact this is the main reason I put together my online Grappling Concepts course. What I’m doing in that course is distilling my most important ‘ah ha’ moments in grappling, and passing them on to you.)

But regardless of whether you sign up for that course or not, today I want to talk to you about the power of concepts.

By the end of this email I want you to be convinced that concepts and principles are FAR more powerful than individual techniques. And that figuring out these concepts is the single best thing you can do to become a better grappler.

————————————————————–
If a picture is worth a thousand words, then
A concept is worth a thousand techniques.
————————————————————–
Why is concept-based learning so great when it comes to submission grappling and Brazilian jiu-jitsu? Here are five good reasons:

REASON #1: There are LOTS of techniques in grappling. Hundreds and hundreds of techniques.

You’ve got your bread and butter techniques. Then there are the techniques that are you use once in a while. And then there are the techniques that you’ll never use yourself but that your opponents will try to use on you. There’s no getting around it: you’ve GOT to learn a lot of techniques to get good at this grappling stuff. And that can seem overwhelming at times – memorizing all this can be hard work.

But guess what? Those hundreds and hundreds of techniques I was talking about – they’re made up of thousands of little steps that make the difference between success and failure for each technique

But the good news is that there are a lot fewer concepts than techniques in grappling.

And it’s much easier to remember a few core concepts than it is to remember hundreds of techniques with thousands of steps and details. Techniques are just applied concepts. A single concept can be applied to many different techniques, in different situations, and using different parts of your body.

REASON #2: A concept makes you understand WHY you have to do certain things in a specific order for a given technique to work properly. Concepts make sense of a technique, and it’s a million times easier to remember things that makes sense.

A concept also makes the techniques you already know more powerful. Once you understand the underlying principles of the armbar, for example, then you’ll also know how to tweak and adjust that submission for maximum effectiveness.

REASON #3: Another limitation of technique-based learning is that a specific technique applies only to a specific situation. And it’s completely unreasonable to expect to know a different technique to deal with each and every situation you might end up in on the mats.

If you’ve done any sparring at all, then you know that two determined grapplers can end up in some downright weird situations. In these tangled positions each grappler will be wondering what the heck they should do next.

Unfortunately the ‘dial-a-friend’ option ISN’T available when you’re in the middle of a grappling match. But most of the time you can figure out the right thing to do by apply the correct concepts. I know this, because going back to ‘first principles’ has saved my butt many times in sparring.

REASON #4: You can use the same concept in many different grappling arts.

Rules can change from art to art, but the laws of physics, anatomy and psychology stay the same. That means that the concepts you’ll discover when you did a little deeper are much more universal than the techniques of any given art.

The same concept can apply in Brazilian jiu-jitsu AND submission grappling, With the gi AND in no-gi. In mixed martial arts AND in self defense. In Judo AND Sambo AND wrestling

REASON #5: Understanding the concepts of grappling allows you to adapt and even invent techniques on the fly.

Just think about music for a second. Understanding the principles and underlying rules of music allows a musician to improvise and create great sounding music. In exactly the same way, knowing the principles and underlying concepts of grappling allows you to adapt and innovate new techniques as needed, and even ‘on the fly.’

This approach to the martial arts also frees you up to continue learning when your instructor isn’t around. The most important thing my instructors did was TEACH ME HOW TO LEARN!

————————————————————————–
Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a day.
Teach him HOW to fish and you feed him for his whole life.
————————————————————————–

You can probably tell that I really believe the number one thing you can do to improve your overall grappling is develop a ‘conceptual’ game.

So take a look at the vast number of grappling techniques and get serious about finding the universal themes, the underlying principles and the most important concepts that make those techniques ‘tick’.

Eventually I hope you’ll agree that a concept is worth a thousand techniques.

P.S. For a few more days only, a two week free trial of the Grappling Concepts course, plus a free DVD for all signups, is available at

===> http://www.grapplearts.tv

Posted in Brazilian jiu-jitsu, concepts, submission grappling, techniques, the mental aspect, training | No Comments »

Killer Grip, and How To Get It!

Sunday, September 20th, 2009

Stephan’s note: this post is one of over 50 lessons in the Beginning BJJ eCourse. Sign up here to get your hands on the rest of the lessons for free.

My BJJ coach Marcus Soares believes that a really strong grip is one of the most important physical attributes for a BJJ fighter. Not surprisingly, Marcus’s grip is crushingly strong. In fact, this is one of the first things his old training partners remember about him. One Brazilian coach told me “Oh my God, when he grabbed you that was it! At that point you just wanted to go do something else…“

Now wouldn’t that be a nice attribute to have?

Obviously a strong grip helps with gi chokes, however it’s also a huge asset even if you mostly do no-gi. There’s nothing like clamping a vice-like mitt onto an opponent’s wrist to get his attention in a hurry! But what if you’ve naturally got a weak grip? Should you give up the sport and take up ping-pong?

By now you’ve probably already guessed what I’m going to say here. Just because you suck at something doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t work on it. In this specific area I speak from personal experience here, because my own grip is decidedly non-superhuman…

If you suck at something you should probably double your efforts in that area. As Marc Denny told me, often your fastest progress comes from working your weakest areas.

There’s a real art and science behind serious grip training. But what if you’ve decided to spend your few precious hours of spare time on the mat training BJJ rather than cranking out reps of forearm twists and other exercises in a gym ?

In that case check out my Youtube video with five grip training exercises I use while I’m on-the-go. Here’s to the time when YOUR opponents will fear the power of your grip!

Posted in Brazilian jiu-jitsu, conditioning, grip training, teachers | No Comments »

The Grappling Concepts Online Course

Saturday, September 19th, 2009

I’ve been hard at work in ‘the lab’ cooking something up something new…

And now it’s finally ready: the online ‘Grappling Concepts’ course.

This is a 26 week web-based course. Every week I’m sending participants a 15 minute to 30 minute video lesson tackling a fundamental grappling concept. The motto of the course is “If a picture is worth a thousand words, then a concept is worth a thousand techniques.” (I toyed with the idea of calling the course ’26,000 Techniques” but then came to my senses…)

The course material is very different from the regular old deluge-of-techniques type of DVD. And I’m also doing the marketing very differently as well.

In this era of over-hyped products I think the next evolution might be seeing exactly what you’re getting, BEFORE you pay for it. I don’t want to ‘trick’ anybody into joining the course – I’d much rather you try it out and see if it’s for you.

If you like the material – great, I’ll be glad to have you onboard! There’s a very cool ‘ethical bribe’ waiting for you at the end of the course.

If you don’t like it then that’s also cool. Just let me know and I’ll cancel your subscription right away. That’s why the course billing doesn’t start for 14 days (i.e. there’s a free trial) and everybody gets a free DVD just for signing up. If you cancel, no problem, you still get to keep the DVD as my gift.

Here’s the initial free DVD:

And here’s the ‘ethical bribe’ you get if you complete the 26 weeks: the “Advanced Techniques and Tactics” 4 DVD Set.

For more information about the free DVD and the 14 day free trial please visit www.grapplearts.tv

Posted in Brazilian jiu-jitsu, concepts, grapplearts, Grapplearts DVDs, submission grappling, the mental aspect | No Comments »

A Video Tutorial on the X Guard

Wednesday, September 16th, 2009


I’m just drowning in email right now, because my new Grappling Concepts course has just launched. I’ve never seen a response this intense (maybe it’s because of the limited number of DVDs available).

But before I get back to taking orders and answering emails, here’s a link to an online video X Guard tutorial that I’m using to promote the Grappling Concepts Course

Posted in Brazilian jiu-jitsu, butterfly guard, drills, sweeps, teaching, the guard, x guard | No Comments »

The ‘Fundamental Five Guard Sweeps’ from the de la Riva Guard

Sunday, September 13th, 2009

Ricardo de la Riva is an incredibly nice and humble man, but don’t let that fool you – this man is a BJJ legend. (I mean, how many people have a popular guard position named after them?)

De la Riva started training with Marcus Soares, and then continued under Carlson Gracie at the legendary Carlson Gracie Academy in Rio. He taught Rodrigo “Minotauro” Nogueira, and has had a long and illustrious competition career himself.

He is on the cutting edge of BJJ technology, and could show you fancy techniques until your brain ached and you begged for mercy.

So when I trained with him a while ago I had a seemingly strange question. I asked “what are the five most techniques techniques from the de la Riva Guard?” (I figured that this would be a great starting point for dissecting his elaborate and effective guard game.)

So he showed me his fundamental 5 moves. Then he let me photograph these techniques, step by step… And then he agreed to let me put them online for you guys.

So here are CLICK HERE for the five most important de la Riva Guard Sweeps, as taught by the man himself!

Posted in Brazilian jiu-jitsu, de la Riva, sweeps, the guard | No Comments »

ESPN, I’m Sorry!

Tuesday, September 8th, 2009

I think I owe ESPN an official apology!

2 weeks ago I released my second-ever podcast and it shot up the charts, eventually making the Grapplearts Radio podcast the number four podcast for the entire sports section of iTunes.

The only podcasts ahead of me were three ESPN shows. For a few days I’m sure that the top executives at ESPN were getting a bit worried that I was going to knock them out of top place.

I mean they probably spend tens of thousands of dollars producing these podcasts. Then along comes some little upstart, talking about pajama wrestling of all things, and threatens to upset their apple cart!

I’m very sorry, I never meant to cause the upper level management of ESPN this much stress ;-)

(If you missed it the podcast can be accessed at
www.grapplearts.com/2009/08/bjj-submission-grappling-competition.htm)

Posted in Brazilian jiu-jitsu, competition, podcasts | No Comments »

BJJ & Submission Grappling Competition: Everything You Ever Wanted To Know!

Wednesday, August 26th, 2009

“Everything you ever wanted to know about Brazilian Jiu-jitsu competition but were afraid to ask!”

That’s a strong statement, but it’s almost even true. In my latest podcast I talk extensively with David Meyer, author of Training for Competition: Brazilian Jiu-jitsu and Submission Grappling.

We cover a TON of ground in this interview, ranging from why you might want to compete at all, to physical conditioning for competition, to specific strategies you can use against certain types of opponents.

This is one of the best interviews I’ve ever done. There is so much good information here that it’ll be very useful for anyone who trains in BJJ or another grappling art, even if they don’t compete.

And you can listen to the whole interview right here using the player embedded at the bottom of this post.

If you want to download future episodes of my podcasts and interviews automatically then click here to sign up for Grapplearts Radio in iTunes – it’s completely free and totally simple.

Click the player below to listen to the whole 1 hour, 20 minute interview on BJJ and Submission Grappling Competition (or right click this link: http://media.libsyn.com/media/kesting/BJJ_Competition.mp3 and select “Save Link As…” to save the mp3 file to your computer)

Posted in Brazilian jiu-jitsu, competition, podcasts, self defense, submission grappling, the mental aspect, training | No Comments »

I’m a BJJ Lab Rat Now!

Friday, August 21st, 2009

It’s been a while since I was part of the University scene. I finished up with that aspect of my life in 1992 and I’ve never seriously considered going back. But now I’m feeling a bit like Al Pacino in the Godfather movies: “just when I thought I was out, they DRAG me back in!“

Except I’m actually sort of enjoying it this time…

You see, I’ve been in touch with Dr. Bryan Hogeveen from the University of Alberta who is doing the first study on Brazilian Jiu-jitsu culture in North America. And he’s picking my brain in a series of hour-long interviews, getting my views on grappling as a sport, a recreational activity and a martial art.

If I don’t say anything too embarrassing I may eventually put those interviews out as a series of podcasts…

The cool thing is that Bryan (the guy who is doing the research) is not only a tenured professor of sociology, but he’s also a BJJ practitioner himself. Heck, he even worked as a doorman at a bar in his undergraduate days, so he can’t be all bad, right?

Well Bryan has also invited YOU to fill out a short online survey about your training and training philosophy. And it doesn’t matter how long you’ve been training – he wants to hear from everybody.

If you’re reading this then I assume that you agree that BJJ and grappling are pretty great. But compared to other combat sports like Judo, wrestling and boxing, there’s been a lot LESS research into grappling. The better we understand our sport the more efficiently we can train and the faster we can improve.

I’m all about mixing physical training with a cerebral approach to grappling. If you have the time and inclination, then completing this short survey might get you thinking about aspects of your sport that you haven’t thought about before.

Male grappler survey:
http://www.surveygizmo.com/s/104006/bjjsurvey

Female grappler survey

OK, that’s enough for now. The electrodes taped to my bald head are beginning to get itchy and I’ve got some levers to push…

Posted in Brazilian jiu-jitsu, interviews, research, the mental aspect | No Comments »

Bring ‘Em Back Alive: More On Recovering From Chokes

Thursday, July 30th, 2009

The last blog post (Choke Recovery in Grappling) prompted some lively discussion and debate when I posted it on the Sherdog Grappling Forum and on MMA.tv. I also received a number of emails on the topic.

The most common question by far, was “what about lifting the unconscious person’s legs up into the air to bring blood into their brain.”

I’ve have seen the legs-in-the-air technique used to resuscitate unconscious grapplers. In fact, it’s even been used on me (I was 12 years old and got knocked out by a Judo throw in the adult class. I awoke with my legs in the air and a whole bunch of very concerned faces looking down at me)!

But I didn’t talk about it in my last newsletter for a simple reason – I’ve never seen any sort of research about the safety or efficacy of this resuscitation technique.

It seems fairly obvious that it ‘should’ bring more blood to the brain, and that it ‘should’ help people wake up faster. But that kind of thinking can be dangerous. Medical history is littered with techniques, procedures and drugs that ‘should’ have helped people, but instead caused grievous bodily harm.

A forum participant called “BJJ Medic” finally helped me out. He told me about some research on the so-called Trendelenburg postion. This head down, legs up position was used during and after World War 1 to help manage shock.

Recent research, however, indicates that this position does nothing to help with shock, and increases the risk of choking on your own tongue (which is, by the way, the most common cause for blocked airways in unconscious people). Click here to read The Myth of the Trendelenburg Position for yourself.

So until someone actually does proper research on the legs-in-the-air position, specifically with regard to waking up unconscious people, I’m NOT going to use it. The ‘treatment’ at this point only has risks, and no proven benefits.

BUT I SHOULD HAVE MENTIONED THIS

If someone is unconscious from a choke you should check to see if they’re breathing. If they’re not breathing, then either move them to the recovery position (3/4 prone) OR start rescue breathing. You should also check for a pulse, and if they don’t have one, start CPR.

I think that every serious grappler or martial artist should have basic CPR and first aid training.

But even if you don’t have the training to do rescue breathing and CPR, it’s very important to be able to tell the 911 dispatcher “my buddy is unconscious but has a pulse and is breathing”.

Posted in Brazilian jiu-jitsu, chokes, Injuries | No Comments »

How to Pick the Right Sparring Partner

Monday, July 6th, 2009

A while ago I got an email asking me how to pick sparring partners. The gentleman wrote: “I am a BJJ blue belt, and I want to know how much time I should spend sparring people of my own level, vs people who are better or not as good as I am?”

The quick answer is that most of your sparring should be with partners just a little bit better and a little bit worse than yourself.

And here’s WHY…

Sparring lower level guys can be useful if there is something specific you want to work on. Usually this is a time to refine your offensive game, but you can also work escapes and defense if you purposely start out in a bad position (click here for some suggestions on how to do this).

The potential pitfall of mostly sparring lower skill levels is that you don’t learn to deal with more advanced energies, pressures and techniques. You could potentially get really good at dominating white belts, but be unable to deal with a more advanced game.

On the other hand, some people only want to spar with higher ranked partners…

It’s true that going against someone much better than yourself can be educational. It sure forces you to work your defense. Also getting badly schooled can be a real eye-opening experience, clarifying what high level grappling looks and feels like.

But always fighting higher level guys can also be problematical! That’s because you’ll get dominated a lot, and that encourages a very defensive mindset. You’ll be unlikely to develop confidence in your offensive repertoire because your opponents will shut down most of your attacks before they ever get started.

So that’s why, in an ideal world, at least half your sparring should be against people roughly your own level.

In this way you’ll be challenged, without always getting crushed. You’ll have a fighting chance that your techniques will work, and you’ll get some honest feedback as to your ability to counter your opponents’ attacks.

When two people are close in skill and square off against each other all the time, you can get grappling arms races. Here you plot, plan and research your training partner’s weaknesses, while he kindly does the same for you. This means that both people get better FAST. (More on grappling arms races here.)

If you don’t have anyone close to your level then I encourage you to try and bring the level of your sparring partners up as fast as possible. Make it challenging for yourself!

Start by showing them the counters to all your moves, because it’s a terrible thing to be the best grappler at a club!

Posted in Brazilian jiu-jitsu, training | No Comments »

Do You Have Competition Questions?

Wednesday, July 1st, 2009
David Meyer has a ton of credentials, but for now I’m only going to mention three of them:
  1. He’s a BJJ Black Belt under the Machado brothers,
  2. He’s got a very solid record in BJJ and in submission grappling competition, and
  3. He’s the author of one of my favorite new books, “Training for Competition: Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and Submission Grappling.”
Sometime in July of 2009 I’m hoping to interview David and pick his brain on the topic of competition. I want to get his take on the very best tournament strategies and tactics, advice on how to prepare for competition and reasons why one should compete at all.

If all goes well I’ll broadcast this interview on the next Grapplearts Radio Podcast.

Now I got a LOT of feedback about how informative my first podcast (the Jon Chaimberg interview) was, and how intelligent my questions were.

I had to laugh, of course, because a lot of those questions came directly from my readers – you guys! (Thanks again to everyone who sent me those questions).

So now I’m going to open up the process once again and ask does anyone has questions about any aspect of competition? If you want your competition questions answered by the man who quite literally wrote the book on the topic, then go to the contact link and send ‘em in soon.

I can’t guarantee that I’ll use every single question, but I’ll do my very best!

Posted in Brazilian jiu-jitsu, competition, interviews, podcasts | No Comments »

Another Reason Why BJJ is Better Than Boxing

Thursday, June 18th, 2009

A few days ago, while traveling, I made my way down to Dartmouth’s Fitplus gym. That’s where I participated in a BJJ class taught by 6th degree Carlson Gracie black belt, Alexandre Penao.

Despite feeling slightly under the weather that evening I really enjoyed the training session. People often talk about the sense of camaraderie in the BJJ community. This is never more in evidence than when you walk into a new club and are welcomed on the mat as a brother-in-arms.

(And then your new friends try to choke you unconscious…).

One cool thing that happened that night is that Alexandre Penao showed us a technique that none of us had ever seen before.

It was a cool rolling choke against the turtle position. Then he showed us how to use that choke to set up an entry to the mount and choke the guy out from there. This second technique was also entirely new to me.

Now I’ve been doing BJJ a long time. And I’ve been practicing other grappling arts for even longer. But I hadn’t seen this stuff before. Not in person. Not on Youtube. Not in my extensive library of books and DVDs.

But the funny thing is that in BJJ this happens ALL THE TIME! Someone is always dreaming up new ways to choke somebody out, twist them into a pretzel, or flip them overhead.

No matter what belt rank you are, so long as you continue training you’ll accumulate new techniques, details and insights until the day you step off the mats for good.

We’re very luck that our sport is rich enough to allow this kind of continued growth.

How often do you think that an elite level boxer goes into the gym and has someone show him a completely new punch? How about two completely new punches?

This just doesn’t happen in boxing. Ever!

But in jiu-jitsu and submission grappling there’s always something new to learn.

Keep on rolling

Stephan Kesting
Grapplearts.com

Posted in Brazilian jiu-jitsu, chokes, inspiration | No Comments »

Seven Things I Wish I’d Known…

Saturday, June 13th, 2009

I’m on the road this week, and tonight, on the eve of UFC 99, I find myself in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia.

I’m excited about tonight’s UFC for number of reasons. First of all the card itself looks great. Then it’s being held in mainland Europe, showing how much the sport has grown. And finally I’ll be watching the events with UFC fighter TJ Grant (who recently defeated Ryo Chonan).

It’s always fascinating to have insider access to the insights of a pro-fighter when you’re watching one of these things…

Anyway, as you’ve probably figured out by now, I’m all about sharing information. I also don’t think that anyone has the monopoly on truth – myself included!

That’s why when I see something really good created by someone else then I want to share it with you!

I recently came across something that I thought was particularly useful: a special downloadable article called “Seven Things I Wish I Knew When I Was a Blue Belt” (right click to save it to your hard drive).

This report is written by John Will – if you don’t know who he is, you should! He’s one of the most senior BJJ blackbelts around, and he’s not even from Brazil! He received his black belt from the Machados way back in 1998, making him one of the first twelve non-Brazilian BJJ black belts in the world!

And he’s not been idle! Just a few of his accomplishements include teaching thousands of people at his acclaimed seminars, producing a series of instructional books and videos, working with law enforcement and special forces, and heading the grappling program for a series of Australasian schools.

When that much mat time meets that much teaching experience good things are bound to happen. In this article John shares some of his most important BJJ insights.

I’m sure you’ll like it as much as I do

Right click here to save the pdf document to your hard drive: Seven Things I Wish I Knew When I Was a Blue Belt

Posted in Brazilian jiu-jitsu, MMA, UFC | No Comments »

Beginning BJJ Tips and Behind-the-Scenes at a DVD Shoot

Saturday, May 30th, 2009
In case you missed it, the videos created and sent in by readers with their best advice for BJJ beginners are now all available on Grapplearts.com.
And just for fun I put some behind-the-scenes pics from a recent DVD filming sessions up on Facebook. Click here to see those pictures.

Posted in Brazilian jiu-jitsu, grapplearts | No Comments »

Two Interviews

Saturday, May 30th, 2009

The Michael Jen Interview

Whether it’s because of following his posts on mma.tv, or being influenced by his trend-setting instructional videos early in my BJJ career, I feel like I’ve known Michael Jen for a long time even though I’ve never actually met him!

Michael combines a meticulous approach to technique with iconoclastic thinking, and I’ve now got a short interview with him up on Grapplearts.com.
The Jon Chaimberg Interview

Late last night I finally managed to interview Jon Chaimberg who is GSP’s conditioning coach. I quizzed him mercilessly about the techniques, details and philosophy of MMA conditioning; in fact I don’t think I’ve ever done such an in-depth interview!

As you may recall, before I did this interview I asked you guys what you wanted me to ask him. Thanks to everyone who contributed – I think I managed to sneak about 80 to 90% of your questions.

Give me a little while to get it transcribed and/or posted as a podcast. I’ll keep you posted!

Posted in Brazilian jiu-jitsu, conditioning, interviews | No Comments »

MMA and BJJ Podcasts

Saturday, May 2nd, 2009

Getting stuck in traffic is a fact of life when you live in a big city, and usually it’s a giant waste of time. For the last couple of years, though, I’ve been using a secret weapon that makes my time in the car much more enjoyable – downloadable podcasts.

Podcasts and portable mp3 players have totally changed my commute and significantly increased my quality of life. Certain time slots, which used to be mind-numbing and boring, are now interesting and intellectually stimulating.

I listen to a wide variety of podcasts covering topics from MMA to history to science to current events shows.

You can listen to all these shows on your computer, but if you have an iPod or other mp3 player then you can upload these files to it and listen to the the shows at any point.

Here are some podcasts to get you started. You can check out hundreds of thousands of categorized episodes using iTunes or other podcast aggregators.

SHERDOG RADIO

Grapplearts was featured last weekend on the Sherdog Radio Network (which consists of several different shows).

In the MMA Sunday School segment I chatted to Scott Holmes and Rodney Dean about the genesis and inspiration for the Grapplearts iPhone application. If you’re interested, my segment is at about the 31 minute mark.

FIGHTWORKS PODCAST

I also have a soft spot in my heart for the Fightworks Podcast, at least partially because they’ve had me on the show a couple of times.

The first time was a Stephan Kesting feature interview, and the second interview was specifically about leglocks in BJJ, MMA and submission grappling.

MMA RING REPORT

Arnold Lim from MMA Ring Report has conducted some great interviews with MMA fighters, promoters and trainers.

TVO BIG IDEAS

I don’t only listen to MMA podcasts. In fact, I’d say the majority of what I listen to is only indirectly related to MMA. One of my favorites is TVO’s Big Ideas program, which broadcasts some really good lectures too on a variety of topics.

In a recent Big Ideas podcast, for example, I really learned a lot about the science of stretching, stuff that’s directly applicable to improving my grappling skills and remaining injury-free.

As we’ve discussed before, it turns out that the benefits of stretching aren’t exactly as cut and dried as your High school football coach would’ve liked you to believe.

Stretching probably only improves performance in sports that require flexibility; the classic example being gymnastics or figure skating. However our sport – grappling – also requires a lot of flexibility and thus stretching is probably a very good thing.

HARDCORE HISTORY

I’ve also got to mention Hardcore History by Dan Carlin. This podcast has nothing at all to do with grappling or MMA (other than having a strong focus on military history).

I like it so much that I’ve been trying to think of a clever angle to talk about this show in my newsletter, but I couldn’t come up with a plausible connection. For now I’m just going to tell you that it’s really good.

My favorite episode in that series is Episode 12 – Steppe Stories, which takes a look at the long and bloody history of the Scythians, Mongols, Huns, Turks and other peoples who came rampaging out of the Central Asian steppe

ONE MORE

Do yourself a favor and check out some TED Talks on a topic that interests you (they include science, arts and design, politics, education, culture, business, global issues, technology and development, and entertainment).

You can download TED Talks either in video or audio-only format.

YOUR TURN!

I’m interested in finding out what you guys are listening to – maybe I’ll discover something new.

So if you have a favorite MMA, BJJ or submission grappling podcast then send me then link. I’ll post reader favorites in a future newsletter.

Posted in Brazilian jiu-jitsu, MMA, podcasts | No Comments »

Kesa Gatame in BJJ – An Unorthodox Position

Saturday, March 14th, 2009


Kesa Gatame (what the guy in the white gi is using in the photo above) is the Judo name for a position that is also known as the Scarf Hold or the Head and Arm pin.

Some people will object my calling this an ‘unorthodox’ position, because it’s a staple pin in Judo, Sambo and Freestyle Wrestling.

That’s true, but while it may be common in other grappling systems, it’s underutilized and generally frowned upon in BJJ. (I think this is because of the common belief that it’s too easy to have your back taken from here, but that’s easy to counter if you know how).

These other arts have honed kesa gatame as a pinning position. The only problem is that they don’t use or teach very many submissions from here.

In those sports the submission is redundant – if you pin your opponent for 3 seconds (wrestling) or 25 seconds (Judo) you win the match. Given these rules, why risk going for a submission?

BJJ is different – the ultimate goal is to submit, not pin, your opponent. And if submitting your opponent is your goal, then Kesa Gatame actually has a lot to offer!

I first learned about the submissions you can apply in Kesa Gatame from Shootwrestling, as taught by Dan Inosanto and Erik Paulson. It turns out that you can submit your opponent using a whole gamut of submissions, including:

  • straight armlocks
  • bent armlocks
  • chokes
  • neck cranks
  • leglocks

Personally I now use Kesa Gatame all the time in sparring. It also has a special place in my heart because, many years ago, it saved my butt in a tournament. I was behind on points, managed to secure Kesa Gatame, and then transitioned into a kneebar which won me the gold medal.

So no matter what anybody says, I know that Kesa Gatame works in BJJ.

And it’s not just my opinion. Several of my teammates – most notably Benito Segura, now a Marcus Soares brown belt – have refined this into an absolutely deadly position. And yes, I’ve been caught in it. And tapped…

When it comes to Kesa Gatame you don’t necessarily need to make it your primary position, but you’ve GOT to learn a little bit about it.

This is an area of grappling that BJJ and submission grappling people could actually learn a lot from Judo, Freestyle Wrestling, Sambo, Shootwrestling and all the other styles for which Kesa Gatame is a bread and butter position.

Posted in Brazilian jiu-jitsu, kesa gatame, positions, unorthodox strategies | No Comments »

BJJ Positions – What About North South?

Saturday, March 14th, 2009

After my last tip about unorthodox BJJ positions I had some people contact me and tell me that I’d left out the North South position from my list of the 6 fundamental BJJ Positions.

I’ve actually addressed this issue in my Beginning BJJ Package, and so I’m just going to quote from there:

“The boundaries of the positional variations we’ve just discussed are a bit vague, and some people might classify certain variations as separate positions. For example, some people might consider the North-South position to be sufficiently distinct from Side Mount to deserve its own category, as opposed to what I’ve done in this book (i.e. calling North-South position a variant of Side Mount). The terminology isn’t too important; to quote Bruce Lee, “…it’s just a name, don’t fuss over it.“

The bottom line is that no classification system is perfect. It doesn’t matter if you’re dealing with biology, economics, chemistry or grappling: sometimes the things you are trying to classify will absolutely refuse to be forced neatly into a convenient niche. To deal with this problem I encourage you to eventually create your own classification system, and use this system to describe the unique subset of positions, techniques and strategies that YOU use when YOU grapple.”

So that’s the north-south position cleared up (I hope). I consider it to be a form of side control, but you can call it whatever you want!

Posted in Brazilian jiu-jitsu, positions | No Comments »

Combining Brazilian Jiu-jitsu, Wrestling and Striking in MMA Training

Thursday, February 26th, 2009

A few days ago I foolishly did a strength and conditioning workout late at night. I ALWAYS find it impossible to get to sleep right after strenuous training, so to relax I sat down on a treadmill and talked to a video camera.

I wanted to share something I’ve noticed that many of the top MMA fighters, coaches and schools have in common (and also how it applies to submission grappling and Brazilian jiu-jitsu training).

Here’s an overview of the main points I discuss in the video.

Mixed martial art (MMA) training has three main areas:

  1. Striking (typically boxing or kickboxing).
  2. Takedowns and clinching (typically freestyle wrestling, Greco-Roman or judo).
  3. Groundfighting (typically Brazilian jiu-jitsu).

To improve in MMA you have to train each of these areas individually AND blend them together.

Some people training in MMA just want to do full MMA sparring every time – but I think that’s a big mistake.

It’s my observation that most good MMA fighters, coaches and gyms combine everything all together (i.e. full MMA sparring) only a couple of times a week. Most of the time they SEPARATE the sparring into the different component areas.

By training the disciplines separately you:

  1. Work on each discipline separately and find your weaknesses.
  2. Improve the quality of your sparring partners.
  3. Lessen the chance of injury.

This is also true for high level athletes training in other sports (in the video I talk specifically about baseball and the decathlon).

Grappling and BJJ are the same, in the sense that they require you to get good at different techniques, positions and strategies (e.g. guard passes, submission, pin escapes, submission defense, sidemount control, etc.).

Following the examples of mixed martial artists and other athletes, you should train each of these areas with targeted sparring, AND also mix everything together into free-form sparring sessions.

P.S. If you want to know the Youtube url for this video it’s www.youtube.com/watch?v=8XBI6SnLwH8

Posted in Brazilian jiu-jitsu, MMA, training | No Comments »

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