A funny thing happened to me at training today…

I was finishing up drilling some new guard passes when someone came up to me and said “I’m a big fan, I read your newsletters and I have both your apps…”

First of all, I want to tell you that it’s always nice when readers come up and introduce themselves.  So please come over and say ‘hi’ if we’re ever walking down the same street together.

But it was also a wake-up call for me that I haven’t been doing my marketing well…

You see, this was the third time in two days that someone has come up to me and told me that they love both my apps.

There’s only one small problem…

I don’t have two apps: there are actually THREE Grapplearts apps not two!!!

Here’s what I’ve got for your iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch:

1) Grapplearts Submissions.Learn how to do the most powerful submissions in grappling, including the key details that allow you to tap out bigger, stronger opponents.

2) Grapplearts Sweeps. Covers 29 powerful sweeps from closed guard, open guard, half guard, spider guard, butterfly guard and X guard to get you from the bottom to the top in any grappling match.

3) Grapplearts Pin Escapes. Easily escape bad positions and get back in control of a match…

If you have an iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch, you should totally pick up these three apps.  There’s an entire DVD’s worth of information on each app and using the indexing system you can get access to the exact technique you need anytime.

(Well, maybe looking techniques up while sparring would be a little awkward, but you can still can look up what you should have done in the locker room afterwards…)

Seriously, at $3.99 each these apps are a great value.  Get one, get ‘em all!

Headlocks are often overlooked in BJJ – they’re not considered to be a very technical pinning position.

But not training your headlock escapes is a HUGE mistake!

First of all, when an untrained person ends up on the ground, then nine out of ten times he’ll wrap his arm around your head and hold on for dear life.

And because this is that untrained fighter’s ONLY strategy he’ll be ferociously single-minded about hanging onto the headlock. This determination in itself can make escaping the headlock quite difficult.

Just like everything else in BJJ, in order to get good at something you need to do it ‘for real’ in sparring.

Since you hardly ever encounter headlocks in BJJ class dealing with them can be awkward. You might not know what to do and won’t be used to dealing with that particular energy.

Also there are other grappling arts (like Judo, Sambo and wrestling) which DO have pinning positions that look a LOT like headlocks. These positions may have fancy names like ‘kesa-gatame’ or ‘head and arm pin,’ but they’re basically just headlock variations.

(What’s even worse is that there are lots of ways to choke, armlock and leglock somebody from kesa-gatame. In fact, if you know what to do from there and your opponent doesn’t then it’s like taking candy from a baby…)

You ABSOLUTELY NEED NEED TO HAVE some good headlock escapes you can rely on!!!

Here’s my very favorite headlock escape. It also works against kesa-gatame and most headlock variations. If you know all the details and do it correctly you can send a larger, heavier opponent flying!

Make sure to practice the technique in this video below!!

P.S. Check out my Unorthodox Positions and Attacks DVD to find out what your OFFENSIVE options are from the headlock and kesa gatame postions!

P.P.S. If you own an iPhone, iPad or iPpod Touch and haven’t downloaded the three Grapplearts apps yet then what are you waiting for??? Each app has a ton of top-notch video instruction, and at only $3.99 each they’re an incredible value!!!

• 1: Grapplearts Submissions breaks down tons of chokes, armlocks and leglocks for you,
• 2: Grapplearts Sweeps teaches you how to do all sorts of closed, open and half guard sweeps,
• 3: Grapplearts Pin Escapes covers escapes from all the fundamental BJJ and submission grappling positions.

Knowing the little details behind escaping the side mount is critical if you want to be able to deal with Side Mount, arguably the most common pinning position in Brazilian jiu-jitsu, submission grappling and MMA.

A while ago I shared something about the two fundamental techniques and the three most important movements for escaping side mount (click here for the original blog post).

Both of those fundamental techniques referred to in the post above are among the escape techniques broken down for you in my third iPhone app: Grapplearts Pin Escapes.  (This video-based app made it to the number one spot in the sports apps category almost immediately upon release.)

Thanks to the miracle of YouTube and streaming online video, here’s Jennifer Weintz and myself demonstrating the first of those super-important side mount escapes.

Here’s a breakdown one of my favorite techniques: the sitout from turtle position.

It’s a very versatile move: you can use it to finish a pin escape, or recover after a failed takedown attempt, or to get the upper hand during a scramble.  It gets you out of trouble and into a dominant position.

But – like most techniques – there are some very important details. And if you ignore these details then the technique will completely fail.  So watch right to the end of the video, because that’s where I show you the critical details that make the difference between success and failure.

P.S.  This is an excerpt from our number-one selling sports app, Grapplearts Pin Escapes.  If you have an iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch you really should download this app – for the amount of information that’s in it I think it’s a fantastic value!

Want to learn how to master a technique?  Of course you do!

There’s a really cool concept called “The Four Stages of Learning” that’ll help you understand how people learn skills, concepts and techniques.

Let’s go through these four stages one-by-one.

Stage One is Unconscious Incompetence. In this stage you don’t even know that there’s a problem, and even less of an idea what the solution might be.

Let’s say that ‘Fred’ is a newbie grappler. He has absolutely no idea how to position his hands, arms, head and body when he’s in someone’s guard.  As a result he’s getting choked out, armlocked and swept all the time.

The solution is, of course, for Fred to maintain good posture in the guard, but in stage one he’s never even heard about the concept of posture.

He has no idea that posture would make his life so much easier, allowing him to nullify the guard and get to work on passing it.  He is both incompetent at maintaining posture, and unconscious that it’s even something he should be doing.

Stage two is Conscious Incompetence. Here you recognize that there’s something you should be better at, but you still have difficulty implementing it.

Let’s go back to our friend Fred in the guard for a sec.

Maybe he’s now been training for a month or two, and is finally beginning to figure out that there’s a reason his coach is always yelling “posture, posture, posture!!!”

He now recognizes that posture is important, but is still pretty hazy about exactly what posture is and how to achieve it. He knows he should be doing ‘stuff’ to maintain good posture, but what that stuff is he’s not exactly sure.

He’s conscious of the problem, but incompetent at solving it.

Stage three is Conscious Competence. Here you know how to do something, but it’s not instinctive yet. You still need to concentrate on the skill in order to do it properly.

Let’s say that Fred has now been training a couple of years and is getting MUCH better at making posture in the guard.

If someone tries to pull him down then he knows all sorts of tricks to prevent that from happening, including gripfighting and pummeling his way back to good position.

He still has to think about it, but he he’s finally become competent at making posture.  This is a big step, but it’s not the final goal…

Stage four is Unconscious Competence. In this stage the skill in question has become ‘second nature’ and you no longer have to think about it.

By this stage, if Fred ends up in the guard he automatically starts making good posture, and reacts without thought to any attempt by his opponent to break his posture down.

Unconscious competence is a good thing because it allows you to react faster.  It also frees up your mind to think about the overall strategy of the match, rather than having to use up most of your bandwidth handling the minutiae the moves themselves.

Of course, the four stages of learning apply to every skill you learn, not just making posture in the guard!

It applies to learning how to level change and hit a perfect double leg takedown in wrestling… It applies to defending the neck when rear mounted… And it applies to riding a bike, driving a car, and cooking the perfect omelette.

The four stages of learning is a very useful model!  The mere act of identifying a deficiency in your arsenal – i.e. becoming aware that the problem even exists – moves you from stage one to stage two in the four stages.

Then ‘all’ that you need to do is learn the details of the technique, do thousands of repetitions to ingrain it in your mind, and spend tons of time using that technique in sparring and you’ll be at level four – Unconscious Competance – in the blink of an eye…

A reader recently asked me “I haven’t heard from you in a long time. Did you get double arm-barred and can’t type?”

I’m glad that both my arms are great and I can type just fine! It’s a valid question though, and since other people are probably also wondering what’s been going on I thought I’d take a moment to answer it for everyone.

The reason this newsletter has been a little less active than usual is because I’ve been finishing up my Online Grappling Concepts Course.

When I briefly opened up registration for this course last September hundreds of grapplers signed up right away. And for the past 6 months my main focus – one might say my ‘obsession’ – has been to create the very best experience I can for the participants.

But now most of the heavy lifting of actually creating and distributing the course material (online videos, mp3 files, written materials and DVDs) is done.

I haven’t decided whether, or even if, I’ll ever release the course again. But the main thing is that it’s been a great experience putting this stuff together, and I’m gratified by the tons of rave reviews from the course participants.

So I’m not dead yet! And now I’ll have (a little) more time to work on other aspects of Grapplearts and concentrate on my own training!!

Talk about synchronicity!

A month ago I told you about a specific guard position I’ve been having a ton of success with – the logsplitter position.

And then, a few weeks later, I taught entries and finishes to this same position at GrappleCamp 2009.

Finally, to top things off, a reader recently emailed me a link to footage of Nicholas Renier hitting a perfect logsplitter submission at the European 2009 ADCC qualifiers…

It’s at about 1:52 of the following video:

Nicolas Renier vs Frank Stäblein (ADCC European trials 2009)

(I don’t know much about Nicholas other than the fact he has now secured a berth ADCC, the big Kahuna of submission grappling championships.)

Anyway, I thought it was cool and so I’m passing it along

P.S. If you haven’t done so already, send me your top question quick about preparing for, or competing, in grappling tournaments. I’ll try to work your questions into my interview with David Meyer, author of ‘Training for Competition: Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and Submission Grappling
‘

Boy, did my post a few days ago (with the tongue in cheek title: “Another Reason Why BJJ is Better Than Boxing“) set off a firestorm

I admit it: I’m biased! I run a site called “grapplearts,”, not “boxingarts.” I spend my time rolling around on the ground with men wearing pyjamas or spandex, not circling them and trading punches. And unlike the anonymous sniping that is so prevalent on the internet, I also signed my name to my inflammatory post!

Here are just a few of the outraged rebuttals I received:

—————————————————

“BOXING IS EFFECTIVE”

Agreed! I think that boxing becomes an effective very quickly – faster than most other striking arts actually.

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“BOXING IS MORE EFFECTIVE THAN BJJ”

I Disagree! If we’re comparing pure style to pure style, then 95% of the time BJJ will beat boxing (the early UFC’s proved that).

Please note that I’m NOT saying that boxing has no place in MMA – of course it does. MMA stands for “Mixed” Martial Arts, and to be effective in Mixed Martial Arts you need to MIX your training (wrestling AND striking AND grappling)

—————————————————

“BOXING IS SUBTLE”

Agreed! The timing, distancing and rhythm for high level boxing can be very subtle.

—————————————————

“BOXING IS MORE SUBTLE THAN JIU-JITSU”

I Disagree! I’m not sure how I’d quantify this, but I think that Boxing relies on reflexes and instant responses. The slower pace of BJJ allows for a lot more adjustments and application of subtle nuance than boxing.

Also each individual technique in a martial art has subtle nuances that require tweaking and adjustment, and BJJ has a lot more techniques than boxing (which was the original point of the post).

—————————————————

“BOXING TAKES A LONG TIME TO MASTER / BOXING IS HARD TO MASTER

Agreed! It takes a lot of time, blood, sweat, tears and effort to get good at boxing. No doubt about it.

—————————————————

“THAI BOXING HAS A LOT OF TECHNIQUES”

Yup! It has more techniques than boxing. And BJJ has more techniques than Thai boxing

—————————————————

AND NOW BACK TO MY MAIN POINT…

By now it should be obvious that I was being a bit tongue in cheek with my choice of a post title, but the bottom line still stands. Boxers don’t stand around showing each other 15 variations of the ‘inside-out-mongoose-punch’ the way BJJ’ers do.

Of course Prince Naseem will now probably come out with an instructional DVD series, show 25 new punches and blow my argument completely out of the water…

One of the things I talk about in my Beginning BJJ eCourse is the importance of not telegraphing your moves, particularly your explosive escapes, by holding your breath.

Now this lesson led to many interesting conversations, including one with Mr. Will Wood, who trains with Garrett Erickson.

Here’s what Will said:

“Something I find common is guys bridge and start their escape on the third big breath. One big breath, second big breath, third breath – BRIDGE!!!!!

I have gotten into the habit of slightly shifting my position after the second breath. In most cases their bridge escape could have worked but it breaks their concentration long enough to make them hesitate and restart.

Talk about burning some energy!

As a 41 year old little guy (5’7 and 165 lbs) I have to use the biggest muscle – the brain.”

Much as a ‘tell’ in poker gives other experienced players at the table an advantage, picking up on subtle clues like this can help you dominate larger and stronger opponents on the mat.

Getting good at BJJ requires you to become a bit of a mind-reader. There’s nothing mystical about it. You just have to consistently work at developing the sensitivity that allows you to notice, and then take advantage of, the subtle clues that your opponent is giving you all the time.

So first work on your subtlety and sensitivity. Then, as Conan might say, use those refined attributes and “crush your enemies, see them driven before you…”

I first got serious about physical conditioning when I got involved in Brazilian jiu-jitsu. Sure, I’d lifted weights and done some running before that point, but there was just something about grappling that drove home how very important conditioning was.

To research the topic of conditioning for grappling I mostly read books, scavenged magazine articles and picked the brains of athletes from different sports. This was back in the very early days of the internet, so I couldn’t use that resource nearly as much.

Anyhow, from this research I got lots of tips, ideas and suggestions about how to structure a training program. Of course a lot of it was contradictory, but that was to be expected.

One thing that really bothered and worried me though. It seemed that different exercise modalities could conflict with each other.

For example, when it came to stretching, various studies claimed that it didn’t reduce injuries, and that pre-exercise stretching reduced maximal strength, vertical leap performance and sprinting ability.

Another example was the suggestion that endurance training could reduce the gains of strength training.

All these tradeoffs (and many more) were worrying and frustrating. No matter what area of conditioning I looked at, it seemed that it would have negative effects on some other aspect of my fitness.

But eventually I realized two things

1 – Grapplers are generalists. Compared to grappling, it’s hard to think of another sport that requires more of a blend of strength, endurance, explosiveness, flexibility, aerobic endurance, anaerobic endurance and muscular endurance.

• We need strength like a powerlifter, but we ALSO need aerobic endurance (I firmly believe that running helps my jiu-jitsu).
• We need speed like a sprinter, but we ALSO need flexibility (ditto).
• We need explosiveness like an olympic lifter but we ALSO need to withstand muscular fatigue.

I believe that grapplers need to be generalists in their training. You can’t focus only on one aspect of conditioning to the exclusion of all the others.

2 – Most grapplers will benefit from doing any conditioning, and most of the trade-offs between different aspects of fitness really only apply to elite-level athletes.

Someone competing in a sport that requires raw strength (like powerlifting) needs to do everything he can to increase strength.

Victory at the elite level in sports that rely primarily on one attribute is decided by fractions of a second, an inch or two, or a few pounds. In this context, the danger of inhibiting even a tiny bit of that primary attribute by doing the wrong exercises is a real concern.

The thing is that most grapplers are nowhere near the limits of their physical development!

Most recreational grapplers could easily become more flexible AND stronger AND more explosive AND develop better endurance (all the while also working on their techniques).

Your real concern when it comes to conditioning is overtraining/under-resting, not the danger of reducing your vertical jump by an inch because you were trying to improve your legwork in the guard by doing some Yoga stretches.

There are people out there who enjoy running but then get freaked out when they hear that George St. Pierre’s conditioning coach doesn’t want any of his athletes to do long cardio sessions.

My suggestion is to not worry about it! Doing something is almost always better than doing nothing, and you’re much more likely to continue doing something that you enjoy.

When you get to GSP’s level and the UFC offers you a title shot, then shoot me an email and we’ll talk. Until then don’t throw away your running shoes!

I want to thank everyone who went and downloaded Grapplearts Submissions from the iTunes store. This app currently only works on the iPhone and the iPod touch (but we’re looking into putting it onto the Blackberry and other platforms).

And I ESPECIALLY want to thank those of you who are helping spread the word about the application. We’ve been the number one or number two paid sports app in iTunes for a while now, and it’s all thanks to you.

If you want to help out, here are some links that you can post, forward on to friends, etc.

*** The app information page on Grapplearts
http://grapplearts.com/iphone/

*** A link that opens the iTunes program right to the Grapplearts Submissions App
http://tinyurl.com/cny5t8

*** The new Grapplearts Facebook page, with lots of info about the app
http://tinyurl.com/d5lxtm

So, for the third time, thank you!

Stephan Kesting

Today I’d like to tell you about my brand new application for the iPhone and the second generation iPod Touch. It’s called “Grapplearts Submissions“, and it’s the very first tool of it’s kind for learning BJJ, submission grappling or MMA techniques.

(We’re still tweaking the application to work properly with first generation iPod Touch, so if you have one of these stay tuned and I hope to have good news for you soon)

This application is designed so that you can learn grappling anywhere.

The idea is that you can learn the armbar from mount while riding the bus, or remind yourself of the key points for the triangle choke while waiting in line! Now you can bring your techniques with you to class and drill them with your friends!

Click here to see the application page on iTunes (if you have iTunes installed on your computer), or click here for the info page on Grapplearts.com.

This application is designed to be used on your iPhone or second generation iPod Touch. There are 31 different armlock, leglock and choke entries, AND we show you the details that make those submissions work. In addition, we plan to add other techniques to future updates, which you’ll get free!

A quick note: this is a big application because it has LOTS of video instruction. That’s why you need a wifi network if you want to download it to your iphone directly.

If you don’t have a wifi network then just use iTunes to download the app (search for “Grapplearts Submissions” in the iTunes store). Then synch your phone, just like you do for your music, calenders, etc.

About the price: my co-developers begged, whined and pleaded until I agreed to initially release it at at the nominal cost $0.99 (for the first week only). I personally think that this low price is a mistake, but compromise is the soul of partnership…

After March 27th I’ll raise the price for sure.

So here’s how to get the application, and some links to more information about it:

• Click here to open iTunes to the application page (if you have iTunes already installed)
• Or you can open iTunes manually and search for “Grapplearts Submissions” in the iTunes store
• Download iTunes for free
• Visit the iPhone page on Grapplearts for screen shots and a detailed list of contents
• Go to the Grapplearts Submission Application on Facebook (become a Grapplearts fan!)
• Click here to see a demonstration of the application on Youtube

Finally, if you DON’T have an iPhone or an iPod Touch then I’d still be eternally grateful if you could help get the word out to the grapplers and MMA enthusiasts you know who DO have these tools.

I first truly realized how powerful drills can be about 15 years ago.

At that time I was I was teaching a self defense class. One of my students was of average size and strength with severely below-average punching power. He was a chronic “arm-puncher,” which means he just couldn’t get his body behind his punches to make them powerful

I tried explaining how to use his body. I tried showing him. Nothing helped.

Finally I grabbed a heavy medicine ball and stood back-to-back with him. From that position we passed the medicine ball around and around, first in one direction, then in the other. To do this drill you really have to twist your upper body, which is quite similar to the movement required to punch properly.

A few minutes later, when I put the focus mitts on again, I was shocked at the difference in his punches. He finally started moving his body properly, and punch after punch thudded into the target.

His miracle cure was a single drill.

Sometimes you can have the same miracle cure for grappling problems.

If someone is having a rough time with a technique, it’s often because they’re having trouble with a certain aspect of the technique – a movement or transition that their body just doesn’t want to do (yet). If this is the case, then isolating that movement and training it often goes a long way towards solving the problem.

Here’s a concrete grappling example. Last year I wrote about a ‘secret’ of the Half Guard, about destabilizing your opponent by bringing your knees up to your chest. (If you don’t remember this tip, you can read it again by clicking here.)

Some people have a hard time getting this movement – maybe it’s because bringing both knees up to one’s chest explosively is just not a ‘natural’ movement.

So here’s a simple solo drill that I’ve found helps people to understand this movement, and then later apply it in grappling.

It’s a little bit harder than it sounds, so start with about 20 repetitions. For maximum benefit keep the following points in mind

• Pull your knees up to your chest EXPLOSIVELY. This is NOT a slow leg-lift type of exercise.
• Touch the bottoms of your feet with your hands to make sure that you’ve pulled your legs up far enough.
• Remember what this is for; as you’re doing the exercise visualize trapping one of your opponent’s legs between your legs. Imagine pulling him over you and getting underneath his center of gravity every time.

This movement resembles an abdominal exercise, but don’t let that fool you. It’s true that it does challenge and strengthen your muscles, but that’s only a side benefit. It’s main purpose is to put a killer edge onto a very sports-specific movement.

Think about the sticking points in your techniques that bother you. Then find, modify or invent grappling drills to make that sticking point a thing of the past.

P.S. There are several resources you can consult for more information on sports-specific exercises. I put my favorite grappling drills onto DVD a few years ago, and there are also some free BJJ drills online. Check them both out!

I’m letting my readers know about a new idea I’m trying out for a few days.

Obviously times are tough economically and a lot of you have to watch your spending. On the other hand I’ve also heard from a lot of people who really want to get their hands on the new Roadmap for BJJ Package.

Therefore, for those of you on a budget, I want to make it easier to access this material and start improving your BJJ as soon as possible.

That’s why I’m trying out a payment plan on a trial basis. Until the end of the trial period (midnight Friday 13th) For just four installments of $49.95 you can get the Roadmap for BJJ (and all the bonuses) shipped to you right away.

This installment plan is ONLY available on this one page, right here, and only until midnight February 13th (which is when I take it off the market and re-evaluate if I’m ever going to do this again).

To all those people who purchased DVDs during the 2008 Grapplearts Anniversary Sale, go and check your inbox(es). Jason Scully from The Grappler’s Guide has sent you the information you need to become a member of that excellent website. Go and check out all the excellent member-only features on Grappler’s Guide, including video instruction, informative articles and a respectful forum.

You have to take action on this soon (within 2 weeks) to get the 1 year free membership, so if you’re eligible make your move now!