Grappling Tips Newsletter

Today I want to talk about a very useful tool for intermediate and advanced-level grapplers.

The idea is to create study blocks where you focus on a single topic. During this time you basically take one aspect of grappling, and beat it to death with a large stick!

How long you do this for can vary, but typically it will range anywhere from one week to two months. It depends on a number of factors, including

• How narrow or focussed your topic is
• How many times a week you train
• How fast you learn
• Whether you have the self-discipline to focus on a topic for a lengthy time
• etc.

Also it's worth noting that some topics just inherently require a lot of more work than others.

Maintaining and attacking from the mount position - for example - is a pretty big topic. Two months of focussing on this this would be a pretty good start, but in some ways it would only be scratching the surface.

On the other hand, if your goal was to get better at finishing the armbar when your opponent is clasping his hands together, then that's not a huge project. (It would, however, require you to find people to train this with you over and over).

For purposes of discussion, let's pick a big topic. For example, let's say that your goal is to get better at escaping from side mount.

So now what do you actually do during your side-mount-escape study block?

The most important change would be starting most, or all, of your sparring sessions trapped in side mount. When a new round begins, or if someone taps out, then you go back to the bottom of side mount and suffer some more.

On top of this you should also dedicate some time to repetition and drilling of the core techniques that you use to escape sidemount. Twenty, thirty, fifty repetitions per technique, per class. (But I'll be the first to admit that finding a training partner to do this with isn't easy...).

Additionally you should also be researching different techniques, concepts and details for the topic in question. You can acquire this information in many different ways, including:

• Asking your instructor what you're doing wrong in that subject area, and suggest some techniques for you to use.
• Asking your sparring partners for feedback and suggestions
• Reading books on the topic (there's been an explosion of good BJJ books recently).
• Watching instructional DVDs - there's probably several on the topic you're working on.
• Searching Youtube for instructional clips and/or footage of matches where your specific techniques were actually used by high level competitors.
• Posting your questions on internet forums, or just reading what other people have written on the topic.

Most of my own bread and butter techniques have come out of such periods of intensive study, so I know from first hand experience that this training method can have very real long-term benefits.

Give it a try!

Labels: drills, training

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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.

Labels: armlocks, Brazilian jiu-jitsu, chokes, iphone, leglocks, training

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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

Labels: Brazilian jiu-jitsu, MMA, training

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Coming back to training after a layoff is a tricky thing. There is a real danger that you jump back into full intensity training and re-injure yourself right off the bat (especially if you've been gone for a while and/or are coming back from an injury).

No, you need to ease back into training. Give your body some time to 'remember' what it used to do and ramp up your intensity slowly.

I actually have some authority to dispense advice here, because I'm coming back from a training layoff myself.

Three months ago, in November, I was working like crazy on some new grappling instructional products. Filming, producing, editing, writing and quality control took up almost all my time. I trained, but not very much.

Two months ago I injured my chest. This interfered with most aspects of my training, and so I was only on the mats once or twice a week in December.

One and a half months ago - on New Year's Day no less - I was shocked to find out that I had a hernia (a direct inguinal hernia, to be precise). It didn't hurt, but I really didn't want to make it worse, and so I stopped ALL training and ALL conditioning until my surgery.

Three weeks ago I had surgery, during which they lined my abdominal wall with a prolene mesh. The recovery has gone well, and I've just been cleared to get back to strenuous physical actiivity

So I didn't train much for a couple of months, and then not at all for the last 6 weeks. I'm recovering from two injuries and one surgery. Should I just jump back into class and start training, hell bent for leather?

Obviously not.

I really, really want to get back to training, but I'll have to make haste slowly. It would really suck to have my repaired hernia explode again (or to injure myself somewhere else).

My back-to-the-mats program has consisted of two things so far:

1. Easy bodyweight exercises: pushups, pullups, squats, shrimping, hip heists, etc. Nothing too strenuous and certainly nothing to failure.
2. Non-competitive partner flow drills for repetition of basic grappling techniques. And I'm only using sane, in-control, and relatively light partners for this drilling.
   

I feel like a bit of a wimp going so light and easy, but there are three things I'm trying to do with this program. I'm trying to:

1. Get my body used to the physical strain of exercising again.
2. To recover a bit of timing and help my body to remember how to move like a grappler.
3. To test things out in a nice controlled environment. If either injury flares up again, I want that to happen in a controlled setting, and not with some bozo doing a flying knee-on-belly technique on me in sparring.
   

In another couple of days I'll start with some (light) sparring. And here I'm going to pick and choose my partners very carefully: lighter guys with self control only, thank you very much.

For once I'm taking my own advice, and it feels weird!

Labels: drills, Injuries, overtraining, training

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Here's a question I received recently:

Q: "I'm 56 years old and in pretty good health except for a few old injuries. My question is whether it is it too late for me to start training in grappling without wrecking my body too badly? (I'm not interested in competition)."

A: I've actually addressed this topic quite often in the past few years (maybe that's because I'm turning 40 this summer).

In any case, my answer is a guarded 'Yes.' You can definitely start training and make progress, BUT it depends on a few critical factors:

• You HAVE to be careful
• You HAVE to go slow when you spar, and be ready to tap out when you get caught in submissions (or even awkward positions).
• You HAVE to watch out for overtraining (also known as under-recovery)
• You probably SHOULDN'T train at a school with a lot of young studs who all want to fight in the UFC
• You might want to consider taking BJJ, not submission grappling. There is often a lot of testosterone and explosive movement in submission grappling, which tends to lead to worse injuries than the more controlled and methodical sparring in BJJ.
  

And here is some more reading that you might want to do before you start:

• Jiu-jitsu for 'Seniors'
• The Aging Grappler
• The Elders Speak
  

To balance all this out, keep in mind that you're still younger than my teacher (and inspiration) Dan Inosanto when he started Brazilian jiu-jitsu. And now he's a very respectable BJJ black belt...

Good Luck!

Labels: Injuries, older grapplers, overtraining, teachers, training

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One of the tenets of JKD is that one should keep an open mind with regard to other styles. After all, "absorb what is useful, reject what is useless" is a classic Bruce Lee quote.

In general, I find that most BJJ practitioners are relatively open minded when it comes to learning from other styles. Since BJJ hit North America it has been infused with techniques and strategies from wrestling, judo, sambo, shootwrestling, etc. For the most part, these additions have made it a richer, more effective grappling system

But what about other, more obscure martial arts? Let's take aikido for example, an art that a someone once described as being only useful "for restraining aged professors, run amuck."

Predictably, I think that aikido CAN contribute something to BJJ and/or submission grappling. One of my favorite sneak attacks is a wristlock that comes straight out of the aikido repertoire (and I get everybody with it at least once).

And for proof that I'm not the only BJJ black belt who thinks that traditional Japanese martial arts can be applied in a ground grappling context, check out Roy Dean's "Art of the Wristlock" video.

And why stop there - what about Indonesian Silat? How about trying to adapt some techniques from Indian Vajramushti or from Mongolian jacket wrestling?

A long time ago I wrote about how I first learned the omo plata armlock from my Silat training. For a short time I thought that I was the only person using that technique in BJJ.

(You can tell that this is an old article because my training partner Vlado is still a purple belt in those technique photos...)

Well of course I soon found out that I was NOT the first person to use that armlock on the BJJ mat. In fact it was already an established technique with many different applications, ranging from submitting your opponent, to sweeping him, to setting up other submissions. My point is that I got a head start and an alternate perspective on this technique by trying to apply what I had learned in other martial arts.

Interestingly I recently published an article by John Will on the ancient Indian art of Vajramushti. Turns out that they ALSO use the armlock that we call omo plata (check out the photo to the right!)

The bottom line is that there are only so many ways to twist somebody into a pretzel to make them say "uncle." Over the millennia there have been hundreds of thousands of martial artists in other styles who have done some serious R&D on what works. Learning to grapple does involve a lot of self-discovery, of course, but you don't have to reinvent the wheel entirely on your own either.

Issac Newton once wrote "If I have seen farther it is by standing on the shoulders of giants." I encourage you to accelerate your own progress by standing on the shoulders of giants too. Just keep in mind that some of these useful giants are outside the art of BJJ!

Labels: Grapplearts DVDs, inspiration, techniques, training

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I set a challenge for myself while compiling, editing and contributing to the book Mastering BJJ. Inspired by the mini-article World Class Fitness in 100 Words on the Crossfit website I wanted to encapsulate my strategy for refining new techniques.

Being brief was a lot harder than I had anticipated. (I suppose that’s why Mark Twain once wrote “I didn't have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead”). Being concise is a virtue however, and it also makes it easier for people to retain the information, so I thought the effort was well worth it.

Here are 100 words that give you the keys to unlock any grappling technique:

"Learn a technique and study all its aspects including
set-ups, grips, body position, timing, balance, counters and
recounters. Get help from your instructor, class-mates, the
internet and instructional media.

Repetition makes you smooth. Smooth makes you fast.

Isolate the technique in sparring. Start with the smallest,
least experienced person in the club. When the technique
works consistently, move on and try it on the second
smallest or second least experienced person. Repeat.

In grappling, observe problems you encounter with the
technique. Then take time to analyze, brainstorm and
discuss with coaches and training"

P.S. Related articles on this site include Erik Paulson's TRIG formula and the piece I wrote on what isolation sparring actually looks like on the mat.

Labels: techniques, training

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On my road to BJJ black belt I've seen the same mistakes made again and again (and I've also made a few of them myself). That, in a nutshell, is why I created the Roadmap For Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Package.

The material is all about three related things: the Big Picture, the Basics and Avoiding the Most Common Mistakes.

The Big Picture

In BJJ there are hundreds of techniques and literally thousands of variations. That's a lot for anyone to absorb - no wonder why people often go home after their first BJJ class feeling completely overwhelmed!

A big picture is particularly important early in your BJJ career. Which positions are the most valuable, and why? What should should your goal be in every position, both on top and on bottom? Which positions are great for traditional BJJ but might get your head soccer-kicked in the street?

All these questions can be clarified by having a good idea of the big picture; it's always easier to find your way if you have a map!

The Basics

It's a no-brainer that starting your BJJ journey with solid basics is a good thing: you'll go a lot further and progress a lot faster. Unfortunately the basics are rarely taught systematically, and most of the time you have to learn them through trial-and-error.

People with weak basics sometimes even make it to blue belt. This is because that person might have a few parts of his game that are really good. That person usually does OK on the mat, but only as long as he stays in his comfort zone. As soon as he ventures outside of what he's good at (or is taken outside it by his opponent) then the wheels really fall off the cart.

Strong basics ensure that there aren't huge holes in your game that can be exploited by a smart opponent!

The Roadmap for BJJ Package will shorten the time it takes to get good basics for every position. Strong basics equals faster progress every time!

The Mistakes

BJJ is all about taking advantage of other people's mistakes. The more mistakes you make, the more often you're going to tap, it's as simple as that. Every position has its own set of mistakes: the right thing to do in one position will get you killed in another position.

In this package I show you what the most common mistakes are, how your opponent might take advantage of them, and then how to fix them. The good news is that most of these mistakes are easy to fix, if you just know what to do (and what not to do). Don't give your opponent the opportunity to easily tap you out without even having to work for it!

About the Roadmap for Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Package

There is a TON of material in this package: a two-hour DVD, a full-length audio CD, a printed book, files for your computer, and a lot more. Too much to describe in the detail it deserves here, so please check it out by clicking here.

Sincerely

Stephan Kesting
www.grapplearts.com/roadmap/

P.S. On this package I'm offering an unprecedented one-year money back guarantee. Take your time to check out ALL the material risk-free, and if you don't agree that it has taken months off of your BJJ learning curve then return it for a full refund.

P.P.S. Just to sweeten the deal even more, right now I'm also offering free shipping. Hurry though, because after January 31st the price goes up and some of the bonuses will disappear.

Labels: Grapplearts DVDs, training

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Last December I wrote about why you shouldn't let your opponent control your hips if you want an unpassable guard. The following week a few readers wrote in with their own advice

In the next newsletter I asked if anyone else wanted to share the tips, techniques and concepts about preventing the guard pass. I have taken the best of those reader contributions and compiled them into an article. You can find it at the following link:

The Unpassable Guard: Tricks, Concepts, Techniques and Drills to Prevent Opponents from Passing Your Guard.

My sincere thanks to EVERYONE who wrote in! I'm sure that each and every piece of advice will help someone out there looking for grappling answers out there in cyberspace.

Labels: the guard, training

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Today my BJJ sparring was a battle for survival.

Maybe you think it's because I sparred with a bunch of high-level black belts... Sorry to disappoint you, but that's wasn't the case at all. In fact, I was barely holding my own against blue belts with only a couple of years experience. And they were all lighter than me...

Let me tell you why this happened.

Yesterday I got back from 6 days of rustic living in a simple cabin with family and friends. At the cabin - between cross-country skiing and chopping firewood to ward off the minus 30 degree night-time temperatures - I was thinking about Brazilian Jiu-jitsu and grappling (surprise, surprise).

One of the BJJ-related things I was thinking about was a new guard pass I've been working on. It's still in embryonic form, so I'm not going to go into too much detail, but the Cole's Notes version would be: "pin his hips to the floor with one arm, post up onto both feet, and then circle left or right to pass the guard."

I've been experimenting with this style of guard passing for a couple of weeks, but have ONLY used it on whitebelts and some brand-new bluebelts. Up till now it's worked great against the relatively unsophisticated legwork of these junior grapplers.

Today I wanted to bump it up a notch and road test it against some more experienced opponents. So I warmed up by rolling lightly with some whitebelts, and then went against some good blue belts and purple belts, always starting in their guards.

Well, the most charitable interpretation is that there were mixed results...

Sure, sometimes the guard pass worked, and sometimes I ended up with a dominant side control position (and then went back into the guard). Most of the time, however, I was frantically defending (and barely escaping from) armbars, collar chokes, omo plata armlocks, triangle chokes and guard sweeps.

Basically I was on the run for about 70% of these matches.

Strangely enough, I consider this training session a HUGE SUCESS!! By getting my butt kicked, I learned about the vulnerabilities of this strategy. Now I can go back to the drawing board and try to come up with technical answers to some of the problems I encountered. Then I'll try it out on the same guys, and maybe this time it'll work better.

Will this guard pass eventually become 'the bomb' - once I iron out these technical kinks?

The truth is that I have no idea. Maybe this technique will eventually become my bread and butter guard pass, or maybe I'll drop it off in the graveyard of stupid BJJ ideas. I've had a lot of ideas in my day, and only a small percentage of them turned out to be great ideas.

The reason I have so much material to share in my newsletter, website and videos IS BECAUSE I'VE MADE SO MANY MISTAKES!

So give yourself permission to make mistakes, go down blind alleys, and try stuff that nobody thinks will work. Test your ideas, evaluate the results, modify your ideas, and test again. As I recently asked someone, "do you think that the very first airplane built by the Wright Brothers actually worked?"

Labels: the guard, training

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I've been down in the laboratory recently, cooking up the latest Grapplearts offering. Since we're in the final stages of production now, and because I thought you might be interested, I'll whip off the veil of secrecy and tell you about what's going on.

The new project is the "Roadmap for Brazilian Jiu-jitsu Package". It is THE guide to beginning BJJ. I want to help people new to the sport get it right, right from the start.

What I've done here is create something very different from anything else on the market. A Roadmap-based approach gives beginners a big picture first, so that they understand what's happening on the mats, remember appropriate techniques quickly, and figure out what moves they need to work on next.

I've created this book-CD-DVD package to make sure that people 'get it' quickly; it should help every beginner's skills improve by leaps and bounds.

I've also been getting feedback from blue belts who say that it's really helped them, and from instructors who say it's made them better teachers. (And they've only seen a small portion of the materials).

I'm confident that this will be a big thing, because BJJ is growing by leaps and bounds. There are a LOT of people out there who are serious about learning BJJ, but just don't know what steps to take to make that happen.

Since I'm excited about this project I'll obviously keep you posted...

Labels: Grapplearts DVDs, training

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If you're thinking about starting BJJ classes in the New Year, then I want to give you another head's up about my new BeginningBJJ eBook and eCourse. About 2000 people have already signed up in the past two weeks for these free materials (which is a pretty overwhelming response)!

I'm getting really good feedback on this from all kinds of grapplers, ranging from brand new beginners, to jiu-jitsu blue belts, to BJJ instructors looking for additional ways to organize the material they already know.

So if you're enjoying the material I put out here on grapplearts.com, then I really think you should check out the additional information I'm putting out at:

www.beginningBJJ.com

Labels: training

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Recently I've been working like a madman on my latest project, which is the new website Beginning Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu (beginningbjj.com).

Ta Da!

This site is specifically designed for people just starting Brazilian Jiu-jitsu. At the moment the resources include my brand-new eBook "A Roadmap for Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu", and the Beginning BJJ eCourse.

The book contains many photographs, links, diagrams, and new written material. It is designed to give beginners (and their coaches) a 'big picture' of BJJ, so that they can figure out how techniques relate to each other and what they might want to learn next.

The course covers many of the little details that are so important in BJJ. The things that advanced grapplers take for granted, but might be huge revelations for beginners. Right now it's set up to automatically send out these lessons about every 3 days.

Did I mention that both the eBook and eCourse are free?

It's getting rave reviews, so if you want to see what it's all about, check out what you should know if you're just starting BJJ classes

Thank you
Stephan Kesting

P.S. Don't worry, Grapplearts.com isn't going anywhere, and this newsletter is going to keep on coming out as well. These websites are aimed at two separate niches, and both still very important to me

Labels: the mental aspect, training

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I post a lot of articles on this site, but I also have no problem 'stealing' good material from other people (provided I can get their permission, of course)!

I recently added a new article to the Grapplearts library - check out guest author Tal William's interesting and informative article on "The Way to Train - Jiu-jitsu idealism"

Labels: the mental aspect, training

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In previous newsletters we've discussed what a grappling arms race is, and how in that situation you can use video self analysis to get an advantage over your training partners.

Today I want to briefly touch on one of MY secret weapons in the everlasting arms race in the dojo. That method is focused partner training.

Here is what I do. Suppose I consistently run into the same problem with a certain individual - perhaps he's catching me with the same submission all the time, or he's always countering my sweeping techniques, or whatever. As we're sparring I'll try to make note of the problem - I might even put myself into the exact problem position on purpose, just so I can see exactly what my opponent is doing to make my life difficult.

Then I call up a different training partner, and we meet behind closed doors with the windows blacked out and the room swept for listening devices. I show that partner the situation that is frustrating me, and we look at it from all angles and brainstorm for solutions. Going back to the problem in this calm and controlled environment usually results in us soon having an answer to the original dilemma. The next step is to take it back to the original partner and see if it actually works in reality.

Many of the sequences I teach in my Guard Sweeps and Leglock DVDs were developed exactly like this. First I had an initial attack that worked for a while. Then my opponents figured out how to counter those attacks. And then I used focussed partner training to discover and refine the recounters to those counters.

As we leave this topic I want to emphasize once again that this arms race is a mutually beneficial process. After I use my new super-duper recounter one or two times in class, I then share it with my sparring partners. That way the cycle goes on and we both continue to grow.

Labels: training

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In the last newsletter we talked about what an arms race is, and how it can drive BJJ technique to higher levels. I also promised I would reveal a couple of secrets used by my training partners and I in our continuous struggles to get even the slightest advantage over the other person.

Since it's my newsletter I'll start by spilling Vlado's beans first...

Vlado often plunks a small digital camcorder down at the side of the training area when he starts to roll. He then lets it record the whole sparring session.

Later, when the sparring is still fresh in his mind, he watches the action again at home. Here he simultaneously critiques his own performance and looks for holes in his sparring partner's game. This doesn't take as long as it sounds, because there is always the fast forward button to get past the boring sections and on to the interesting bits.

It is scary how effective this analysis method is for Vlado. Let's say that I'm working on a new technique or variation of a technique. I might spend a month working on it and using it only on the lower belts at the club until I think I have it down. Then I unleash it on him, and sometimes - if I'm lucky - it may even work once or twice in that first session!

Then Vlado goes home and watches the tape. Usually by the next time we spar he's figured out what my trick was, what he did wrong, and how to completely shut down my new move.

If you have the time, and especially if you're a visual learner, then give video self-analysis of your sparring sessions some consideration.

As for me, maybe I should get in touch with some counter-intelligence people, and see if I can borrow a digital video jamming device. I'm sure the big spy agencies would understand the importance of my jiu-jitsu game to national security...

Labels: training

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Is there someone at your club that you are always battling against? One week you kick his butt, and the following week it's payback time? Back and forth, week after week? If you do, then consider yourself lucky. It's a terrible thing to be the best grappler at a club...

Even if you train at a school with hundreds of members you will still probably do most of your sparring with a smaller subset of people who are roughly at your level. This core group of sparring partners will drive your development as a grappler and as a martial artist. Part of your development is because the "arms race" that you have with each specific individual.

To quote wikipedia, an arms race is "any competition where there is no absolute goal, only the relative goal of staying ahead of the other competitors." On the mat it might look something like this: one week you submit your sparring partner three times with a specific kneebar technique. The next week he figures out a counter to that technique and squashes you. The following week you've figured out how to counter his counter, and so on.

This doesn't have to be animosity between you and this other person, in fact your development is going to be fastest if you actively try to help that person beat you. What I'm talking about creating is a cooperative arms race, where you are each competing against each other, but also trying to help the other person get better.

Helping them is a bit of a selfish thing. Your goal is to make your training partner as good as he can be, so that he can then help you get better too. He will force your game to evolve to the next level.

I've personally had a long-standing arms race with one of my main training partners, Vlado. The first time Vlado and I sparred, which was about 10 years ago, he triangle choked me and I footlocked him. We've been great friends and great sparring partners ever since, but that doesn't mean that I'm not continuously plotting how to defeat his techniques, and I know he's doing the same for me.

The key detail is that it's a friendly rivalry - all I really want is for my new technique or counter to work for one day. Then I'll show him exactly what I'm doing, and the probable result is that my hard-fought advantage will slip away. That's what being a great training partner is all about. It's an arms race all right, but it has tremendous benefits for all parties involved.

Now both Vlado and I have our own approaches to developing 'the next big thing' to nullify the other guy's techniques. In the next two tips I'll spill the beans on exactly what we each do to try and get a little bit of an edge on the other guy.

Labels: training

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Back when I was mostly training in Judo I heard that there were some traditional dojos in Japan where tapping out to a choke was frowned upon - even in club sparring sessions you were supposed to fight the choke right to the bitter end, and your opponent would release the hold only AFTER you passed out. I thought that this was pretty hardcore, and felt lucky that the Judo club I trained at wasn't like that.

Towards the end of my Judo career, however, I came across something even more bizarre. A Jpanese collegiate Judo team on a North American tour came and trained at my club. Not only did these guys not tap out to chokes, they didn't tap out to jointlocks either, at least until something in the joint had popped a few times. This was in PRACTICE, not competition. The irony is that most of these guys actually weren't very good on the ground, and at the end of a training session a whole bunch of them would be sitting against the wall, nursing sore elbows.

I recently told this story to my BJJ coach, Marcus Soares. After he finished laughing and shaking his head, he told me that back in Brazil he'd done the exact opposite. If he had a submission locked in, and he was sure that could finish it, then he'd often stop that attack, release the grips and go on to hunt for another submission elsewhere.

Perhaps not coincidentally I've seen video of Marcelo Garcia, the best pound for pound grappler in the world, using this same 'Catch and Release' method in his training. By loosening up your submissions before they are finalized you can study your opponent's reactions and escape motions, and then work countering his counters to your initial attack.

This intelligent approach to training sure beats the meathead approach of putting your training partner out of commission for a few months until his arm heals up...

Finally, as I talked about in a previous tip, some submissions are just inherently more dangerous than others. Knowing how to train dangerous submissions is important: if you never, ever use them in sparring then you may develop a myopia towards them. Now you might not even recognize when people are setting them up on you, or know what to do if you're caught in one. Sometimes people even apply these submissions accidentally: they might not realize that a choke has turned into a neck crank, for example. Knowing a little bit about how to intentionally apply a neck crank will help you be aware of when you are doing them unintentionally, and also teach you how to defend against them better.

These were all considerations I had to weigh as I was writing the script for my High Percentage Leglocks DVD. I knew I wanted to show some safer yet still highly efficient material on that DVD, but I was concerned about revealing too much about the heel hook, on the off chance that someone would injure their training partner. In the end I decided that I would be doing a disservice to the grappling community by not showing the heel hook, and included a lot of different methods to train these efficient and effective submissions safely.

For a more detailed discussion of how NOT to blow out your training partner's knee while leglocking him I would like to refer you to the High Percentage Leglocks DVD itself.

So be like a fisherman, and occasionally practice Catch and Release!

Labels: Injuries, training

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Forget the work-life balance! Let's talk about something much more important: the balance between mat time and conditioning.

I bring this up because one of the questions I get asked most frequently is about how to structure one's training and conditioning for maximum benefit, and also how to fit that in with work, family, socializing and the rest of life. In fact today's newsletter is partially a response to a question a BJJ purple belt asked me after I sent out a batch of newsletters dealing with conditioning routines.

Balancing mat time with conditioning time can be a very tricky problem. There are only so many discretionary hours in a week, and doing more of one thing almost always means doing less of something else. If you have, say, 6 free hours a week, and you want to be the best grappler you can be, then the question arises whether you should spend all 6 hours on the mat, or spend at least some of those hours doing conditioning.

The interesting thing is that everyone struggles with this. It's a dilemma for the 25 year old professional fighter who has hours a day to train, as well as for the 45 year old professional accountant who likes to train a few times a week but wonders if he should also be pumping some iron.

Everybody struggles with optimizing their training time, it's just that the constraints are different. The pro fighter worries about overtraining and getting injured, and the accountant worries that his family will forget his name if he disappears for yet another weekday evening, but nobody can do as much as they want.

Be very cautious when you read about the training schedule of a professional fighter or competitor, especially if you are looking for ideas on how to structure your training. Keep in mind that:

1. they often lie about how much they do (to intimidate their opponents)
2. there is a major difference between a pre-competition training camp schedule and regular maintenance training. Their maintenance training (when they aren't getting ready for a competition) might be a lot less than they let on.
3. a pro competitor in hard training does nothing but eat, train and sleep, a luxury not available to the vast majority of grapplers
4. they may well be taking steroids or hormones to improve recovery time
   

To get closer to an answer you need to look at how much time do you have to spend on grappling each week. If you can train a lot, then you also need to figure out if you have the ability to recover from all that training. If you grapple more you get better. If you do more conditioning you get better. But if you do too much overall then you get sick or injured (i.e. if you are overtraining).

So let's say that you've figured out that you have a certain number of training hours per week. For some people this number will be low (3 or 4), for serious amateurs with a lot of extra time on their hands this might be 6 sessions (90 minutes long) per week, and for professionals it might be a lot higher (8 to 15 sessions per week). How do you allocate these sessions?

There are no cut and dried answers for this topic, so here are some thoughts and guidelines you might want to consider while planning your weekly routine.

• If your goal is primarily the development of skill and technique, then do more grappling and less conditioning. Mat time is usually the best way to improve performance, especially early in your grappling career.
• If you have dual goals of skill development AND improved fitness then allocate anywhere from 10 to 50 percent of your available training time to conditioning and the rest to grappling.
• Consider that many professional fighters have had great success only doing 2 to 3 pure conditioning sessions per week. They do a lot of additional conditioning, but it comes from sports-specific activities like doing drills, hitting pads, wrestling for takedowns, sparring, etc.
  
• If you're already doing a fair bit of grappling then 3 hard conditioning sessions per week are probably plenty (and you've likely already reaped 80% of the benefits at two hard workouts per week). Also if your grappling sessions are already fairly hard physically (i.e. they have tough warmups or have lots of sparring) then you don't need as many additional conditioning sessions.
• One way to prevent overtraining is to use periodization, in which you vary the quantity and intensity of your training over the course of weeks and months. I have previously discussed this in an article on peaking and tapering for competition.
  
• If you despise any form of conditioning, running or working out, then relax - it's OK to do more grappling and less conditioning. The acquisition of grappling skill is a long term process, and if you don't enjoy the journey then you might never reach your goal.
• For the 'older' grappler I highly recomend at least one weight training session per week. This session can be as short as 30 minutes, if you use a lot of multi-joint movements like squats, pullups, lunges, presses, etc. What constitutes 'old' is, of course, a matter of debate, but I think it's fair to say that one is generally past one's physical prime by age 35 to 40. Sensible and proper weight training slows the loss of muscle mass and injury-proofs your body, both of which will really help your jiu-jitsu or submission grappling.
• The longer you've been physically active the more you can probably heap on your plate conditioning-wise. Your body will get used to recovering faster, and you'll have more experience to know when you're worn out and need to back off the throttle a bit.
• Finally remember that any conditioning is better than no conditioning. If you hate running, hate weightlifting and hate pushups but love Ashtanga Yoga, then do Ashtanga Yoga. It may or may not be the perfect complement for your BJJ classes, but doing something you enjoy is better than finding excuses not to do the hypothetical perfect conditioning session.

Labels: conditioning, training

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I recently did a remote interview with Marshall Carpenter from Lockflow.com on the topic of how the internet has changed the way grappling knowledge is transmitted, learned and modified. You can check out the interview at Lockflow, or in the text below.

Open Source Jiu Jitsu, Session 3 by Marshal Carper

Marshall says: In November of last year, I did two articles on the impact the internet has had on the way grappling knowledge is transmitted, learned, and modified. The first article discussed my humble views on the matter, and the second article was an interview with Björn Friedrich, the owner of Fighter Fitness, a championship grade grappler, and the publisher of multiple YouTube videos that have gained a following in the Jiu Jitsu community.

Just recently, I received an email from Stephan Kesting discussing the issue at length. Kesting owns the widely popular GrappleArts.com and has released some of the best rated instructional grappling DVDs on the market today. Though the articles are nearing a year in age, Kesting’s insights into Open Source Jiu Jitsu are relevant and too useful to keep hidden.

LOCKFLOW: On your site, you have a blog offering weekly grappling tips and you often link to YouTube videos and websites run by other grapplers. While your readers obviously learn a great deal from your posts, how much do you learn from producing these articles and videos?

STEPHAN KESTING: I learn a great deal from writing my articles and producing my DVDs and Youtube videos. Creating these things helps me to organize my knowledge in an organized way, so that it can be efficiently taught and easily learned. Like most skilled grapplers I intuitively do a lot of things without thinking about them. I can DO them but you can't TEACH these things unless you've thought about them. Writing an article or producing a video forces me to take a specific topic and really, really think about it, and I always learn a lot in the process.

LOCKFLOW: How has the internet impacted the way you learn and practice grappling, if at all?

STEPHAN KESTING: The internet has helped my own learning curve in several ways. Occasionally I see a technique, or a counter to a technique that I haven't seen before, and I then take it to the mats and try it out on a non-resisting partner. Usually it turns out that these techniques are either junk or not suited to my body, but a few of them have been keepers and I end up integrating them into my game.

Stuff on the web also helped give me a 'big picture', especially when I was starting out. It helped me place techniques I was learning, and training methods I was experimenting with, into a context. Having a context allows you to figure out what you know, and to identify what you don't yet know.

A lot of my articles and videos are produced with this whole idea of context in mind. I recently had a three part article on the different kinds of guards published in Ultimate Grappling magazine, and now they're online on my site. I wrote these articles to provide a context for learning about the guard position, and if I'd known what was in those articles when I started to grapple I think it might have accelerated my learning curve by about 6 months.

• Closed Guard
• Open Guard
• Half Guard
  

LOCKFLOW: Can you think of a specific example of how your grappling knowledge was impacted by the internet?

STEPHAN KESTING: Sure! I re-learned one of my favorite triangle choke counters from the internet, the first escape on this page.

I'd been shown this triangle escape years before, but then had let it completely slip from my arsenal. When I saw that technique series it reminded me about the escape, and I've since re-incorporated it into my game.

LOCKFLOW: How do you feel the internet has impacted grappling knowledge in general?

STEPHAN KESTING: The internet, combined with the availability of instructional DVDs, has hugely accelerated the learning curve in grappling. The skill levels of both competitive and recreational grapplers is a lot higher than it was 10 years ago. If someone invents a new guard pass and uses it to win the Mundials black belt division then everyone can see it on Youtube the next day and reverse-engineer that same guard pass for themselves. Things don't stay secret for nearly as long, and that drives the evolutionary arms race at speeds that were unthinkable in the past.

LOCKFLOW: Do you see this impact as negative or positive? Why?

STEPHAN KESTING: Almost entirely positive. Some people complain that the proliferation of knowledge draws students away from working on the basics. There is a grain of truth to that argument, however most students eventually figure that out for themselves. In the final analysis, for 99% of grapplers this sport is all about fitness and enjoyment, not necessarily winning their UFC debut or medalling at the World Championships, so they should do whatever it is they enjoy. If that's working on their upside-down guard, or the X guard, or whatever, before they've mastered the basic armbar from closed guard, then who am I to say that that's wrong?

LOCKFLOW: What advice would you offer to students using the internet to supplement their grappling knowledge?

STEPHAN KESTING: Just remember that if you see something on the internet it's only the first step in a 4 step process that some people call TRIG. Here is something I posted on my blog a while back:

• T = Technique. First you have to learn the technique. Where do your arms and legs go? How do you develop power? What do you do if your opponent counters your technique.
• R = Repetition. Now you have to go and repeat the technique until your body understands it as well as your mind does. This can involve doing hundreds of repetitions, so lets get to work.
• I = Isolation. Now you use the technique in isolation. Maybe you are working on escapes to a particular position, so start every sparring session pinned in that position. Another example might be deciding only to use one submission, say the triangle choke, when sparring people of lesser skill than you.
• G = Grappling. Now you can incorporate that technique into your grappling arsenal!
  

LOCKFLOW: Is there anything else you would like to add?

STEPHAN KESTING: Yes, I'd like to invite people to come and check my site at www.grapplearts.com. It's getting to be a huge site, with a ton of articles, techniques, videos, blog posts and photos that are exactly the kind of internet references we've been talking about in this interview. When I started Grapplearts in 2002 as a venue to promote my first video I had no idea that it would ever grow to be this large a site and so well reviewed by the grappling community.

Stephan's note: Thanks to Marshall Cooper for initiating this conversation!

Labels: Grapplearts DVDs, the mental aspect, training

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I've just added a new article on how to become that great training partner that everyone wants to work with (and show all their secret techniques to). This article was written by Jason Scully from Grapplersguide.com.

Labels: the mental aspect, training

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Several tips ago I gave some advice to a reader who had suffered a rather terrible string of orthopedic injuries while training in MMA . I also opened up the conversation to other readers of this newsletter and invited comments on several martial arts forums. Thanks to everyone who wrote in, and here is what they had to say:

• "I have realized I was getting injured when I was was gassing. With better cardio, I stayed more out of trouble."
• "Nutrition plays a huge role in injury prevention. Bones and ligaments, like muscles, need fuel to regenerate. Fish oil helps for inflammation (I use Carlson's fish oil.)"
• "Being fat is an invitation for an injury. Your body isn't as balanced, and you're carrying around more weight than you should."
• "The biggest thing to prevent injuries and especially reoccuring injuries is to understand what cause them, meaning the ANGLES your body is in, and where the PRESSURE is being applied to you and don't let it get in that position again even if you have to tap for no apparent reason. I have stopped sparring matches on many occasions and my partner was like "what happened?", I just tell them the situation and let them have to closest position with them being in advantage and restart. I have never had someone complain about me doing that."
• "Find a sports medicine doctor not a primary care...makes a world of difference!!!"
• "Warm up properly. Nearly every injury I've received in judo has been from going hard early in the session before I'm warm and loosened up."
• "I find (as a 60 year old fighter) that my injuries come from rolling with guys that weigh 50, 75 100 or more pounds heavier than me.... At my age i would like to work with more guys in my weight class. It would be easier and i would develop quicker if i could just work with someone in my weight class."
• "Sometimes it is important to turn it up a notch and escalate your sparring. Recently I sparred with some MMA guys who outweighed me and all went 110% in their sparring. When I took it easy I found myself in potentially dangerous situations (e.g. stacked on the back of my neck), but when I went all out and got to the top position I was alright for the rest of the match. It's important to be aware of your training partners' tendencies, but it's also really important to know yourself too.
• "There's a big difference between being 25 and being 37 or 40. I am now going to a traditional BJJ class that focuses on technique. That's what I need to do to improve. Rolling with a bunch of testosterone junkies isn't going to make me better. My goals are to (1) not get hurt, (2) have fun, and (3) improve my BJJ. In that order, since they all depend on #1."
  

Labels: Injuries, overtraining, training

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Q: "I'm in my forties and and started MMA training a few years ago. Since then I have had many injuries including a shattered elbow, a torn knee, separations in both shoulders, and many, many more minor injuries. A sane person would stop training MMA, but i just can't give it up. I try to minimize injuries by warming up and stretching and doing some light weight training, but even now, just rolling with other guys, I get injured. Is it possible that my body just isn't cut out for this stuff? What should I do?"

A: It sounds like you have had a very bad string of injuries. There is definitely a problem, but without knowing you personally it is really, really hard to diagnose what is going on. This rate of injury is NOT normal, even for most MMA clubs. In addition to the pain of injury and the consequences for your body down the road, being injured all the time really cuts into your training and prevents you from reaching your full potential.

An obvious possibility is that you are training at a club full of very aggressive people, for whom every sparring session is a battle to the death. An alternative possibility is that it is YOU who is going way too hard in sparring, refusing to tap, etc. Either way, a simple way to diagnose whether you are in a hyperaggressive environment is to think about the other MMA and grappling clubs in your town: if you think that they are all way too mellow and laid back then it could actually be indicating that YOU are in the dysfunctional and counterproductive training environment.

You might be overtrained which could also lead to more injuries. Many people misunderstand overtraining - "but I'm not training that hard" they say. Overtraining isn't just about training too hard, it's also about under-recovering. You can overtrain doing only moderate amounts of training if your diet, sleep or stress management is inadequate. All this becomes even more important as you age - you just can't neglect your recovery the way that the average 20 year old punk can.

Finally consider that you are training in MMA, and that injury rates in MMA tend to be higher than in submission grappling (which in turn are higher than in BJJ). It's not always true, but as a rule MMA tends to attract younger, testosterone-fueled, ego-driven competitive types, and they can often make very dangerous training partners. In addition, MMA is a no-gi sport and that means that you have a faster, more explosive pace in sparring. By contrast, the gi in BJJ slows things down and makes it more of a mental game with strong aerobic and muscular endurance challenges without as strong a focus on explosiveness.

That being said, I'll share some ideas of where to go from here. Not all these suggestions necessarily apply in your case, and only you can figure which are relevant to your situation.

1. Make a mental commitment to tap out early and often when caught in bad positions.
2. Ask yourself it your training partners are concerned about your physical well being; are they trying to preserve their training partners?
3. Visit other clubs and try a class: maybe you've just taken up with a bunch of psychopaths at your current school. I'm not telling you to change schools, but the experience of training at another school (or even just watching a class there) can be quite informative.
4. Try BJJ with the gi, rather than MMA. You may find that the challenge of BJJ satisfies the same needs as your current MMA training but that the slower, more technical pace leads to less injuries. There are a lot of old, torn up Judo players in Japan who can't do much standing Judo anymore but still tear things up in newaza (ground grappling).
5. Find a sane, laidback training partner and do most of your sparring with him
6. Do more technique drilling and less sparring
7. Find out about overtraining and try to figure out if your rest and nutrition is providing the recovery you need.
   

Good luck with your situation - I really hope that you figure it out!

Stephan Kesting
www.grapplearts.com

Labels: Injuries, overtraining, training

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Physical attributes are things like balance, neck strength, limb length, explosiveness, leg flexibility, and percent body fat. Your physical attributes are the foundation of what you can do with your body, and are influenced by genetics, training, age and injuries

Some instructors teach as if everyone, regardless of age, build and flexibility, can use the same techniques. Well I'm here to tell you it's not true: physical attributes do strongly affect which techniques you'll be able to use against a struggling opponent. How your body is put together is an important factor to consider when you build your game.

The rest of this article will take a look at some concrete examples of how physical attributes aid, or hinder, the performance of specific techniques.

• Explosiveness and endurance are prerequisites for a 'mobility' game. If you don't have these attributes then you're still left with the option of a slow crushing 'positional' game.
• Different throws require different attributes. Great balance is critical for some throws like Uchi Mata, but others like Seionage require explosiveness. Timing is great to have for most throws, but some throws like footsweeps just won't work without it.
• People who regularly apply successful collar chokes tend to have killer grip strength (which can be improved by exercise)
• Standing guard passes require more balance and leg strength than do kneeling guard passes
• Longer legs are great for applying triangle chokes, and short-legged grapplers definitely need to make some adjustments in order to finish this submission
• Leg length is important for some, but not all, footlocks. The most leg-length-dependent footlock is probably the straight ankle lock (but Andre Arlovski proved me wrong by ankle locking giant Tim Sylvia in the Octagon). Leg length is a bit of an asset for heel hooks, but less so than for the ankle lock. On the other hand, leg length doesn't have much to do with successfully executing most kneebars, hip locks and calf cranks
• If you want to master the rubber guard (example shown here) then flexibility is very important; at a minimum you probably need to be able to put one foot behind your head and touch both knees to the ground when doing the 'butterfly' stretch.
• Strong arms can make some submissions more effective, including most guillotines, the Brabo choke, and the Kimura. Arm strength isn't as important for performing the armbar, but it is very helpful when it comes to defending the armbar.
• Leg length amplifies the effectiveness of the spider guard, but is relatively unimportant when it comes to using the half guard and X Guard
  

Keep in mind that every grappler who has ever set foot on a mat has had one or more 'weaker' attributes. You can compensate for weak attributes in several ways.

First of all, many attributes can be changed: flexibility, strength, endurance, speed, and balance can all be improved with training and conditioning.

Secondly, you can build your 'A game' around your strong attributes and figure out how to avoid depending on your weaker attributes.

Third, there may be technical answers to your problems. Talk to your instructor, ask your training partners and look on the internet for ideas. For examples of how the internet can help I'll point you towards three threads discussing adaptations to help short legged people develop effective triangle chokes: thread 1, thread 2 and thread 3.

In closing, let me emphasize that you should still spend some time learning and practicing techniques that aren't well suited for your body. Doing this will tighten up your defense: by practicing techniques, even ones that don't fit your body, you sensitize your spider sense to tingle when people are getting ready to try those technique on you. Also keep in mind that you may end up teaching some day, and you want to have techniques to show people who are physically dissimilar from yourself.

Labels: conditioning, Injuries, physical attributes, techniques, training

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Many grapplers start their sparring sessions on their knees. From this starting position usually one of two things happen: either the two combatants push and pull each other until one falls over, or someone pulls guard and starts looking for sweeps and submissions.

Well there are alternatives, and one option is to jump into a sweep rather than jump into guard. If things go well, the technique of the sweep combined with the momentum of the jump should bring you to the top position. If things go badly you usually end up in the guard, where you would have been anyhow if you had just pulled guard in the first place.

To help illustrate this concept I have put a short clip onto Youtube for your viewing pleasure. I should stress that the four sweeps used in this video are NOT the only sweeps that will work: your homework assignment is to examine your favorite sweeps and figure out if they might work were you to apply them from your knees (or from your feet). My video can be viewed below or found here:



When you do sweeps in this manner, the line between sweeps and Judo sacrifice throws starts to blur. To illustrate this I'd like to point you towards another Youtube video where you can see a variety of sacrifice throws (and a variety of setups) demonstrated by two skilled Judoka (click here or see below):



Before I sign off I have to give some credit, as this isn't entirely my own idea. I developed this tip after absorbing and fermenting the ideas that Marcio Feitosa, Roy Harris and Walt Bayless have shared on the topic (in seminar and/or on video).

Labels: takedowns, the guard, training, unorthodox strategies

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Stephan's note: today we have a guest author, Nicolai Geeza Holt, sharing his thoughts about a topic near and dear to my own heart: learning from instructional material. Nicolai trains with Niko Han and currently has 47 wins by submission in competition. Check out his online video collection on youtube.

The most important point to understand before you build up a big library of BJJ instruction material is this; the books, videos and DVDs you buy will not solve the practical problems you are having on the mat. Your practical problems can only be solved with practice. And you cannot practice in books or in DVDs. Practice happens on the mat.

So what are instruction materials good for?

Instruction materials can give you a big picture general idea of the kinds of things you need to master and understand over your long BJJ learning process. There are four key areas you have to master in BJJ and I will list them in order of how well BJJ instruction materials cover them.

First, techniques; BJJ instruction materials are good databases of both basic and advanced techniques.

Second, fitness; some instruction materials are specifically prepared to help you to prime your body for strength, cardio, flexibility and coordination with exercise routines, while others focus on diet or overall health.

Third, preparing your mind; some of the most insightful and useful BJJ instruction material (once you have trained past the basics), relates to how you manage what is going on in your head before, during and after marshalling on the mats.

Fourth, some BJJ instruction materials cover fight or competition strategy. This last area of knowledge is the least well covered. Strategy is rarely dealt with as the main topic and it seems to crop up as side-points to other points a teacher is making. You have to dig hard for this last kind of wisdom.

Even though the area best covered in BJJ instructional material is technique, every submission or escape, or way to improve your position, or way to prevent your opponent improving their position, takes place in a particular situation. In competition or sparring every sequence happens exactly that way only once; kind of like that old saw – you can never step into the same river twice because the river is always changing (of course this is not to say that you will not get stuck at the same old positions with some of your regular training partners). Therefore, no book or DVD that can cover more than a small fraction of the exact sequences that occur in real live situations. Because each specific sequence of moves occurs only once, most BJJ technique material breaks the knowledge down into individual submissions, holds, sweeps and moves. It is rare that more than 3 or 4 techniques are shown in sequence, and generally instructional material focuses on the details of a single technique. But good instructional material will not only outline suggestions of things to do in precise situations, it will also state the general principles that underlie the practical steps suggested.

How do we learn BJJ?

We learn BJJ by imitation. Here is a little neuroscience to explain how we imitate. In the frontal lobe of the brain is a region called the motor cortex. It is involved in the planning, control, and execution of voluntary motor functions. Meanwhile, the pre-motor cortex is an area of the motor cortex responsible for the sensory guidance of movement and especially the core trunk muscles of the body. In the pre-motor cortex there are cells that fire when we move our limbs, shrimp or grip. The pre-motor cortex also has groups of cells called mirror neurons that fire we watch someone else move their limbs, shrimp or grip. Mirror neurons are critical to imitation. The more you watch other people do BJJ, the more your mirror neurons fire. The circuits are automatic and they bypass conscious mediation.

Typically most people can copy complex sequence of actions after they have seen them 3 times ( i.e. fired up their mirror neurons 3 times!). BJJ superstars (or any sports superstar), naturally has extensive networks of mirror neurons. The good news is that anyone can build their mirror neuron networks with practice. The point of all this is that the more visual that the learning materials you use are, the easier it is to fire up your mirror neurons and consequently the easier it is to imitate what you just saw. So just watching others doing BJJ can help your own BJJ.

Which one to choose? - BJJ Books versus DVDs versus YouTube

BJJ Books are good because they give you time to think about what is being taught you, they have visual content in the form of pictures and their written word is carefully thought through, well articulated and edited. The weakness of books is that still pictures are less effective at firing up your mirror neurons and frequently the author has a self-congratulatory tone as opposed to a simple genuine desire to spread knowledge.

DVDs are good because they are highly visual in a way specifically designed to fire up your motor neurons and they present a coherent body of knowledge. The weakness of DVDs is that they are expensive, they are extremely mixed in terms of quality and they often have lots of filler techniques that no-one ever uses.

YouTube is good because it is free, you can search for a specific technique and get a variety of insights from many different teachers, you have easy access to all the info, it is highly visual, and you can get both theory and practical content. (Try searching for rear naked choke in YouTube to see the wealth of knowledge available). The weakness of YouTube as a BJJ learning tool is that it is an incoherent collection of videos, good in some areas and weak in others, and you can easily get side-tracked in your learning process.

Some other bullet points on BJJ instruction material

• If your own instructor makes a DVD definitely buy it – it will greatly speed your learning process.
• Watch the whole DVD in one sitting first time through to understand the full set of ideas the instructor is proposing.
• It is a business. Being a BJJ teacher is not a well paid profession and therefore the best will try and supplement their income by selling instruction material. What gets a product sold is not always what will help your BJJ.
• It takes a long time to learn BJJ and nothing can beat a good instructor giving you good drills to do with a good training partner.
• BJJ instruction materials can give you new ideas when you are getting stale.
• Think of BJJ instruction material as being analogous to vitamins in your diet – you need all the basic stuff in your diet and vitamins add that something extra for top performance.
• Most BJJ instruction material is weak on counter techniques, so make sure you ask your instructor for the defence each time you learn a technique.
  

Labels: Grapplearts DVDs, techniques, training

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I think that grappling drills can serve an important function. Not everybody agrees with me about this: some people think that movement repetition outside the context of a resisting opponent is 'dead' training and a waste of time and energy. Sparring, they say, is a far better way to develop the movements and attributes so essential for grappling.

Of course I believe in sparring. Of course I also believe in sparring exercises where your partner/opponent only gives you certain specific sorts of pressure or resistance. Of course I don't think that all your training should be devoted just to grappling drills. Drilling definitely has their place in my world though, because the correct drill introduced at the correct time can have dramatic results. Sometimes isolating a movement in a drill for just a few minutes is all a person needs to make a major breakthrough.

In a sport that is evolving as fast as ours there is no way that anyone can have the last comprehensive word on drills. Even though I have put out a well-reviewed video on the topic other people have developed or collected other useful drills too. Here are some of the better grappling drill video clips I found online:

Gracie Barra BJJ Drills: not much explanation is given (or needed) in this fast paced collection of movement drills.

Punching Bag Drills: How to use a horizontal punching bag to train transitions between different top positions.

Wall Drill: De la Riva is speaking Portugese while explaining how move his hips, but it's easy to understand what he's trying to convey.

Various Exercises from a DVD called 'Grappling Drills' by some guy called Stephan Kesting

1. Basic backwards shrimping
   
2. Half wall spins
   
3. Kneemount spin armbar
   
4. Turtle flips
   

Stability Ball Movement Drilling by Renato Tavares

Stability Ball Drilling by Hywel Teague,

Spinning BJJ Drill: using a partner to develop transitions between different open guard positions

Various Drill Videos on the site www.lockflow.com

No-Gi BJJ Drills: two grapplers work on a variety of submission and movement drills without the gi.

Guard Pass Drill: this one develops both standing guard pass and the hip, leg and arm motion required to put your opponent back into the guard.

Andre Galvao discusses how he trains movement and coordination (which looks a lot like Ginastica Natural).

Submission Training Drills from www.subfighter.com

Have fun watching this material and training it too!

Labels: training

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There's one at almost every club. The guy who can't lose. The guy who always goes 100%. The guy who applies every submission with speed and power. The guy who fights as if his life depends on it. One sure indicator that someone is a grappling berserker is that he is always injuring his training partners and/or himself.

A favorite trick of a berserker is to say something like "I'm feeling tired (or sick, or injured) today, let's just go 50% and flow". Usually it takes less than 10 seconds of sparring for them to go into turbocharged berserker mode. Now you've got to make a decision to get crushed or to play his game and match his intensity.

There's nothing wrong with hard-fought, high intensity rolling, especially if you have competitive aspirations. Making EVERY sparring match a battle to the death, however, is suboptimal for several reasons:

First of all, the chances of injury increase, both for you and your opponents.

Secondly, since everything is tense, tight and explosive it limits the development of that elusive attribute 'flow'.

Thirdly, it limits your pool of training partners. People will start avoiding you on the mats, either because they don't want to get injured or simply because they aren't in the mood for an all-out dogfight.

Finally, it can stop you from becoming well rounded, because if winning every sparring match is the only thing that counts then you probably won't willingly put yourself into bad situations or positions you need to improve at.

If you have a berserker at your club I'm not saying that you shouldn't spar with him; in fact they can be very useful training partners depending on what aspect of your game you are working on. The main thing is that you have to know what you are getting into and be prepared for a battle every single time. Don't get sucked into starting out light and easy and then, without warning, having the intensity escalated on you.

Labels: Injuries, the mental aspect, training

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Q: How can I still train if I have an injured hand, wrist, arm or shoulder?

A: One great drill to do (whether you are injured or not) is the 'Two Legs, One Arm Drill". Start with a partner. Both you and your partner grab your own belts (or waistband of your shorts) with one hand, effectively taking one arm out of play. Now you start with one person in the open guard trying to pass: he can stand or kneel as he wishes. The other person defends using one arm, both legs and hip movement; if he can pull off a sweep, so much the better! If one person passes the guard both people stop, go back into the guard, and start again.

I have used this drill while injured on a number of occasions, and every time the leg agility and open guard defense have improved noticeably. The hard part is not letting go of your belt while scrambling, but this is critical to the drill.

In addition to this drill, I would suggest that you do whatever you can on the conditioning front. Can you still run? Go on the stairmaster? Weight train your legs and core? It will all pay off when your injury heals and you are ready to go 100% on the mats again.

Labels: Injuries, training

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Q: You say that there are 3 main components to MMA: is it important to train these 3 components together or train them separately? For example should you add strikes to the clinch or just wrestle? Should you always train grappling with striking? How can I combine these areas if there isn't an MMA school near me?

A: If MMA or self defense are your focus then you should train each of these three areas separately AND train them together: this is what almost all the top fighters do.

The reason you want to train each area separately (at least some of the time) is so that you can develop skills in that area, without relying on your strengths in the other areas. If you always blend standup and ground, grappling and striking, then your weaknesses in one area might remain hidden for a long time.

The reason you want to combine striking, wrestling and grappling in your training (at least some of the time) is to simulate a real fight as closely as possible and also to find out if you have developed any bad habits in your training. For example, if your wrestling stance is extremely low with your hands on your knees, or if you use your closed guard without breaking your opponent's posture posture or controlling his head and arms, then a brief MMA sparring session will definitely be an eye-opening experience for you.

If there isn't an MMA school near you then combining strikes with your wrestling with your grappling is going to be difficult. The boxers you train with will only want to box, the wrestlers will only want to wrestle.... So you may need to train these areas independently until you can either find an MMA school or some training partners who are willing to to cross train. Even if you are training them separately you are still laying solid foundations for later, so this is NOT wasted effort.

Another useful tip if you are training with pure grapplers is to put them in your guard with gloves on and encourage them to try to punch you: you're not allowed to punch back, only defend, sweep, submit, etc. Often-times training partners don't like to get hit, but they don't have a problem with hitting you, so you can still do this drill.

Labels: training

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Injuries suck. They hurt, they take a long time to heal, and most importantly, they prevent you from training. Knowing how to train around injuries is an important part of getting better at any sport, and this is especially true in grappling.

In the past I have often used tape, braces and other gear to protect minor injuries and stop them from turning into major ones (as discussed here, for example).

Major injuries are more tricky, because your number one priority should be not to make that injury worse. However, often there is still some limited training you can do. For hand, arm and shoulder injuries, for example, you can tuck that arm into your belt (or grab your waistband) and work your open guard using just your legs and one arm. If your opponent passes your guard then STOP, let your opponent go back into your guard, and then start again. I have done this exercise safely with a cast on a fractured arm, and when that cast came off I found that I had really improved my open guard game.

As you may know, I recently injured my neck. A pinched nerve root at the base of the cervical spine has resulted in weakness and numbness down my left arm. A neurologist tells me that these injuries typically take 3 to 6 months to heal. Furthermore I'm not supposed to do any grappling nor lift any heavy weights until it heals.

Now being stubborn and foolish I'm going to partially ignore my doctors. I intend to continue grappling until this heals, albeit with several important caveats:

1. I'm only going to do light rolling
2. I'm only going to roll with people who have good physical (and emotional) control.
3. I'm going to avoid any and all positions or techniques that put strain on my neck
4. It's going to be ridiculously easy to tap me out: just grab my head or neck and I'm going to tap right away
   

I also intend to do a lot of aerobic and anaerobic conditioning during my recovery, since running on flats, hills and stairs doesn't seem to irritate the injury at this point. I'm going to do some light weights, just to maintain some muscle tone in my upper body, but definitely nothing heavy or extreme. Finally I have used this injury as an excuse to buy a couple of jiu-jitsu books and DVDs that I've been wanting to look at for a while now.

When I heal up I'll still be in the grappling mindset, have great cardio, and be ready to go!

Labels: Injuries, training

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Q: "I would like to hear you address grappling with no formal teacher or school. What are the benefits/downsides to this? What should we be careful to avoid? This is the situation I am in now, I get to practice with some good guys but have actually never had formal training. "

A: Let's start my answer with a story:

Back in the late 1980's I was training in Emperado-method Kajukenbo Karate under Philip Gelinas. At this time BJJ was still incredibly rare, but I came across the old Gracie in Action videos. By watching the fights on these videos three things immediately became clear:

1. That sitting on top of someone was a good place to be (i.e. the mount)
2. If you were on the bottom you wanted to wrap your legs around your opponent's torso (i.e the guard)
3. That twisting or hyperextending someone's arms, legs or neck could force them to give up (i.e. jointlocks and chokes).
   

Now this was scarcely the most sophisticated analysis of BJJ strategy, but armed with these three nuggets my training partners and I started hitting the mats. In our group we had some Judo, Shooto, wrestling and traditional japanese jiu-jitsu knowledge, but nothing high level, and certainly nothing formal. Our sparring sessions included hair-pulling, eye-gouging and finger-twisting: it's a miracle that nobody was severely injured. Nevertheless, we made a lot of progress and had a lot of fun.

I give this early training a lot of credit, because we were still trying to control opponents who didn't want to be controlled, and trying to submit training partners who were trying to submit us in return. I am forever grateful to Philip Gelinas for permitting, nurturing and encouraging these rough and tumble sessions.

A few years later I started studying grappling more formally, under a variety of instructors (Marcus Soares, Pshemek Drabchinsky, Erik Paulson, Walter Lanz and Joe McCarthy). I think that the informal training I had done earlier had laid a good foundation, and I quickly soaked up knowledge like a sponge. So YES, I believe that most people can make good progress in grappling without frequent access to a 'proper' instructor.

Even though instructor-less progress is possible, I think that most people will benefit from having access to a formal coach, even if they only see him once or twice a year. This becomes more important as the person tries to move from being a beginner to an intermediate or advanced level grappler, because a coach-type figure might be able to see holes in your game that your sparring partners cannot.

If you can't actually go and train under a formal coach then at least get some sparring time with formally trained people once in a while. Even if this only happens every 3 or 4 months it will help you to gauge the effectiveness of your training and prevent you from living in a dreamworld with regard to your skill level.

Related tips: I have previously written about learning techniques from the internet and people starting their own training groups.

Labels: training

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Q: Given that leglocks are dangerous, how do you train them safely and still have confidence that they will work in a 'live' setting.

A: Although ANY submission is potentially dangerous, cranking someone with a heel hook or toehold can not only end the match, it can end your opponent's athletic career. Go here if you don't know what a heel hook is. . If you don't know what a toehold is, check out the second-last photo in this article about the kneebar.

These two leglocks are dangerous because they are twisting submissions and can severely damage ligaments in the knee and foot. Furthermore, for most submissions the pain starts well before there is any damage to the joint. With twisting leglocks, however, you often don't feel much initial pain: as someone is applying it to you might not feel anything at all, then you might feel a bit of discomfort, and then BANG, you feel a lot of pain because something has popped or torn.

So how do you train these dangerous locks so that you can trust in their effectiveness? My answer has 3 parts:

1 - Master the straight anklelock and the kneebar

When applying 95% of leglocks you end up either facing your opponents head, or facing his feet. The mechanics of controlling your opponent in these two positions are relatively similar whether you are doing a 'safe' straight lock or a 'dangerous' twisting lock.

The straight anklelock teaches you how to control your opponent's legs, body and bodyweight when you are facing his head. The mechanics and techniques to control your opponent in this position translate well to controlling your opponent when attacking with a heel hook (and some variations of the toehold). The kneebar is the cornerstone leglock for learning how to control your opponent when you are facing his feet: once you master the kneebar you will have a lot more confidence maintaining positions where you are facing your opponent's feet while attacking with other techniques (the toehold, for example).

I should emphasize that just because straight anklelocks and kneebars are fairly safe submissions this DOESN'T give you permission to apply them ballistically. At full power and full speed these 'safe' submissions can still screw up someone's joints pretty badly (just like any other jointlock). Apply them with control, and remember it is far better to have someone counter your submission because you were applying it too slowly, rather than injuring them and losing a training partner.

Here are a few resources to help you understand and improve your straight anklelock and kneebar:

• www.grapplearts.com/Ankle-Lock-Breakdown.htm
• www.grapplearts.com/Kneebar-Mastery.htm
• www.grapplearts.com/Kneebar-Q&A.htm

2 - Apply dangerous leglocks with control

Most sensible people who want to include toeholds and heelhooks in their grappling practice catch-and-release sparring when it comes to these two submissions. They fight hard to get to the right body position, then hunt for the correct hand position, and then hold the submission loosely (or apply it very slowly and very gently). At this point BOTH PARTNERS STOP MOVING and acknowledge that the submission probably would probably have worked if it had been applied hard and fast.

All that is lacking in this type of sparring is the final explosion into the submission. If you understand how to control your opponent with your legs (by practicing the ankelock and kneebar), and you know how to get to the correct hand position for the heel hook and toehold (by practicing catch-and-release sparring) then you can be fairly certain that your techniques will work in a live situation.

3 - Pick your sparring partners carefully.

Obviously catch-and-release sparring doesn't work if either party is a) too caught up in their ego to stop contesting a lock once it is on, or b) too inexperienced to know that they, or their partner, are in danger. Don't do these leglocks with a newbie, or the class spaz, or the guy who won't tap out unless he hears something pop, or the guy who needs to submit everyone hard and fast.

Labels: leglocks, training

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Oleg Taktarov once told me, more or less in these words, that "it is a terrible thing to be the best grappler at your school". What he was getting at was that if you are always the king of the jungle in your sparring sessions then it is really hard to get better.

Now this might not be an issue if you are training at a large jiu-jitsu academy where there are many black belts and brown belts on the mat every training session, but unfortunately not everyone has access to those sorts of clubs. For every student at a large academy there are probably 5 or 10 grapplers training at a small club, in a friend's garage, or in a rec center.

So what can you do if you are the best grappler among your group of sparring partners - how do you improve your skills? The answer lies in limiting your game. For example try going for one week (or one month) only trying to get to, maintain, and finish from, rear mount. Then spend the same period of time always starting from underneath your opponents' mount. Then move on to only finishing with the armbar from the guard. I am sure you get the picture by now and can come up with many other ways of limiting your game.

What you are doing here is educating your opponents to give you a hard time. If you think it's easy to apply an armlock to someone just wait until they figure out that you're ONLY attacking with armlocks - they will start getting better at all the counters, forcing you to become better at the setups and recounters. Everybody wins, and perhaps someday you will have created sparring partners who are at your level.

Labels: training

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Recently my game has taken off. My guard passing has gotten a lot better, my escapes are more reliable, and I've been having success with some new submissions (and rediscovering some old ones). I'm pretty sure I know exactly why this has happened - increased training volume!

Up until a couple of months ago I was at a very busy time in my life, trying to find the balance between work and play, family and business, training and resting. There were times when all I could do to train once a week; a good week was getting on the mat twice. The only saving grace was that my conditioning didn't suffer too much, because I was still running, lifting weights, and doing circuit training.

Then a couple of months ago I managed to streamline my life a little bit, and started hitting the mats 3 times, and sometimes even 4 times, a week, while still doing most of my conditioning. It was a rough go at first - all that happened initially was that I was getting my ass kicked more times a week. Eventually, though, persistence paid off, something 'clicked' and my game jumped a notch or two.

Now the takehome message is NOT that you should all train 4 times a week - that would be great, but not everybody is at a life stage where that is possible. My point is that sometimes life demands that you put your art on the back burner for a while, where you will try to keep it simmering away. Of course some extra conditioning during your hiatus from the mats will only help. Then, when circumstances change (or you change the circumstances), you can ramp up the training again and not be too far behind where you left off. Who knows, you might even be able to have some exciting breakthroughs!

Labels: training

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First I’d like to congratulate friend and former training partner Denis Kang on his recent victory in Pride Bushido 8 in Japan. He out-punched and out-grappled UFC veteran Andrei Semov to earn a unanimous decision. Even more impressive is the fact that he broke his right hand 4 minutes into the fight, and continued to give the tough Russian hell for the next 11 minutes! Go Denis: I'm sure that we'll be seeing a lot more of you in the big MMA shows!

Denis’s recent victory in Pride got me thinking about the world of difference between professional and recreational grapplers. Denis and I started Brazilian jiu-jitsu at about the same time, and for a long time following we were neck-and-neck skill wise. Even after he started pursuing his MMA career I could still usually keep up to him on the grappling mat.

Things changed when he quit his job and dedicated himself to full-time training. He got wrestling coaches, boxing coaches and conditioning coaches. He saw dieticians, chiropractors and naturopaths. In addition to jiu-jitsu he started sparring with professional kickboxers and elite-level wrestlers. He started doing two workouts a day, usually taking a nap in between to recover. Basically all he did was eat, sleep, train and recover. He lived and breathed MMA fighting.

Hours and hours of additional training, combined with his superb athletic gifts, paid off. He started catching me in submissions and bad positions much more often than I caught him, and eventually I stopped being able to catch him at all. He had reached an entirely different level than your humble narrator.

There is a danger when a recreational grappler (and that is 99% of people who roll around on a mat) hears about a professional fighter’s training regimen and tries to imitate it. Unless you are already in killer shape, have good genetics, are able to get 10 or more hours of sleep a night, and have few other concerns in your life you simply won’t be able to train at this intensity and duration for very long. You will either get injured or burned out very quickly.

It is important to keep things in perspective: only very few people who train in grappling have the athletic gifts, the determination and luck to make a living by fighting professionally. If fighting professionally is your goal then I salute you, but also encourage you to develop some skills you can use when your fighting career is over. If, like most people, you have a job, family and other obligations you can still reach a high level of skill, but it will take longer.

Look to professionals for inspiration. Listen to them when they talk about technique or share their fight strategy - they've worked hard to acquire this knowledge and most are eager to share it. Just keep things in perspective, that’s all.

Labels: training

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My head is spinning. I just got back from 7 days in Los Angeles, attending an Indonesian Silat training camp taugh by no other than Dan Inosanto. I also got to train with Erik Paulson and Vladimir Matsushenko and learned lots of great material, both on the ground and standing. As if this wasn't enough, tonight I attended a 4 hour Carlson Gracie seminar. Talk about information overload!

The reason I bring this up is to make a point: take advantage of training oportunities when you have the chance. If you are travelling and end up near a jiu-jitsu academy pay the drop-in fee and see how they do things.


I'm not in Los Angeles very often, so when I do get there I try to make the most of it

This all ties in

Some instructors will take offense at you doing this, but it is really a shame

Contact information for the 3 places I trained at is as follows:

Labels: training

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Probably the most common question I get asked is "how many times a week should I train to make progress?" As with most questions the answer is "it depends".

Once a week: If you are just starting grappling you can definately pick up a few things training even once a week, particularly if you already practice another martial art. Additionally there are lots books, videos and/or internet information that can learn from on days that you aren't training.

If you are a seasoned grappler who has become too busy to hit the mats as often as before you too may be reduced to training once week. Let me reassure you that training once a week is much, much, much better than not training at all. You will maintain at least some of your timing and conditioning, and will be much further ahead when you can return to your previous level of training. Of course if you can augment your weekly training session with some cardio or strength training so much the better.

Twice a week: Twice a week is enough for most recreational grapplers to maintain their skill level. You can even make some improvements training only twice a week, especially if your training is focused and you are able to do some conditioning on your days off. There have been times in my life when hitting the mats twice a week was about all I could pull off; by focusing my training I still managed to make improvements in some areas.

Three times a week: If you can train 3 times a week consistently you will make good progress. Once again, any studying, conditioning or cross-training you do on your days off will likely accelerate your learning so long as you avoid overtraining.

Four or more times a week: Now we are getting into the territory of the serious practitioner, competitor and/or professional fighter. Training this intensely may include conditioning sessions, sparring sessions, cross-disciplinary training and two-a-day sessions. At this intensity quality and quantity of rest/recovery becomes important because overtraining is a constant danger. For more information on this see my article on overtraining at www.grapplearts.com/Overtraining-Article.htm

Labels: training

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The last two weeks I have talked about solo drills and partner drills. There is a final category of drills I'd like to talk about: competitive 2 person drills.

When you do this type of drilling you are training a specific aspect of your game against a resisting opponent. Essentially you are severely limiting the options available to you and your partner, and from this limitation comes refinement of existing techniques and innovation of new techniques.

The aspect that you are working on could be very general (e.g. passing the open guard) or very specific (e.g. getting a certain grip or maintaining a certain kind of posture). The level of resistance that you opponent/partner gives you can vary from about 10% to full out 100% sparring.

This definition of drilling leads to a truly staggering number of possible drills. The best thing for you to do is to try to develop various drills that will develop your game. Consider the process of taking someone's back and submitting him. If this was an area that you wanted to develop, then here are some of drills you might want to experiment with. Depending on what your strengths, weaknesses and strategies are you may end up retaining some of these drills for a while, in order to hone your ability to attack the back. All these drills start with your partner in the turtle and you on top of him - your goals, however, vary from drill to drill.

1. He tries to put you in the guard, you try to keep him turtled using your bodyweight and moving around him
2. Your goal is to obtain your favorite grip, be it linked hands under-over, double lapel grips through his armpits, or whatever your favorite control grip is. You restart in the same position if you get your grip, or if he puts you in the guard, or if he stands up, or if he rolls you.
3. Your goal is to get both hooks in - restart if you succeed or if he escapes to a safe position.
4. Start with one hook in: your goal is to insert the second hook. His goal is to remove your hook and to prevent the second hook. Go for a defined time period (e.g. 2 minutes) and then switch positions.
5. Your goal is to keep the back and submit him: restart if you submit him from rearmount, or if he escapes, or even if you end up pinning him in any other position than with your chest on his back.
6. etc.
   
7. etc.
8. etc.
   

This is just scratching the surface, and you should now be able to see that you could do similar drills for virtually every position and every submission. All it takes is some honesty and perception on your part to know what your weaknesses are, and some inventiveness to create the drill(s) to fix that weakness.

This sort of drilling is very similar to what I call 'targeted sparring'. For more information on targeted sparring check out these other tips of the week':

• Targeted Sparring: Mobility
• Targeted sparring: Position
• Targeted Sparring: Limited Technique
• Targeted Sparring: Bad Positions
  

Labels: positions, training

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Two-person drills are important training methods to develop skills on the mat. They can be used to warm up at the beginning of your training session, as part of your conditioning program, or as a finishing exercise. You can do these drills to improve your bridging power, refine your hip movement on the bottom, speed up your submissions, or to develop many other skills and attributes.

Today I will give you two examples of two-person drills. Keep in mind that not every drill is useful for every skill level or body type, so there is an onus on every grappler to choose appropriate drills. My ultimate goal is that you will use these examples to develop new drills, specific to your body, your game, and your grappling goals.

In the "kneemount spin armbar drill" (click here to download a QT preview) you are doing repetitions of the 180 degree armbar. This is a fundamental attack in Brazilian jiu-jitsu and submission grappling, but requires lots of repetition to make it smooth and fast. This drill is one way to get lots of repetitions, in a fairly painless manner.

In the final drill, "turtle flips" (click here to download a QT preview) you are developing the back arch, spatial awareness and athleticism. Turtle flips are easier to do if your partner is wearing a gi, but I first saw this exercise in a Shooto class, so it is possible to do them without the gi. This is obviously a fairly advanced drill, and requires that you have put in your time with more basic back arch/bridging drills.

Have fun with these drills.

Labels: positions, training

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When solo grappling drills are used properly they can improve a grappler’s coordination, endurance, strength and speed. They can be used as part of a warmup session or to specifically improve aspects of your grappling game.

To start, let’s concentrate on one of the most fundamental solo exercises: backwards shrimping (click here to view the basic backwards shrimping drill in Quicktime video). This is a drill that should be in every grappler’s repertoire.

How many times have you heard the advice “move your hips”, whether you were escaping from a pin or trying to apply a submission? Lateral, or side-to-side, hip movement is critical to a grappler’s game, especially when playing the guard game or escaping from bad positions.

Practicing backwards shrimping (or “ebi” in Japanese) is an effective shortcut to developing efficient side-to-side hip movement. Once mastered, there are many more challenging variations of shrimping to further improve hip mobility on the ground.

An example of a more specialized solo drill is half wall spins (click here to view the half wall spin drill in Quicktime video). Intermediate and advanced guard players often end up spinning and rotating in their guard, both to prevent guard passing and to set up their own attacks. Becoming comfortable with this sort of body position and movement via a drill like half wall spins can improve mobility in the guard when it comes to sparring time.

Now spinning upside down and replacing the guard might not be part of your game – fair enough. But I guarantee that there are other solo drills you can come up with that will help you develop some aspect of your game, no matter what your game is.

Labels: training

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As some of you might know, I have been editing a new video/DVD on drills for submission grappling and Brazilian jiu-jitsu (subtle marketting alert!). This has led to some interesting online and offline conversations with people on the topic of drills, which in turn has inspired me to write on the topic of drilling.

Almost everybody agrees that drilling is important, but almost everybody defines the word “drills” differently. This, in turn, leads to confusion and a lot of miscommunication when discussing drills and the value of drilling. I think the matter is clarified somewhat if we acknowledge that there are at least three major types of drills:

1 – Solo drills: in solo drills you are practicing a position, movement, or technique by yourself. Some simple examples of solo drills include the penetration step from wrestling and the ‘shrimping’ exercise where you move across the mat using lateral hip movement.

2 - Cooperative 2 person drills: when you practice a cooperative 2 person drill you are working together with the other person to develop a certain motion or technique. Taking turns with your partner drilling the swinging armbar from the guard is an example of this sort of drill.

3 – Competitive 2 person drills: competitive 2 person drills generally require you to accomplish a goal working against partial or full resistance from your partner. A classic competitive drill is to let your partner start fully mounted on you and then try to escape while he tries to submit you.

Like all classification systems, of course, these categories have their limitations. For example there are a few drills that involve more than 2 people. Most drills, however, will fit into one of these three categories. Think about your own training for a moment, and consider whether you use drills or not, and which category they fit into if you do use them.

When I teach classes or workshops I usually use all 3 types of drills. I think that each type of drill is valuable, and I will discuss them each in more detail in the weeks to come.

Labels: training

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In this last installment on fine-tuning your sparring time I would like to talk about starting your sparring sessions from bad positions. Starting out in a bad position is a good way to rapidly improve your pin escapes and submission counters. It is also a great way to challenge yourself, particularly when sparring lighter or less experienced people.

Here are some potential ways to start your sparring:

• Your partner pinning you in mount, side mount or rear mount. He should make sure that he is attacking from that position, and is not just holding on for dear life. The sparring round ends when you tap or you escape into a neutral position (e.g. guard).
• Your partner in the armbar position with you clasping your hands together.
• You in the turtle position and him on top of you, with the grip of his choice.
• You in your partner’s guard and in a loose triangle choke, his legs crossed at the ankles.
• You standing and your partner grabbing both of your legs behind your knees, as if he’s just shot in on a double leg (you could also do similar drills from a single leg, high crotch or low single position). His goal is to take you down, and your goal is to escape or counter his takedown.
• Any other bad position you can think of, particularly ones that you have difficulty escaping from in sparring.
  

There are three ways you can do this drill. First: you could simply start your sparring session in this position, and if you escape then just continue sparring until the round ends or someone taps. Second: when you escape from your positional predicament stop and immediately go back to the same position. Third: you and your partner can change positions after each submission or escape, so that you can both get the benefits of being on top and on bottom.

These drills also benefit your partner. For example, while you are working on your mount escapes he is working on maintaining the mount position and attacking from there. No matter who taps, everybody wins!

Letting your sparring partner start in a dominant position is not a training method for people with fragile egos. Understand this: if you let people start in a dominant position you WILL get tapped out more often in training, and you WON’T catch your partners in as many submissions yourself. On the other hand, your ability to defend against submissions and escape from bad positions will skyrocket, and when you do get caught in a bad position it’ll be just another day in the office rather than a reason to panic.

Labels: positions, training

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A good way to get more out of your sparring sessions is to limit the techniques you can use. As has been pointed out many times in many different disciplines, creativity thrives on limitation, because it forces you to think outside the box to achieve your goal.

Try this training method: pick just one technique and make that your focus the next 10 sparring sessions. It doesn’t matter if that technique is the straight armbar, a specific guard sweep, a method of taking the back or the high crotch takedown: in these sessions your only focus will be executing your target technique. If you are working a specific butterfly guard sweep, for example, then start every sparring session in the butterfly guard. If you succeed in sweeping your opponent then go back to the butterfly guard and try again. After you've swept your partner a few times he will start doing different things to counter you, whether it be shifting his weight, posting his foot, denying you your grips, etc. Now the game evolves as you to come up with the answers to the questions posed by his defenses.

For best results stick with your chosen technique for more than one training session. This will allow you (and your sparring partners) to reflect on your training session and come up with new solutions to the problems you encountered. You WANT people to figure out counters to your technique, so that you can learn and practice counters to their counters.

This training method allows you to improve when you are sparring opponents who are less skilled than yourself. As your sparring partners get wise to what you are trying to do they will become much better at defending that technique. They will become experts at defending your technique, and this in turn will force you to become better at setting up, applying, and finishing the technique in question.

Labels: training

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A 'position game' is usually characterized by tight transitions between positions, an emphasis on maintaining a position while attacking, and lots of pressure while in a top position. How does one become better at this game?

One good method is to spar and make all your transitions slow, tight and methodical. If you are in your opponent's guard, then use a guard pass that doesn't rely on speed and explosiveness - for example the 'leg on the shoulder' guard pass. As you go through the guard pass pause after each movement and let your opponent try to fight his way out of it: if your technique and pressure are correct he should be unable to resist, even though you are essentially doing it in slow motion.

You can train this way using all sorts of techniques, including submissions, transitions and even some escapes. It is best to initially stick to training with people either lighter, or less experienced, than yourself. If you pick someone who really challenges you then it will be more difficult to try out a new game. After you have perfected your slow motion crushing guard pass, or the unstoppable armlock from sidemount, then you can try it out on your normal grappling partners.

The ability to lock into a position and feel unmovable to your opponent is central to this game. Think of yourself as a ratchet: once you gain an inch of territory you refuse to give it back. Accordingly, some isometric strength is useful for a position-based game in grappling. You don't need to be able to deadlift 400 pounds to do it properly, however; good technique can make you feel twice as heavy as you actually are.

Labels: positions, training

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Sometimes it is good to just go and roll, with no plans, no goals and just see what happens. You will make faster progress, however, if you have a plan for most, if not all, your sparring sessions. In the next several installments I am going to talk about different strategies to organize your sparring.

In the last tip of the week (http://www.grapplearts.com/2004/11/mobility-and-position.htm) I discussed the difference between mobility-based and position-based strategies. Suppose you want to work on your mobility game - what can you do to develop and refine this style of grappling?

Roger Machado suggests a great exercise to improve your mobility game. In this exercise you spar with your partner, but you both have to move to a new position or submission at least every 3 seconds. This means that if you find yourself in mount and you haven't submitted your opponent in 3 seconds you might dismount and go to side control. If you are trying a guard pass that isn't working then you have to switch to another guard pass: no forcing the movement. If you do submit your opponent, or if he submits you, then go right back to the exercise and continue. Don't get all caught up in who taps who: this exercise is a training method, and isn't the competition itself.

This approach to sparring creates a LOT of movement, and gets you accustomed to a faster pace with lots of transitions and scrambling. If you are more skilled than your training partner you can even do it without telling your sparring partner, but for maximum movement chaos get both people in on the drill. If you are both committed to moving to frequently moving to a new position your mobility on the mat will certainly increase!

As a sidenote, an effective movement game does require some cardiovascular conditioning. If you are severely sucking wind after just 20 seconds of scrambling then you had better head off to the jogging track or the exercise bike. If you don't know much about cardio training then take advantage of the articles and tips on cardio conditioning at www.grapplearts.com.

Labels: training

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There are two basic games in grappling: the 'mobility game' and the 'position game'.

The mobility game is based on speed and movement - transitions between positions, attacks and reversals are accomplished with speed. Mobility fighters might use speed to pass the guard, and then transition from sidemount to kneemount to mount to armbar so fast that their opponents have difficulty keeping track of what is going on. Frank Shamrock is a good example of a mobility fighter: he uses his athleticism, explosiveness and mobility to run opponents into the ground.

The position game is based on weight, control and pressure. Position fighters emphasize being in control of their opponent's body, using their weight and grips to shut down their movement. Transitions are usually accomplished slowly with a lot of pressure. My BJJ coach, Marcus Soares, is the embodiment of the position game: when he gets his position (any position) you feel so immobilized that your will to fight is cut in half. It's hard enough to breath, let alone formulate an escape plan!

There is a tendency for smaller, lightweight fighters to use a mobility game and for heavier, stronger fighters to use a position game. This generalization is far from perfect, though. There are many larger grapplers who use a lot of movement and mobility in their games and vice versa. There are also people who can switch between the two games, for example using the mobility game to pass the guard and then using the position game when they get to sidemount.

Roger Machado addressed this issue at a recent seminar - he believes that one of the best thing you can do to improve your overall grappling is to work on game you don't use. If you are a mobility fighter, then you should work on your position game. If you are a position fighter, then work on your mobility game. In upcoming tips I am going to give some specific recommendations of what you can do to develop these games in your sparring.

Labels: training

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The more complex a motor skill is, the more repetition is required to make it instinctive, smooth and efficient. Let me tell you a little story to illustrate what I mean.

About 2 years ago I decided to work on a specific armbar escape. To do this particular escape you need to do 3 things nearly simultaneously: twist your arm and shoulder, bridge your hips to the side (not up) and run your feet away from your opponent in a half circle. This is a fairly complex movement, so I drilled it a lot: every class I'd grab someone, ask them to lightly armbar me, and I would practice this technique 5, 10 or 20 times.

Not surprisingly this escape started working really well for me. I used it in sparring all the time and even in competition. Life was good.

Then this escape stopped working: I would try using it but my timing and technique just weren't up to snuff. After some reflection I realized what had happened. Because the technique had been working for me in sparring I started taking it for granted and had stopped drilling it - I just wasn't getting the repetition I needed to keep this complex technique well oiled and ready for action.

The solution was obvious, and I now try to get some repetition of this movement at least once a week. My timing is coming back and I think that this technique will soon become part of my 'A game' once again.

The more complex a motor skill is, the more repetition is required to make it instinctive, smooth and efficient.

Labels: training

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Too often martial artists fall into the trap of being unable to do their regular routine and as a result do nothing at all. Getting back in shape after these layoffs is always a long and difficult process.

Say your work requires you to travel for a month at a time: don’t give in to inactivity - do something, do anything!

* Go train at another school (check the worldwide grappling school directory
at grapplearts.com)

* If your hotel has a fitness room then do cardio one day and lift some weights the next (I guarantee you’re not missing much on TV)

* Read my article on training when training partners are hard to find

If your club is shut down for a long holiday break:

* Do some cardio-kickboxing or start jogging

* Hook up with other grappling addicts and have some informal training sessions

If you are injured find a way to work around it:

* If you can’t lift weights then work on your cardio.

* If you can’t work on your cardio then lift weights.

* Train your mind - watch classes, read books, search the internet.

Doing something is better than doing nothing. Staying busy keeps you in training loop and makes sure that you don’t become another ‘Couch-Fu’ expert. By doing something even peripherally related to your martial art you may learn something new. Who knows, maybe you’ll find that the change of pace even helps your training!

Labels: training

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It is a long path from first learning a technique and mastering it so that it is instinctive and effective. Erik Paulson has a great method to master techniques: it’s called TRIG. It’s his key to developing skill with a given technique, be it a submission, a pin escape or a guard sweep

T = Technique. First you have to learn the technique. Where do your arms and legs go? How do you develop power? What do you do if your opponent counters your technique.

R = Repetition. Now you have to go and repeat the technique until your body understands it as well as your mind does. This can involve doing hundreds of repetitions, so lets get to work.

I = Isolation. Now you use the technique in isolation. Maybe you are working on escapes to a particular position, so start every sparring session pinned in that position. Another example might be deciding only to use one submission, say the triangle choke, when sparring people of lesser skill than you.

G = Grappling. Now you can incorporate that technique into your grappling arsenal!

Labels: training

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Seeing as I train in both BJJ and submission grappling I find myself in the middle of this argument. I agree with the principle of sport-specific training, especially if your weekly training time is limited. However I also think that training with a gi has made my no-gi wrestling more technical, and that submission grappling (without the gi) has made my gi game more explosive.

One very important factor to consider in this debate is the issue of self-defense. I think that it is vital to expose yourself to different training environments if you are serious about self defense. That means occasionally venturing outside of your comfort zone and training in different environments.

Even the most dedicated BJJ competitor should occasionally roll around without his gi, and do some light vale tudo sessions. The goal here is not to turn him into an ultimate fighter, just to familiarize him with the fast and slippery world of gi-less grappling. This will help you learn how to apply your BJJ skills in a rough-and-tumble self-defense situation.

Similarly I think that submission grapplers and people training for mixed martial arts should occasionally put the gi on and enter into the world of lapel chokes and gi entanglements. You may be surprised at how the gi changes your game by adding friction and gripping options. As someone once said: “don’t fear the gi – in real life self defense your opponent may not be naked”. Spending at least 5 to 10% of your training time outside your comfort zone (i.e. on the other side of the gi vs. no-gi debate) is important for developing self-defense skills and becoming a well-rounded martial grappler.

One thing is for sure - the gi vs. no-gi debate will go on. Just make sure you've experienced both sides of the debate before making your decisions.

Labels: training

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People like doing what they are good at and avoid doing things that they are not so good at. It’s an ego thing: nobody likes looking like an idiot, and once martial artists get good at something they tend to stick with it.

The tendency to specialize isn't necessarily bad thing – in fact it is essential to improving – but don’t get so caught up on improving your strengths that you ignore your weaknesses. Your fastest progress may come from working your weakest link. As in so many things, my inspiration here is Dan Inosanto. The protégé of Bruce Lee and a black belt in many martial arts (including BJJ), he is always the first to tie on a white belt and try something that he is not good at. He loves learning new material, and is not put off by the possibility of looking like a beginner.

Weak links come in many forms. Your weak link could be

-Takedowns (drill takedowns for a few minutes after every class)

-Endurance (start working your cardio)

-Pin escapes (let your training partners start with you pinned)

-Flexibility (do yoga)

-Armlocks (don’t allow yourself any submission except armlocks)

-Strength (lift weights)

Don’t be a slave to your ego and stay in your comfort zone all the time. If you are honest with yourself you can figure out what is holding you back - be strong enough to put on the white belt, acknowledge your weak link, and do something about it.

Labels: training

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Training slumps can be very, very frustrating. Maybe your training partners are all kicking your butt, and guys who you used to manhandle are giving you a run for your money. If you’ve ever had this experience, and it lasted for any length of time, then you know what a slump is.

Slumps are due to different things.

Sometimes it is because you are overtraining and are burned out. In that case you should take some time off and relax.

Sometimes it is because you haven't been training enough and/or hard enough. In that case you should get your ass in gear and train more often, longer and harder.

Sometimes it is because your game has become stale - your training partners have all figured out your game and the counters to it. Time to start working on a different game, or find new setups for the techniques that have always worked for you.

Sometimes it is because your game is all over the place and without focus. You are trying so many different things that you have become a jack of all trades and a master of none. Time to focus your game and concentrate on only a few sweeps or submissions.

As you can see it is impossible for someone who doesn't know you to diagnose why you are in a slump. Be honest with yourself and try to figure out why it isn't all working for you. Once you understand why you’re having the problem the solution will be obvious.

Good luck

Labels: the mental aspect, training

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In a really good training month I might take some BJJ classes, do some submission grappling sparring, take some private classes with a wrestling coach, run and lift weights for conditioning, do some boxing drills, do some yoga, and be a sparring partner for some NHB competitors at the club. Other grapplers might include Judo, Sambo, Greco-Roman wrestling, swimming, plyometrics etc. as part of their program.

Like I said - this is a good month. At other times keeping this training intensity becomes impossible.The difficulty arises when your training time is severely curtailed and you no longer have time to train 4, 5 or 6 times a week. Maybe you are starting a new job, or have new family obligations, or have moved far away from your club. How can the grappling enthusiast maintain his skills? The best way to maintain the conditioning required for your martial art is by doing your martial art. The more limited your time is, the more important this principle is.

Suppose your goal is to get your BJJ black belt some day, but you get really busy at work and can only train once or twice a week. These training sessions should be dedicated to Brazilian Jiu-jitsu: concentrate your efforts on what is most important, rather than diffusing them by trying to do a little bit of everything (i.e. BJJ and plyometrics and boxing and swimming). The less time you have, the more important it is to be focused!

It’s just a fact of life that there are times when the best you can do is to
maintain your skills and maybe make small improvements. This is called ‘maintenance’ mode. To make big improvements in your skill you will eventually need to put in more time, but the goal of maintenance mode is to ensure that you’re not too far behind when you finally get back to some serious training. You have worked for years to develop your timing, kinesthetic awareness, and sports-specific fitness in your sport. The best way to maintain these sports-specific skills and attributes is by doing the sport itself. Every little bit of mat time helps

Labels: training

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