Grappling Tips Newsletter

At a seminar I attended, martial arts legend Dan Inosanto once distinguished between

1. the techniques used in a martial art, and
2. the training methods used to develop those techniques.

These are different things! For example, many of the same jointlocks and chokes occur in Brazilian Jiu-jitusu and classical Japanese Ju-jutsu, but the training methods used by those two schools of thought are obviously fairly different. One art uses choreographed drilling, the other uses contested sparring.

OK, OK, so there are techniques and teaching methods. How does this apply to you? Well recently I was able to guest teach a class at the school of my friend Ritchie Yip.

Here is part of that class



One of the techniques I wanted the group to work on was the armbar spin-out from guard. This is a very useful move when a bigger and stronger opponent tries to stack and crush you in an attempt to get out of your armbar attack.

But my secret hidden agenda that night was to field-test a different method of teaching and training this technique. I had just come up with a new solo drill. I wanted to see if it would make the spin-out, a fairly complicated technique, easier to learn.

So I made the class do the solo drill, and then we moved on to the technique itself. Within a few minutes everyone - even the new guy with only 3 classes under his whitebelt - was spinning out of the armbar like a seasoned pro.

Not bad for a move that considered by many to be 'advanced.' I've taught this technique before and adding the solo drill to the teaching progression really accelerated the success that everyone experienced. The students learned something that night, but so did I! A big 'thank you' to the boys and girls who were my guinea pigs!

Regardless of whether you're teaching or just training, sometimes the best way to learn a move is to isolate the crux of the move - the most difficult part - and drill it on it's own. A bad workman blames his tools, and a poor teacher blames his students. Finding, creating, and using the correct drills is part of good teaching. The right drill at the right time can work wonders.

If you have something against embedded video, here's a direct link to the solo drill and the actual armbar spin-out on Youtube.

Also, for more ideas about solo and partner drills check out my Grappling Drills DVD, available on this very site!

Labels: armbar from guard, drills, teaching, training

bookmark this!  del.icio.us |  Digg it |  reddit |  Yahoo MyWeb |  Google |  StumbleUpon

Labels: bjj, sparring, the mental aspect, training

bookmark this!  del.icio.us |  Digg it |  reddit |  Yahoo MyWeb |  Google |  StumbleUpon

Back in my early teens, when I was infatuated with Kung Fu, I read a book purporting to describe about 50 supernatural abilities that Kung Fu masters could develop. Skills like levitation, or making your body impervious to weapons, or killing people with a poke of your fingertips...

Crazy stuff, I know! Even as a youngster I was fairly skeptical that any of this was true. The funny thing is that at least one of the skills in that book is actually quite feasible: the ability to defend yourself blindfolded. The magical Kung Fu book explained that blindfolded combat skills were the result of being able to sense your opponent's energy at a distance, and know exactly where he was and what he was going to do.

Doing this at a distance is far-fetched, but most good grapplers would be completely capable of continuing to spar if all the lights suddenly went out. And it's not anything mysterious.

It's simply that years on the mat create a high-level of touch-based sensitivity to your opponent's movements and positioning. Do this long enought and eventually you'll be able to close your eyes, hang onto an opponent's arm and have a pretty good idea what the rest of his body is doing.

Sparring with your eyes shut is actually a pretty good training method, especially if you're sparring with someone who is a lot less experienced than you. If you could completely dominate and crush your partner then neither of you will learn very much.

So what can you do instead? Some solutions to keep things interesting include limiting the techniques you're allowed to use, and also always starting in bad positions.

But you can also try keeping your eyes closed and just rolling. Flow through as many different positions and transitions as possible, trying to 'see' with your arms, your legs, and your body.

This gives your sparring partner a bit of an advantage, and simultaneously forces you to work on your sensitivity and body awareness.

Plus it impresses the heck out newbies...

Labels: sparring, training

bookmark this!  del.icio.us |  Digg it |  reddit |  Yahoo MyWeb |  Google |  StumbleUpon

A few weeks ago I went to a training session with the goal of working on and experimenting with the so-called "Sao Paulo" guard pass. My plan for sparring this day was to start in my partner's closed guard, and then only use this one guard pass.

I spent the session training with one guy: a competitive brown belt who was about 15 lbs lighter than me. I'm heavier, stronger and more experienced. Should've been an easy sparring session, right?

Ummm, not so much...

That sparring session could be accurately described as long periods of deadlock, interrupted only by brief periods of him severely kicking my butt. After forty-five minutes he'd submitted me twice from his guard, swept me several times, and I HADN'T passed his guard once.

On my way home, though, I had a great big smile on my face. As far as I was concerned, the training session had been a great success!

You see, the previous time I'd worked with this same guard pass I'd had a hell of time surviving in the guard of a blue belt. 'Only' getting submitted two times this day by a brown belt was actually an improvement.

Furthermore, the fact that there were now long periods of stalemate meant that I was doing some things right. And my sparring partner told me that I'd actually been close to passing several times.

By the end of the sparring session I'd identified several sticking points in that guard pass - situations for which I had no good answers. These are times when the best thing you can do is go home, brainstorm for potential solutions and then test those solutions in sparring on another day.

So don't freak out about tapping out. Cut yourself some slack, especially if you're experimenting with a new technique, or tactic or strategy. If I can consider a training session successful despite getting tapped out multiple times by a lighter and lower-ranked grappler, then what are you worried about?

Labels: ChimChim, guard passes, training

bookmark this!  del.icio.us |  Digg it |  reddit |  Yahoo MyWeb |  Google |  StumbleUpon

At the end of the DVD I have a short bonus section covering the five most useful weight training exercises to develop a killer kneebar. And it's no coincidence that the very first of those exercises is the barbell squat.

If you can only do one weightlifting exercise then it should probably be the squat - it's a great exercise for your legs, and the legs are so very important in jiu-jitsu and grappling. Also the squatting motion itself is a very sports-specific movement.

The squat also strengthens your torso, because your core muscles really have to work in order to stabilize the weight of the barbell on your shoulders.

The squat has been one of my cornerstone exercises since about 1996 or 1997. I was taught how to squat by a friend of mine who was a personal trainer. He took me under his weightlifting wing, making sure that my squat form was good so that I didn't hurt myself with this exercise.

This coach was advocating powerlifting squats for grappling and MMA conditioning. A powerlifting-style squat has the bar lower on the back, the legs wider, and sitting your butt backwards as opposed to bringing the knees forward.

A great review of the different squatting styles can be found here.

The net effect of these changes is to spread the effort out over your whole body, with a special emphasis on your posterior chain (the muscles on the BACK of your body).

After a little more research on the topic I decided to change things up and switch to a power-lifting style squat. I wanted to see how I felt with this style of lifting. I figured that if I didn't like the results I could always stop and go back to my regular squatting style.

The following article by Dave Tate really helped me when I made the transition to the powerlifting squat: "How to Squat 900 lbs."

Labels: conditioning, squatting, training

bookmark this!  del.icio.us |  Digg it |  reddit |  Yahoo MyWeb |  Google |  StumbleUpon

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

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

And it was never about learning a new technique.

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

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

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

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

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

Labels: Brazilian jiu-jitsu, concepts, submission grappling, techniques, the mental aspect, training

bookmark this!  del.icio.us |  Digg it |  reddit |  Yahoo MyWeb |  Google |  StumbleUpon

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Labels: Brazilian jiu-jitsu, competition, podcasts, self defense, submission grappling, the mental aspect, training

bookmark this!  del.icio.us |  Digg it |  reddit |  Yahoo MyWeb |  Google |  StumbleUpon

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

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

And here's WHY...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Labels: Brazilian jiu-jitsu, training

bookmark this!  del.icio.us |  Digg it |  reddit |  Yahoo MyWeb |  Google |  StumbleUpon

To celebrate my upcoming 40th birthday I'm organizing and hosting a great big grappling get-together. I'm calling it GrappleCamp 2009 and it will be in Vancouver BC on Saturday July 11th and Sunday July 12th.

At this event I'll be sharing ton of new material that's been working really well for me. Butterfly Guard, X Guard, Half Guard, Kneebars, Omo Plata, Leglocks, etc. - a masterclass on the topics I've covered in my DVDs.

GRAPPLECAMP PRE-SEMINAR

I'm also hosting an optional 'pre-seminar' on the evening of Friday July the 10th. At the pre-seminar I'll be going over the fundamentals of the material for the weekend. The feedback from other pre-seminars is that they're insanely useful, especially if you're new to some of the material.

It'll be free for anyone already registered for the seminar. Yup. No Cost. You're welcome :-)

UFC 100

After training on Saturday we'll go on a group 'field trip' to a local restaurant to view UFC 100! I started watching the UFC back in the early 1990's, so there's no way I'm going to miss this historic MMA episode. And you're invited to come along too!

EARLY BIRD REGISTRATION

I fully expect this event to sell out, so by signing up early you'll assure yourself a spot, get a price break, and also get a much coveted Grapplearts.com T-Shirt.

Click here to register!

Labels: grapplearts, seminars, training

bookmark this!  del.icio.us |  Digg it |  reddit |  Yahoo MyWeb |  Google |  StumbleUpon

Some people look at grappling as a giant grab-bag of techniques. They may learn hundreds of techniques, but there's no rhyme, reason or organizing framework to guide what they learn or work on next.

If you're very physically talented then maybe you can get away with this approach, but I find it much easier to learn, retain, and use techniques if they're coherently organized.

Here are the three things I focus on when I'm trying to learn a specific technique (and it doesn't matter if it's a guard sweep, a pin escape or a submission).

1. Body Mechanics and Control
2. Entries and Setups
3. Finishes, Followups, Counters and Recounters.
   

Let's take a quick look at each of those three areas

1 - Body Mechanics and Control

There are right ways and some wrong ways to do any technique.

For example, the triangle choke should be applied with your top leg crossing over your ankle and lower shin. If you apply it with your toes under your knee then it won't be as tight or effective (and you could even injure your foot).

Or let's consider the kneebar submission. If your body is in a straight line you'll have much less power than if you had used proper body positioning.

How you align and position your body has a LOT to do with whether the technique will work or not.

Do yourself a favor and spend the time learning proper body mechanics.

2 - Entries and Setups

Or let's say that you want to attack with the straight armbar from guard. To do this you might want to get your opponent's elbow across your centerline. Once you've maneuvered him into that position then it's pretty easy to slap on the armbar!

In fact, someone who is skilled at the armbar from guard probably has 10 or more setups to move that arm into position. No matter how you try to establish posture, the armbar expert has a setup to suck you right back into his attack.

So instead of learning 100 different techniques, take 10 of your favorite techniques and learn 10 entries and setups for each of them. This will make you much more dangerous on the mat.

3 - Finishes, Followups, Counters and Recounters.

Now you've learned how to perform a technique correctly and different ways to get into it. Does that mean that you're done and can now move onto the next technique?

Not exactly...

Things don't always go according to plan, and so you also need to know different ways to finish or modify your technique AFTER you've applied it.

Maybe you're applying the Omo Plata armlock but your opponent has super-flexible shoulders and you just can't finish him. If that's the case then you might want to switch to a different finish (a toehold, a wristlock or a sweep, for example).

So to recap...

• First learn the proper body mechanics for a technique...
• Then learn a whole bunch of different ways to get into that technique...
• Then learn different methods to continue on from that position if your initial attempt is countered or nullified.
  

It's true that this can be a lot of work, but it's also very rewarding. Just remember that you're not doing it all on your own - take full advantage of all the resources available to you, including your instructor, classmates, DVDs, the internet, books, etc.

You'll get there!

Labels: teaching, the mental aspect, training

bookmark this!  del.icio.us |  Digg it |  reddit |  Yahoo MyWeb |  Google |  StumbleUpon

One of the best, and worst, things about grappling is that the feedback is quick, direct and brutally honest.

Take ANY technique - be it an armbar, a guard pass or a pin escape - it's easy to find out if you're doing it right: just go out and try it in sparring! If your new killer technique is a big flop and you get crushed, then you've got some additional work to do, don't you?

This process is a great motivator, but it can also be hard on the old ego sometimes. So, as we get more experienced as grapplers, we often start using little tricks to save our egos from the ravages of all this brutally honest feedback.

Labels: teaching, the mental aspect, training

bookmark this!  del.icio.us |  Digg it |  reddit |  Yahoo MyWeb |  Google |  StumbleUpon

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

bookmark this!  del.icio.us |  Digg it |  reddit |  Yahoo MyWeb |  Google |  StumbleUpon

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

bookmark this!  del.icio.us |  Digg it |  reddit |  Yahoo MyWeb |  Google |  StumbleUpon

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

bookmark this!  del.icio.us |  Digg it |  reddit |  Yahoo MyWeb |  Google |  StumbleUpon

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

bookmark this!  del.icio.us |  Digg it |  reddit |  Yahoo MyWeb |  Google |  StumbleUpon

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

bookmark this!  del.icio.us |  Digg it |  reddit |  Yahoo MyWeb |  Google |  StumbleUpon

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

bookmark this!  del.icio.us |  Digg it |  reddit |  Yahoo MyWeb |  Google |  StumbleUpon

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

bookmark this!  del.icio.us |  Digg it |  reddit |  Yahoo MyWeb |  Google |  StumbleUpon

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

bookmark this!  del.icio.us |  Digg it |  reddit |  Yahoo MyWeb |  Google |  StumbleUpon

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

bookmark this!  del.icio.us |  Digg it |  reddit |  Yahoo MyWeb |  Google |  StumbleUpon

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

bookmark this!  del.icio.us |  Digg it |  reddit |  Yahoo MyWeb |  Google |  StumbleUpon

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

bookmark this!  del.icio.us |  Digg it |  reddit |  Yahoo MyWeb |  Google |  StumbleUpon

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

bookmark this!  del.icio.us |  Digg it |  reddit |  Yahoo MyWeb |  Google |  StumbleUpon

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

bookmark this!  del.icio.us |  Digg it |  reddit |  Yahoo MyWeb |  Google |  StumbleUpon

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

bookmark this!  del.icio.us |  Digg it |  reddit |  Yahoo MyWeb |  Google |  StumbleUpon

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

bookmark this!  del.icio.us |  Digg it |  reddit |  Yahoo MyWeb |  Google |  StumbleUpon

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

bookmark this!  del.icio.us |  Digg it |  reddit |  Yahoo MyWeb |  Google |  StumbleUpon

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

bookmark this!  del.icio.us |  Digg it |  reddit |  Yahoo MyWeb |  Google |  StumbleUpon

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

bookmark this!  del.icio.us |  Digg it |  reddit |  Yahoo MyWeb |  Google |  StumbleUpon

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

bookmark this!  del.icio.us |  Digg it |  reddit |  Yahoo MyWeb |  Google |  StumbleUpon

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

bookmark this!  del.icio.us |  Digg it |  reddit |  Yahoo MyWeb |  Google |  StumbleUpon