Grappling Tips Newsletter

February 04, 2010

Never Satisfied!

Today, at the gym, a young grappler asked me a question he'd obviously been wondering about for a long time.

"How long did it take until you had grappling all figured out?"

I told him that although I started grappling (in the context of Judo) almost 30 years ago, I still didn't have grappling all figured out...

"OK, OK," he replied, "but how long did it take until you were satisfied with your ability?"

"I'm still not satisfied with my ability" was my answer.

Now I wasn't just being coy or deliberately dense. I've been a black belt in BJJ for a while now, and have trained in lots of other grappling systems. But I really am not satisfied with my ability, nor do I have it all figured out. Nor should I be satisfied!

There is ALWAYS something to work on: whether it be incorporating a new technique into your arsenal, or refining a technique that has recently stopped working for you, or working on a weak part of your game.

In fact, I can guarantee that as long as you're still testing yourself on the mat with actual sparring you're always going to have strengths and weaknesses. Pick a random subset of your grappling skills - mount escapes, half guard sweeps and triangle choke entries for example - and it's inevitable that one of those areas is going to be less developed than the other areas.

Sometimes it's reassuring to beginners to know that grapplers, fighters and competitors at the highest level also deal with this! Marcelo Garcia has areas he's weak in (at least relative to the areas that he's great at). Rickson Gracie is better at some things than others. And some aspects of Georges St. Pierre's MMA game lag behind as well.

But always having something that you suck at (or - more correctly - suck at relative to your other skills) is a good thing - now you have something to work on! If you don't know what to work on in your grappling development, then take what you're worst at and work on that! (Often your fastest progress comes from working on your weakest link).

If you're entirely satisfied with your game, and if you don't have any areas that need refining, then you haven't actually reached perfection. You've just stopped growing.

Complacency is death!

Labels: bjj, sparring, the mental aspect, training

permanent link to this article posted by Stephan @ 10:16 PM

January 21, 2010

Sleepwalking Through Your Sparring

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

permanent link to this article posted by Stephan @ 9:47 PM

Don't Be Shy

This coming weekend I'm headed to Seattle to train at Erik Paulson's MMA and submission grappling seminar (hosted by Chris Clarke of www.nwkali.com).

If you're at seminar please introduce yourself; I always enjoy meeting my virtual friends in real life!

Labels: MMA, seminars, teachers

permanent link to this article posted by Stephan @ 9:44 PM

January 11, 2010

Successfully Dealing with Claustrophobia in Grappling

Once upon a time I had an MRI.

For those of you who've never had this diagnostic procedure, you start by lying down on a narrow board. Then they slide you into a narrow hole within a gigantic donut-shaped machine. And then you lie there, very still, for a long time while the machine scans your body using a gigantic magnet.

Have you seen the movie Avatar? It's like the little pod from which the hero pilots his alien. Except the space inside the MRI is even smaller, and nobody has any furry blue tails.

After the procedure I chatted with the MRI technician. One thing she mentioned was that about 3 in 10 people have problems with claustrophobia in this machine, and about 1 in 10 people freak out and are unable to complete the procedure.

So if somewhere between 10% and 30% have problems with an MRI, then how many people have problems with claustrophobia in grappling? I'd guess it's roughly the same number...

I'm not claustrophobic myself, and so this topic was largely off my radar until I found out that a friend and fellow grappler used to struggle with claustrophobia on the mats. And then a reader contacted me with the the same problem. And then I found out that I had a SECOND training partner who was also claustrophobic.

I did a bit of googling, and found out that there wasn't too much sport specific advice on the topic. So I asked the Grapplearts readership for tips and advice on dealing with grappling-induced claustrophobia, and was stunned by how many other people face the same challenge (read the whole article on how to deal with claustrophobia in BJJ and grappling here).

But here's the cool part: BOTH of my claustrophobic training partners have tackled this problem head on. And mostly dealt with it. And both of them have done very well in high level grappling competition. And both of them competed successfully in MMA, each with 10 fights or more!

From all accounts, claustrophobia is a horrible feeling. But I've seen first-hand that it CAN be overcome.

Not everyone is claustrophobic, but it's fair to say that we ALL have our fears, challenges and perceived limitations. I'm proud to know these grapplers. They're an inspiration to me.

Labels: bjj, claustrophobia, submission grappling

permanent link to this article posted by Stephan @ 11:03 AM

December 11, 2009

Old Time Grapplin'

I'm a big fan of old Judo, Jiu-Jitsu and Catch Wrestling books. I have lots and lots of martial arts books, but some of the real jewels of my library are the Judo and wrestling books published in the 1920's to the 1960's. Not all are original - some are reprinted editions - but all offer very interesting historical perspectives on modern grappling.

There is just something special about seeing grapplers from long ago demonstrating techniques that are still used today on mats all over the world.

Fortunately the era of the internet means that we now have unprecedented access to the information of yesteryear.

For example, I just watched a super-cool video of what might be the earliest example of Japanese martial arts ever caught on film. Even though it's more than 100 years old, the very same throws are still used today in both Judo and Brazilian jiu-jitsu. (Well, the throws that haven't been banned, anyhow).

Once we move ahead from the early 1900's into the 1920's, 30's and 40's, it becomes a lot easier to find footage of the various forms of grappling.

For example, here's Tsunetane Oda showing a lot of moves that are still 100% relevant today. Unlike many of his contemporaries (and most modern Judoka) for whom Judo was mostly a standup sport, Oda apparently believed that Judo consisted of 50% standing work and 50% groundwork.

Another interesting source for old grappling footage is from the early British Jiu-jitsu community (which seems rather obsessed by women who could beat up men).

The 'Weaker Sex' Teaches Jiu-Jitsu Self Defense Tips
A demonstration of Ju-Jitsu from the 20's or 30's
More woman's ju-jitsu for self defense (I love the accent plus the bathing suit!)

Moving more into western grappling arts like wrestling, here's what an old time wrestling practice might have looked like:

And here's a catch wrestling match from 1903 (including the weirdest application of the guard I've ever seen):

Not all the internet resources are videos either. For example, an old and very-much-out-of-print book called "Higher Judo Groundwork" can be downloaded for free by clicking here.

If you study these books and videos you come to realize that most of the time when someone discovers something new in grappling it isn't really new, only new-to-them!

People have been rolling around on the ground for millenia, and there's only so many ways to flip someone over or to twist a limb to make your opponent say 'Uncle!'

Labels: books, grappling history, japanese ju-jutsu, judo

permanent link to this article posted by Stephan @ 10:05 PM

November 23, 2009

I Only Got Tapped Out Twice!!

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

permanent link to this article posted by Stephan @ 9:58 PM

November 12, 2009

BJJ Wrist Injuries and My Guilty Conscience

A bunch of people have recently emailed me, basically asking if I'm still alive. I haven't been sending out my normal volume of grappling tips and beginner lessons recently, and they want to know why!

You see, I've been working like mad on the Online Grappling Concepts course that I'm delivering at my new site, Grapplearts.tv. I'm really enjoying creating those lessons, but it takes a lot of time to write, film, edit and encode each weekly lesson. And the 15 to 25 page PDFs that accompanies each weekly lesson. And the occasional bonus video.

Anyway, that's the reason I haven't been posting quite as much recently. Thought you might want to know why!

But I HAVEN'T completely forgotten about you. That's why I want to talk about an easy way to prevent injury.

This tip comes from my heart, because I learned this lesson first hand when I injured my first BJJ teacher (and friend) Pshemek Drabchinsky.

Once upon a time we were grappling. I was on top and things seemed to be going well (this was unusual at the time because he was way more skilled than I). However on this day I almost had him pinned! Pshemek is one of those Daddy Long Legs kind of grapplers, and he was trying to put me back into his guard using his long, flexible and agile legs.

He was pushing on my hip with his hand to make enough room to bring his legs into play.

To thwart his defense I twisted my hips: this is one good option, because changing the angle of your body this way often collapses your opponent's arms.

Unfortunately this time I did it a little to abruptly and a little too fast.

The bottom man is stiff arming my hips
(over-exaggerated for clarity)...

...so I twist my hips to collapse his defense

There was pop!

And he gasped in pain.

His fingers had got caught on my body and when I twisted my hips he couldn't get his hand out in time. In effect I had applied a hard, uncontrolled wristlock on my training partner without meaning to do so. His wrist took more than a year to heal completely, and I felt bad about it the whole time.

There are eight small bones, and a lot of ligaments and nerves in the wrist. Unfortunately if something is broken in there, then the fractures is often missed by a non-specialist looking at an X ray. (So if you or someone you know severely injures the wrist, or if a nagging wrist injury just won't heal, then get hand specialist to take a look at you, and not just the regular ER doc...).

Anyway, I don't mean to scare you you, but I hope I've made my point that wrist injuries are not to be taken lightly.

If someone is pushing your body then go ahead and use the body twist to neutralize his arms. Just don't do it super-abruptly and with a lot of weight on his hands.

And if you're pushing from the bottom then be aware of the dangers. Be aware of the angles and positioning of your wrists and hands, and be ready to collapse your arms in before you get inadvertently wristlocked. Better to live and fight another day from the bottom of sidemount than have your training cut short by a hyperextended wrist.

Train safe, because as BJJ black belt David Meyer says, "Injury is the enemy!"

Labels: Injuries, positions

permanent link to this article posted by Stephan @ 8:41 PM

November 01, 2009

My 23 Year Nutritional Streak, Broken...

I have this thing against Mc Donalds' Restaurants. It's partially the taste, partially the poor nutritional quality of the food, and partially because the multinational logo of "billions and billions served" drives me nuts.

And I've felt like this a long time. In fact, when I was 12 years old I made up my mind not to eat at Mc Donald's ever again.

I was a stubborn little tyke, and grew up to be a stubborn man. So I actually went for 23 years without eating any food from the golden arches. Not fries, not an ice cream, not a Big Mac.

I've only fallen off the wagon once since I made that decision as a pre-teen. And that happened six years ago when I was part of the emergency response to a flooded town zone. We were evacuating the citizens, setting up pumps, and wading around in cold, hip deep water for hours.

Eventually the fire chief showed up with food and - you guessed it - it was from Mc Donald's.

I was cold. I was starving. I ate the food.

My system survived the assault of the yellow arches, but now I've had to start my crusade from the beginning again. As a result I've been Mc Donald's free for six years now.

Now I'm not a saint when it comes to nutrition. I indulge in junk food occasionally. And anyone who knows me also knows that I couldn't resist dark chocolate if my life depended on it.

But in the final analysis, I think I'm fairly nutrition conscious. I do a pretty good job of eating healthy food, even a lot of organic food, at least most of the time.

In fact, I think that nutrition is one of the most neglected aspects of grappling training. This is ironic, because it's actually one of the training areas in which you have the most control. And the results are relatively immediate and altogether remarkable.

When it comes to performance you can't do much about your genetics. You got what you got from your parents, and now you're stuck with it (at least until gene-splicing technology takes a big jump forward).

You also may not have control over how often you train. Maybe hitting the mats twice a week is all you can get away with and not end up divorced.

And depending on your circumstances, you may not even have control over where you train and who you train with. if you live in a small town, for example, then your school may be the only show in town.

But nobody is forcing you to eat junk food, or to guzzle a giant soda, or to swing through the Mc Donald's drive through on a daily basis (except if you're in a flood zone).

Now there are a million miracle diets and eating plans out there. Each one of them claims to be the sole answer, and most of them contradict each other. But almost all experts agree on a few things, like:

sugar is bad for you,
excessive refined starches (flour, rice, etc) are bad for you,
deep-fried food is bad for you,
non-deep fried vegetables are good for you (and you should eat twice as many as you do now),
you should have a balanced diet with protein, carbohydrates and healthy fats,
you should drink lots of water,
you should have a source of Omega 3 fatty acids (like in fish oils),
you should eat (or drink) a mixture of carbohydrates and protein soon after you finish a workout,
etc.

I wouldn't be going on and on about this, if I didn't think that nutrition wasn't so damn important to athletic performance. In a sense, nutrition is the very cornerstone of athletic performance.

In fact, if you clean up your diet you'll be able to

train harder
recover faster
feel better
get injured less often
get sick less often
live longer

It amazes me how many people eat like crap and then spend hundreds of dollars on supplements. There are only a very few supplements that work, and even then good nutrition wins out over good supplements every single time.

If you're not getting the nutrients you need, and if you're not staying away from the bad stuff, then you'll never reach your true potential in this sport!

P.S. One cool (and free) resource on the subject of nutrition is Billy Hofacker's Ultimate Quick-Start Recipe Guide. Billy operates trainingformmafitness.com, and sends out a very informative training newsletter, so he understands the nutritional needs of grapplers.

Just click on the link below to download his recipe guide:

http://www.trainingformmafitness.com/support-files/ultimate-quick-start-recipe-guide.pdf

Then if you like what you get then go and sign up for his newsletter too!

Labels: fitness, nutrition

permanent link to this article posted by Stephan @ 2:28 PM