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A Guide To Strength & Conditioning For Combat Sports

August 2, 2023

When people think about strength and conditioning for combat sports they think of, well… they think of Rocky.

But if you get them to focus on real world boxing, people typically think of the lean, lithe bodies of lightweight champions like Manny Pacquiao and Vasyl Lomachenko or the stocky muscular physiques of heavyweights like Mike Tyson and Jack Dempsey. However, when talking about great boxing physiques few people think of Tyson Fury. At the time of writing Fury is the WBC heavyweight champion and undisputedly one of the greatest boxers of all time but the Gypsy King’s physical appearance is more what people associate with a divorced dad trying to pull himself together than an elite athlete at the top of his game. This is brought up not to take a crack at Fury’s appearance but, rather, to highlight the important point that strength and conditioning is about developing fitness and fitness is the efficient ability to perform a specific task. If we are talking about fitness it’s important not to get distracted by aesthetics. We are interested in how well we do the task not how good we look doing it.

So, if your current focus is on developing your sport specific fitness, it’s fortunate that combat sports have lots of options for improving your fitness while also developing your skills. Pad work, Partner work, Shadow work, Speed drills and Sparring can all easily be tweaked to focus on developing your conditioning.

Notice that things like running, push ups, squats and burpees are entirely absent from this list. Remember that you are a martial artist first and foremost so the majority of your time should be spent practicing your martial art. It isn’t that these exercises are without value, it’s just that they are not directly related to the activity to which are trying to specifically condition ourselves. Specific strength and conditioning is built on the mats and general strength and conditioning is built in the weights room.

While the best kind of strength and conditioning for a specific task is always the task itself, if you want to maximise your training and performance, some time in the weight room is invaluable for developing high end strength and power. Unfortunately, in the martial arts community, strength and conditioning has a strong tendency to morph into conditioning and conditioning. Don’t misunderstand me – conditioning is very important in any competitive combat sport but it is often emphasised to the point where other vital qualities are diminished. As a general rule 80 to 90% of your time training for a martial art should be spent actively doing the martial art. So, if we are only going to spend 10% to 20% of our training time developing our general physical qualities, we need to prioritise:

Strength & Power.
Aerobic baseline conditioning.
Additional Anaerobic conditioning if recovery allows.

When programming strength & conditioning the question should not be “how much can I do?” but rather “what can I recover from and still make progress?” If your S & C training interferes with your sport specific training you should re-examine your priorities. It is your capacity to recover, rather than your capacity to work, that determines the volume, intensity and density of your strength & conditioning training.

As for how to determine the actual nuts and bolts of a program designed to complement martial arts practice the very best way would be to hire a strength coach who understands the demands, listen carefully to what they recommend and then – this is the important part – actually go do it.

Failing that, here are some general guidelines.

First a combat athlete needs to be strong… for a combat athlete . A combat athlete doesn’t need to be strong when compared to a powerlifter or a gymnast; they need to be strong according to the needs of their art. This means strength training with a particular emphasis on developing your power to weight ratio, power endurance and mid section stability. Exercise selection should centre on large, multi joint movements that allow a focus on tension and speed over pump and burn.

Depending on your schedule and personal recovery capabilities you should be looking to program strength training somewhere between two and five sessions per week. Ideally your weekly volume should be around the same regardless of how many sessions you perform. More frequent training means shorter sessions with reduced volume and less frequent training should result in longer sessions with greater volume.

Next, we should address our aerobic baseline conditioning. Aerobic baseline conditioning is essentially your non specific cardio vascular fitness and it plays an important roll in your ability to recover both between rounds and after more intense bursts of energy. Aerobic training needs to follow the Goldilocks rule – not too easy and not too hard, it’s got to be “just right.” Go too hard and you end up working your anaerobic energy systems but go too easy and you won’t get a training effect at all.

To determine your ideal heart rate zone for aerobic training use the following formula:

Max Heart Rate

180 minus your age – if you’re hitting this you need to ease up.

Minimum Heart Rate

160 minus your age – if you’re hitting this you need to get back to work.

Because aerobic baseline conditioning is non-specific we are not limited in how we achieve our goal heart rate. So while you can simply go running I would encourage you to explore alternatives with fewer downsides and more secondary benefits; kettlebell swings, prowler work, rucking, belt squat marches and hot yoga are all excellent options. You’ll need to do 1 to 3 sessions per week and each session should be between 20 and 90 minutes long.

Incidentally, using these numbers keeps workouts repeatable and repeatable is probably the most important key to longevity in training and competition.

Finally we look at additional anaerobic conditioning. This is usually where most fighters’ strength and conditioning training starts and ends; hammering the Glycolytic energy pathway, bathing their muscles in lactic acid, puking on the floor and then wondering why their skill training isn’t going very well. Anaerobic conditioning training is an important part of any program which aims to maximise your combat sport performance – just not in the volume typically seen. Most people who train regularly only really need one anaerobic conditioning focused workout per fortnight; maybe one per week if they have excellent recovery or are in a period of lessened activity. Anaerobic conditioning is also far more specific in effect when compared to training for general strength, power and aerobic conditioning and so more care needs to be taken in exercise selection in order to get the most benefit. When in doubt go for simple, multi joint exercises that emphasise either hip drive or upper body push/pull along the X/Y axis. Also, remember that this additional anaerobic conditioning should be the first thing to go if you’re having trouble recovering or if it’s negatively impacting your sport performance.

So put together what does this all look like? An amateur athlete aiming to get the most out of their training would have a schedule along the lines of the following:

Martial Arts practice four to six days a week.

Strength practice two to five days a week.

Aerobic baseline conditioning one to three days a week.

Anaerobic conditioning once a fortnight.

It might not be as cool as the training montage you’ll see in a Rocky film but a montage only lasts 30 seconds. Training like this will last you a life time.

Power Up Your BJJ Skill Development With Personal Challenges.

April 4, 2023

Setting a personal challenge is a fun and adaptable method of focusing skill development to a specific area without moving away from the greater task.

There are three key steps to successfully creating a personal challenge:

Set a challenge.
Set a time frame.
Set stakes.

Set a Challenge

A good personal challenge can be anything that narrows your focus during sparring without taking away from the general focus of that sparring session. Some of the most effective challenges that I have tried in the past include:

Only attack submissions from certain positions (eg. You can only attack from mount).

Limit yourself to certain categories of submissions (eg. armlocks only).

Don’t get scored on at all.

Score first in every match.

Score a point every thirty seconds (great for cardio).

Set a Time Frame

Your challenge should have a clearly defined start and end.

One session.

One week.

Three months.

Strange as it seems time frames that run longer than one week but less than three months aren’t particularly useful. Challenges that focus on behavioural habit setting (ie. score first, score every 30 seconds) are best done over shorter periods and undertaken frequently throughout the year. Regular re-exposure to the stimulus is key in circumstances where behaviour over technical skill is being trained.

Challenges that focus on developing particular skills (ie. armlocks only, attack from mount only) are best performed in blocks of three months. Generally speaking it takes around eight weeks of regular practice to develop a new level of competence in a skill and an additional two to four weeks to consolidate those gains.

Set Stakes

Stakes create accountability and accountability is the difference between a concrete goal and just wishful thinking.

Stakes can be as simple as telling people who are to call you out if they see you doing anything different but remember that consequences work better than rewards so plan accordingly. It is far more effective to know that you will have to buy your training partner lunch if you fail than to get a free lunch if you succeed.

Appropriate stakes make a huge difference to how likely you are to finish a challenge or complete a goal. Without stakes the average rate of success is around 33%, whereas the average success rate with stakes is just over 72%.

The Three Phases of Technical Skill Development

February 23, 2023

When it comes to learning techniques and developing skill most people massively overestimate what they can achieve in 5 weeks and massively underestimate what they can achieve in 5 years. This largely comes from a misconception of what it is to be skilful, a lack of patience with the process and fundamentally failing to know what that process should be.

First, we should understand the difference between techniques and skills:

Techniques are specific, explicit and discrete.

Skills are general, implicit and open.

Techniques are not skills but you can become more skilful in the application of your technique. For example, an armbar from closed guard is a technique; Performing armbars from guard is a skill.

Gaining proficiency in a technique can take anywhere up to eight weeks but becoming skilful in the application of that technique is an ongoing and arguably never ending process.

The process that begins with gaining proficiency and continues into long term skill development has three primary phrases – Accumulation, Intensification and Transformation.

Accumulation is the period that is focused gaining proficiency with the technique and, as such, you should mostly be concerned with getting your reps in, learning the primary mechanics of the technique and how to apply them in a live environment. Effective training strategies for this stage include getting in some extra repetitions before and after classes, frequently attempting to “hit the move” in sparring and, most obviously, receiving formal instruction on the technique from a knowledgeable coach.

Intensification is the phase that will take you beyond being merely proficient in a technique to being truly skilful in its application. Here you will develop a series of heuristics and begin to move towards the ability to apply the technique intuitively. This stage should be characterised by lots of specific sparring focused around different aspects of the technique and regular troubleshooting sessions with coaches and training partners.

Transformation is the stage where the technique is almost fully autonomous in execution and adjustments to timing, speed, power, angle, balance and leverage are all made completely intuitively. Your training at this phase is more focused on transferring the new skill acquired by developing this technique to other areas of your game and exploring/exploiting the reactions of your opponents in their attempt to deal with your new skill.

Sadly many people tend to stop at the accumulation phase and prize developing a surface level understanding of a multitude of techniques over developing true skill.

It should also be noted that skill in a given domain is frequently acquired without learning any distinct techniques but techniques cannot be effective without skill.

How To Take Notes Like A Black Belt

November 17, 2022

Note taking is one of the most effective yet underused tools available to a martial artist or athlete to convert diverse and excessive information into precise action and follow-up.

It is – by far – my most frequently recommended exercise to improve skill development outside of physical training. As a note taking tragic, I am happy just to see someone taking notes but there are a few best practices you can employ to really turbo charge the effects.

First, notes to aid recall of information (like online instruction or a lecture) should be made at the time the information is received or immediately after. For best effect, this should be reviewed the next day and reviewed and refined seven days later or once the module of study is complete.

Notes to consolidate physical practice (like a jiu jitsu class) should ideally be made the day after training and then reviewed and refined seven days later.

Second, I recommend having two types of note books – a general, day to day book that gets used for scribbling down notes on the first pass and other, topic specific notebooks to record that information once it has been reviewed, condensed and consolidated.

Your daily notebook can be as organised or as disorganised as you prefer. This book is more about having a place to collect information and thoughts.

Topic specific notebooks should be clearly organised. These books are for the clear and concise breakdown of information and should be formatted in a way that makes that easy to do.

Leave a page or two so you will be able to create a table of contents. Every time you make a new entry to your notebook simply title and/or number it and then add a corresponding reference to your contents page.

When making the notes themselves, write the key points and topics on the left hand page and the minor details and explanatory notes on the right. Try to keep everything to short bullet points rather than make long hand, journaling style entries; the goal of this form of note taking is to condense information into small, easily manageable chunks.

Making notes is about imposing structure on information for increased retention and better understanding – not developing rote recitation of someone else’s description or phrases.

The act of note taking is what provides the primary benefit. You might never refer back to your notes once the review period is concluded and there would be little difference in utility between yourself and someone who refers back to their notes frequently.

How To Be The Best At BJJ All The Time.

May 1, 2018

Correct the technique of higher ranked, more experienced people than yourself.
They love it and will view you with respect and awe.

Never wash your rash guard or gi.
Just keep it in your car or balled up in your bag. If someone complains they clearly don’t understand the #bjjlifestyle.

Don’t pay any attention to what is being taught.
If you haven’t seen it before it’s definitely bullshit. If you have seen it before you already know it and it’s not worth your attention.

When your partner is practicing a new technique counter it every time to show them they are doing it wrong.
This way they will know that you are definitely better than them and they will appreciate the constructive feedback.

Always roll like you’re in the final of the Mundials.
If you’re not practicing winning, you’re practicing losing.

Attempt nothing.
Just hug your partner and perform a 300 second isometric squeeze. If you don’t attempt to do jiu jitsu you can’t fail at doing jiu jitsu.

About to lose? Start coaching or fake an injury.
You haven’t really been submitted if you stopped trying.

Either don’t trim your nails or trim them right before class to ensure that they are razor sharp.
If your training partner has to leave the mat to make sure they don’t bleed out from the thousands of cuts you just inflicted that stills counts as victory.

Always brag about the submissions you got in training to other class members.
Re-live your favourites with anyone nearby. Your past submissions are like MASH reruns – no one ever gets sick of them.

If you compete in a tournament and lose be sure that everyone understands that the problem wasn’t your poor work ethic, your low level of fitness or your complete lack of technique – it that you (select all that are appropriate):

Were sick
Haven’t slept well all week
Didn’t eat before the match
Ate too much before the match
Had a BYE the first round
Had an opponent who had a BYE the first round
Lost to the guy who won the division
Were robbed by the ref
Had an injury
Lost to a sandbagger
Faced an opponent who was on steroids
Didn’t have enough time
Got DQ’d for some bullshit
Lost by a bullshit advantage
Faced an opponent who just stalled
Were tired from traveling

Just remember that you don’t need to do better; you just need to convince yourself – and everybody else – that you already have.*

Explain how if this was a no gi match you totally would have won.

Explain how if this was a gi match you totally would have won.

Explain how if this was an MMA match you totally would have won.

Exclusively go for techniques you are not allowed to do.
Neck cranks, finger locks and nipple cripples should be your go to moves. BJJ is a martial art for the street and you refuse to water down its effectiveness.

Ask for advice from your coaches and training partners about a problem you are having. Explain to them how it’s not actually a problem and why you are not going to follow that advice.
That way they will know that even your problems are actually successes they don’t understand.

Beat the hell out of new guys.
This will show them the power of BJJ and guarantee they come back.

If you are tired wait until you are losing to stop.
You shouldn’t give your training partner a false sense of success by letting them tap you just because you are tired from all the winning you have been doing. Instead stop rolling and the moment you end up in an inferior position you can’t easily escape from and explain that you are not unfit – you’re just recovering from a max deadlift attempt and the three different Crossfit WODS you considered doing earlier that day.

Don’t tap.
If your training partner let’s go to make sure that you don’t get hurt then the submission wasn’t really on. If you get hurt then they are being way too reckless and there’s no way they could have got you if you had been going as hard as they were.

Always use extra force and power when rolling with anyone smaller and weaker than you.
They will appreciate the respect you show them by not holding back and be encouraged to get better. Whenever you roll someone bigger or better than yourself complain that they are too rough.

Before rolling explain you have an injury and want to go light.
After they agree roll lightly for ten seconds before surprising them by attacking with 100% speed and power. This will definitely impress anyone watching.

*credit to a Josh Hinger rant for inspiring this one.

The Six Practices of Being an Athlete

March 12, 2018

See to it that you temper yourself with one thousand days of practice, and refine yourself with ten thousand days of training.
– Miyamoto Musashi

Athletic Practice

Your sport or art should obviously be the primary component of these six practices. The key here is to understand that your athletic practice is the most important aspect of all your training. If you are interested in being a legitimate athlete then focus is genuinely required.

To quote coach extraordinaire, Dan John, “The goal is to keep the goal, the goal.”

If you have an element of your training or lifestyle that is interfering with your ability to train or perform your sport or art you have to decide what your focus is going to be.

You should be training or performing in your athletic practice 4 to 6 days a week.

Strength and Power Practice

The poor implementation of a strength and power practice is by far the largest and most common impediment in an athletes development.

Too many people consider the barbell a test of mettle rather than as a tool of training.

The goal of this practice is to become strong and powerful for the kind of athlete that you are and not in some kind of general or absolute sense. This means that roller derby skaters need to be strong compared to other skaters but not necessarily when compared to powerlifters or gymnasts.

The bottom line is that what you do in this practice should support – not hamper – what you do on the mat, field, track or ring.

Ideally your strength and power practice should be overseen by a knowledgeable and experienced strength coach. If a personal coach is not an option for you I recommend researching Jim Wendler’s 5/3/1 program or Pavel Tsatsouline’s Power to the People program.

You should be implementing your strength and power practice 2 to 5 days a week.

Nutrition Practice

People often act like proper nutrition is some kind of complicated black magic or quantum level science but unless you have a severe or rare metabolic disease nutrition can be boiled down to two simple rules.

1. Eat like a fucking adult.
2. Don’t kid yourself.

If you can do this you are already out performing 90% of the population.

Eat like a fucking adult.
Eat food.
Eat real food.

Real food doesn’t come out of a can, or a box or a bag. Real food goes off.

No one over the age of 12 really thinks that nutri grain is ironman food or that diet coke is a healthy choice.

Eat vegetables for health.
Eat meat for strength.
Eat carbs for recovery.

Don’t kid yourself.
You know that pizza and beer aren’t getting you closer to your goals.

And the problem is not that you should *never* consume pizza and beer. The problem is that you pretend that because you ordered a gluten free base and low carb beer that you are somehow still eating well when what you actually did was fuck up a perfectly good meal.

Movement Practice

Repeated movement patterns take a toll and the more specific and intense your athletic practice the more specific and intense stress is placed upon your body.

If longevity in your sport and maintaining a pain free day to day life are among your goals (and they should be) then these issues should be addressed by maintaining a movement practice as a part of your schedule.

Stretch what is too tight, open what is too closed and stabilise what is too loose. This can be as simple as going through a mobility routine – like DeFranco’s Agile 8 – three or four times a week or beginning a full blown yoga practice.

Meditation Practice

A meditation practice is an incredibly powerful tool for improving all areas of your life especially your athletic performance.

We’ve all had those experiences of getting into the “zone” or hitting our “flow”. Matches or performances where time seems to slow down and our ability to think, move and react seems limitless. We recognise the advantage of this state but hardly anyone actually trains to deliberately enter into it.

As athletes we are obsessed with training our bodies but so few of us put the effort in to train our minds.

The “zone” is really nothing more than consistent mindfulness. The ability to remain in and focus on the present moment without distraction.

Regular meditative practices cause actual structural changes in the brain. Just ten minutes a day can improve your will power and decision making capabilities; increase your focus and decrease your stress.

Ten minutes a day, everyday.

Developing a meditation practice doesn’t necessarily mean that you’ll end up sitting in the lotus position, wearing flowers and talking in the breathy, hushed tones of someone who just finished a three day yoga instructor course.

To get started try the Headspace app, google ‘daily journaling’ or click here.

Lifestyle Practice

Your lifestyle practice is primarily about making sure you stay physically, mentally and emotionally healthy. By necessity training environments tend to be fairly insular and it’s easy to fall into the pattern of eat, sleep, train, repeat. While this makes for some neat tee shirts the reality is that it’s an expressway to injury and burnout.

The specifics of a happy and healthy lifestyle are unique to each person but there are few general principles that will always apply.

Get enough good quality sleep.
Have interests outside your athletic practice.
Spend time with people.
Spend time by yourself.
Spend time simply playing.

How To Master Any Technique

February 26, 2018

1. Learn the broad strokes.

When you begin learning a new technique it’s easy to get lost in a virtual sea of detail and nuance. At this stage of the learning process don’t worry about these smaller details but instead focus on breaking the technique down into three to five key steps.

These key steps are your points of emphasis.

When you are practicing the technique be sure to pause at each of these points and really “lock” the step into place. Tighten up the step as much as possible making sure that each of your limbs, including your head, is where it is meant to be.

Which brings us to the next step…

2. Learn precisely where your legs, arms and head should be for each of these steps.

Whether we are cleaning our teeth, flicking a lightswitch or chopping onions the point of contact to our task is typically our hands. As such, whenever we interact with the world we tend to think about it in terms of what we are doing with our hands.

Complex tasks though – like nearly every technique found in Jiu Jitsu – are full body affairs.

It is especially important to train yourself to be specifically aware of the positioning of each of your legs and head. The positioning of your legs greatly influences your ability to use your hips and the position of your head reveals the alignment of your spine. Correct positioning of the hips and alignment of the spine maximises your ability to apply force while minimising effort.

3. Drill the technique against resistance.

Once you can move through the technique reasonably accurately and smoothly introduce some resistance to your repetitions. This doesn’t mean that you should jump straight to trying to execute the technique in full on rolling – you need to find a way of adding progressive resistance while performing specific repetitions.

There are many ways of doing this but there are two which are particularly effective and easy to do. The first is simply to have your partner start applying a very light amount of resistance and every time you successfully perform the technique apply more resistance on the next repetition. If they escape or defend the technique for a significant amount of time then they apply less resistance on the next repetition. The second is for your partner to start applying resistance at a particular stage of the technique; Start at the last step and, as you successfully finish the technique, work back towards the first step.

4. Add details.

Working the technique against some resistance should have provided you with some questions; Is there a particular stage or way in which you fail to finish the technique? Are you struggling to finish the technique against people of a particular size or rank?

Provided that you are still correctly executing each major step of the technique getting these questions answered – usually by asking someone more knowledgeable than yourself or through trial and error – will let you know which of the many smaller details to focus on.

5. Start trying the technique against progressively better and larger opponents in free rolling.

Start with small white belts and work towards successfully executing the technique on large black belts. Whenever you encounter a recurring problem go back to steps three and four.

******

If you can get to the point where you can successfully and regularly pull off the technique against brown and black belts while rolling you are very, very good at it.

But we’re talking about mastery.

Mastering a technique is something beyond very, very good. Mastery implies a level of understanding that exceeds technical detail and nuance.

******

6. Alter your perspective.

Looking at a technique the same way as everybody else is a sure fire way to limit potential – both yours and that of the technique itself.

Be aware of the typical patterns your mind falls into and try to break out through conscious effort.

Working on a sweep? Try thinking about how you would approach it as a throw or takedown.

A submission? Practice it like you would a position.

7. Contribute.

If you are genuinely on the road to mastery then by this stage odds are good that there is something you do in the execution of this technique that is different from how it is typically performed. Whether it is a new entry, a change of angle or a grip placed in a new location there is something that improves either the effectiveness of the efficiency of the technique and it’s now a case of recognising and defining what you do that is different and why.

8. Simplify.

The mark of a master is simplicity. The ability to take everything learnt over the previous seven steps and boil it down to three to five key points denotes genuine knowledge and understanding. This is the same as step one but with the key difference of the experience of the months and years you have spent studying, practicing and training.

These key points might be different from the ones you started with in step one or they might be the same but with a different emphasis.

******

How to Care for your Grappler

May 23, 2017

So you’ve got yourself a grappler – congratulations, you’ve just started a relationship that is equal parts rewarding, mystifying and washing training clothes. Having a grappler of your own can be a challenging experience introducing you to new cultures, foods, smells and doctor’s waiting rooms. Knowing how to properly care for your grappler – cause they sure as hell aren’t going to care for themselves – is a key part of having a happy and healthy relationship.

The following guide should help you through those first tricky weeks.

Grooming
The grooming needs of a grappler vary greatly. The short haired breeds need little more than a reminder to bath regularly but the longer haired breeds, and the breeds that depend upon their plumage to attract a mate, could require various oils, gels, clips and ties as well as your direct assistance to achieve the desired look.

Regardless of the type of grappler you own there two must have items: Nail clippers, which should be used weekly, and Anti bacterial soap, which should be used daily.

Socialising
Grapplers are social animals that don’t cope well if they become isolated from others of their own kind. Failure to properly socialise your grappler can lead to them becoming listless, confused, pain free and likely to start exhibiting inappropriate behaviour towards non grapplers usually prefaced by the phrase “hey, come here…. I want to try something”.

Depending on the age and breed you will need to socialise your grappler anywhere between twice a week to twice a day.

Medical care
Determining the appropriate level of medical care for your grappler can often be confusing. Typically a grappler will either be visibly maimed while insisting that nothing is wrong and that they will definitely be going to training tonight or exhibit no signs of distress whatsoever but constantly regale you with predictions of their impending death before saying that they will definitely be going to training tonight.

That said, a medical cabinet that is well stocked with the following items should take care of most situations.

Tape
Aspirin
Tape
Ice packs
Tiger balm
Compression sleeves
More tape

Communication
Communicating with your grappler can be tricky at first but a few simple tips will see you conversing in no time.

1. Begin all conversations by saying “ok guys”.

2. Pronounce all “r”s like “h”. All of them. Even when saying words that aren’t Brazilian Portuguese.

3. Instead of using full stops to end your sentences start saying “Porra” instead.

4. Finally you can indicate approval, disagreement, indifference or the need to pass wind by extending your thumb and pinky finger like you’re about to answer the gadget phone and shaking your hand around.

Occasionally your grappler may attempt to talk to you about grappling. Now it’s not actually necessary to understand what your grappler is saying – let’s face it, how could you? – but appearing to listen to their incoherent ramblings can be a bonding experience. To participate all you need to do is insert one of these handy phrases whenever your grappler has to pause to draw breath:

“That guy just muscles everything. No technique at all.”

“The knee reaping rule is stupid.”

“They really need to learn some takedowns.”

“Rickson is the best.”

In some sad cases your grappler may begin responding to all questions, statements, gestures and light operettas with the sound “oos”. If your grappler starts demonstrating this tendency it needs to cracked down upon immediately – I suggest a rolled copy of the script of Hamilton to the nose for each infraction – as the only options for long term abusers is to be put down or enrolled in a karate club.

Diet
When feeding your grappler it’s important to understand that their diet consists primarily of fads, poorly backed up popular science and what Rick from the gym told them.

You also need to realise that your grappler is never the right weight. Depending on various factors – how their last training session went, how close they are to competition, the phase of the moon – your grappler will either be desperately trying to strip fat or pack on muscle but, regardless of which, self sabotaging their efforts the entire time.

Acai also plays a prominent role for some reason. Don’t ask.

Misery Guard: Defence and Pass

April 26, 2017

Getting stuck in collar sleeve can be quite a difficult situation to deal with and being stretched out and controlled so well only leads to being submitted quickly.

In situations where earlier efforts to better your position have failed we have to start risking more to get out or just stay safe. In the case of the featured video we risk a sweep after giving up the top position to try break grips.

It’s important to recognise the risk you are taking in these situations and try to minimise it if at all possible. However, after you achieve your goal of either escaping or taking pressure off, it is even more important that you capitalise on the moment and go back to attacking and imposing your game on the other person.

In most cases where you have been in a bad position and successfully recovered to a better position, your opponent will try to attack again. If you reward yourself with a rest after a recovery action then you are setting yourself up to be back in a bad situation – keep fighting until you’ve reached a point like top side control or back where you can take a bit more of a calculated rest and control the fight at the same time.

The Domoplata: Developing the Position to get the Submission.

April 21, 2017

The ‘Domoplata’ is a mounted shin choke (Gogoplata) named after Marcelo Garcia black belt Dominyka Obelenyte, the 2015 female black belt world champion (weight & absolute) who is well known for her use of this attack.

At first glance the Domoplata may appear to be unnecessarily complicated when compared to other mounted submissions due to the numerous positional adjustments involved in its setup. This relatively high level of intricacy can seem overwhelming and may even lead one to the conclusion that the attack is impractical or unrealistic.

However, given the fact that one of the world’s best female grapplers is frequently able to apply this technique against male and female opponents of the highest calibre, as students of BJJ it is important that we look deeper into the details of the technique so that we can begin to understand why it is so effective despite its complexity.

One of the most common mistakes committed by lower belts when in an attacking position such as mount is to rush to the submission attempt before first negating their opponent’s ability to escape. For example, they will attempt an Ezekiel choke without first establishing a grapevine to control their opponent’s hips and be easily reversed by a basic bridge and roll; Or they will recklessly fall back for an armbar without first dominating the armpit, and find themselves on their back with nothing but an unsubmittable forearm in their crotch and a relieved opponent on top of them.

In contrast, advanced grapplers understand that although attacking positions generally guarantee our safety from the risk of submission, against skilled opponents these positions must typically be further developed in order for us to safely attack our opponent without the risk of allowing an escape or reversal.

With this concept in mind we should observe that, in isolation, every step of the Domoplata setup stands as a relatively achievable and maintainable development of our mounted position. Therefore, we should not view the Domoplata as one big exotic move but as a series of small conservative moves that will enable us to transition safely into a dominating finishing position.