Kaizen - Constant daily improvement

One of the most important martial arts concepts which can also have a positive impact on your life away from the gym is the Japanese idea of Kaizen or continual daily improvement.

Constant gradual improvement even if only by 1% per day or week is much better than no improvement at all.

Two mistakes that newcomers to martial arts make are firstly believing that they do or don’t have any talent for martial arts or fighting. Secondly, the belief that if they go all out for a short period of time they will get a black belt or become a world champion within three years.

Firstly, there is no such thing as having a ‘talent’ for martial arts. Beginners often mistake having the ability to beat other untrained people as having a natural fighting ability. Being able to beat a trained opponent who is well prepared in a competition is much different from sparring with other beginners.

The skills and mentality to be able to compete and win against good opponents is not something that comes naturally to anyone. It must be developed gradually over months and years of training.

The second problem is with the idea of trying to do too much too soon.

I’ve been a full-time martial arts coach now for over ten years. I've had many students ask me what they need to do to get to the top level.

I explain to them that there are no short cuts. Come in and train every day, don’t take time off after fights, don’t go hard for a few weeks then slack off for two months only to repeat the cycle again and again.

If you stick to the plan you’ll be a top-level fighter competing and winning in the UFC in ten years.

Everyone who tries to take short cuts in their training, Looking for the martial arts equivalent of a get rich quick scheme always ends up quitting and never gets anywhere near their potential.

Forget about talent and shortcuts.

Focus on what you can do every day to make yourself 1% better. One year from now you will be 365% better than you are today. In ten years you will be a world champion.

 

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The Problem with Amateur MMA

I've had a lot of involvement in Amateur MMA over the last twenty years first as a competitor and then as a coach. My first amateur fight was on my coach Fred Rados Pancrase event in London in September 2000. I competed in around 30 amateur matches in events such as Pancrase and KSBO before graduating to pro rules fights.

I competed in MMA to test myself and gauge my progress rather than seeing it as a career. Becoming a professional cage fighter wasn't a viable career option back in the early 2000s, MMA / NHB / Cage Fighting was a freak show sport back then and was still banned in most places.

Over the years MMA has become more and more mainstream. The sport of amateur MMA has also progressed a lot to the point where there are now large international amateur MMA competitions. I think this is great and I would always encourage my fighters to gain experience as an amateur if they are serious about having a successful fight career (I have previously made the point in this article - http://www.dkmmacoaching.com/2019/10/the-importance-of-amateur-mma.html?showComment=1598179230582#c7257568754422585315)

However, there are several problems that I see with the sport of amateur MMA which will need to be addressed for the sport to continue to grow:

Amateur MMA as a Pathway to Professional MMA:

The first problem is that it is obviously not really necessary to compete as an amateur to compete at the highest levels in MMA.

Every aspiring fighter wants to fight in the UFC, Bellator or One FC but Amateur MMA isn't always seen as a pathway to the highest level of competition.

It is unheard of in boxing for a fighter to turn pro unless they have had a long and successful amateur career. Almost every top professional Boxer in history was also an amateur champion before turning professional.

If we look at most of the champions or top ten fighters, they didn't compete in amateur tournaments - they came straight from the elite level of other combat sports - wrestling, kickboxing or Brazilian jiu-jitsu. Of the current UFC champions, there are very few that have had any amateur fights before starting their pro career.

Having a lengthy amateur career may lead to the fighter taking excessive unnecessary damage when it could be argued that you would be better just developing elite skills and competing in one of the three areas of wrestling, striking or BJJ and then transferring to MMA. 

There are also arguably even easier entry pathways to make it to the big shows. These include building a  'padded record'. Fights against opponents who are picked specifically to lose so you can get into the big event with an undefeated record or having a flamboyant screen personality and getting there via a reality TV show. 

Obviously, the problem with these last two options is that you will quickly get exposed once you actually fight at the higher levels but nonetheless they do seem like attractive alternatives for the up-and-coming fighter who is trying to fast-track his way to the top.

Not enough fighters to make Amateur MMA worthwhile

As mentioned above many fighters will just go straight to pro or will focus on competing in individual sports such as kickboxing and wrestling so that leaves a smaller talent pool of amateur MMA fighters. This, in turn, makes it difficult to hold worthwhile MMA tournaments or MMA circuits because the best fighters probably aren't competing so even if you win it might be meaningless in the long term.

Another problem is that with amateur MMA, there will never be enough fighters willing to step up and compete. At every 'MMA' Gym there will be members training and even competing in kickboxing or grappling but very few training in both & combining styles and even fewer willing to step up and compete, usually citing the reasons that they haven't been doing enough grappling recently because they've been focusing on their striking or vice versa. Of the few that do compete, they will usually only compete once or twice rather than committing to a longer-term amateur career.

One of the reasons for this may be that there just aren't enough regular amateur events to build up the necessary numbers of fighters. Most amateur fighters are lucky if they get the opportunity to fight three or four times per year compared to sports like amateur boxing where you could conceivably fight every weekend.  

The problem of what is the difference between an amateur and a pro?

In most sports, the term 'Professional' usually has connotations of being a super-elite high-level athlete. This is usually the case in sports such as football or basketball but fighting is a different story. Anyone who has been involved for any length of time knows that being a ‘professional fighter’ is usually a meaningless term. Anyone can get a professional fighter's licence regardless of their skill or ability whereas not everyone can become a professional football player. The reason for this is that in combat sports the focus is less on skill level and more on selling tickets.

It is not uncommon to see amateur fighters who are light years ahead of some 'Professional' fighters in terms of skill and experience. This is something that would usually never happen in other sports and for that reason, it makes the entire concept of Amateur and Professional MMA somewhat meaningless.

I think a useful idea in the future would be that fighters aren't granted a professional fighters licence unless they have a minimum number of legitimate amateur matches with a specific winning ratio or have equivalent high-level experience in another combat sport.

https://acsamelbourne.com.au/mixed-martial-arts/

https://acsabushido.com

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MMA Striking Class Video

Karate Style Striking for MMA

Key Concepts:

1 - Side on Stance - Presents less of a target for Opponent.

2 - Distance - Bouncing in & out of range to land strikes. Not staying in the pocket.

3 - Single power strikes rather than combinations.

4 - Clearing obstructions - Opponent will have hands up so you need to clear them before you have a target to strike.

5 - Changing Stance - Stepping through on strikes to increase power or landing in a favorable angle.

Combinations

A - Left Hand Trap to Rt Cross / Right Elbow

B - Left Hook Kick (Ura Mawashi Geri) to clear hand - Rt Cross

C - Step through Rt Cross - Left Body Kick (Mawashi Geri) - Right Spinning Backfist (Uraken)

D - Right Body Kick (Mawashi Geri) then Right Cross while retracting kick

E - Right Front Kick (Mae Geri) - Step through to Southpaw - Rt Jab - L Rear Hook - L Head Kick (Jodan Mawashi Geri)

F - Rt Cross - bring feet together - L Head Kick (Jodan Mawashi Geri)

G - Rt Cross - L Hook (Pivoting to Left) - Rt Head Kick (Jodan Mawashi Geri)

H - Bounce in Jab - Cross - Bounce back - Left Head Kick (Jodan Mawashi Geri) or Left Side Kick (Yoko Geri)

I - Jab - Skipping Left Side Kick (Yoko Geri) - Rt Spin Back Kick (Ushiro Geri)

J - Side step Left vs. Rt Cross - Rt Side Kick (Yoko Geri) land in Southpaw - L Cross - Rt Hook - L Uppercut - L Knee (Hiza Geri)

 

InFocus Video Interview with Will Luu

Here's a recent interview that I did with Australias top fight photographer and one of my first MMA students William Luu as part of his InFocus series.

InFocus Interview

ACSA Fighter Annie Thatcher wins Amateur MMA World title in Singapore

Last week Annie Thatcher won the GAMMA amateur MMA world title in Singapore. Annie had two great fights in one day first defeating an opponent from Belarus by TKO and then after a few hours rest stepped up to defeat her Canadian opponent by TKO in the final.

This was an especially impressive achievement because Annie had her first MMA bout only 18 months ago. She is now 6 fights for 6 wins in amateur mma and has also had 3 wins in boxing and Muay Thai. Annie has trained almost every day since she first stepped foot in the gym and she has shown tremendous improvement.

Annie is a great example of the kind of work ethic and dedication that we look for in our athletes at Australian Combat Sports Academy. Looking forward to see what the next year will bring for Annie’s fight career.

Check out our MMA Classes at ACSA MMA & BJJ Melbourne:

https://acsamelbourne.com.au/mixed-martial-arts/

Advice for MMA Fighters - MMA Melbourne

Be Consistent - Forget about 'Fight Camps'.

Train consistently at the same classes and sessions every week. Don't train hard for a few months and then drop-off for weeks at a time. Early in your career, you need to be ready to fight all the time, often at short notice. If you arent staying ready you'll miss out on good opportunities which could be the difference between reaching your goals or going nowhere. If you keep taking time off then needing to do intense training camps, it will cause injuries, lack of technical improvement and you won't reach your full potential. 

As a coach, one of the worst things a fighter can do is to train hard in the lead up to a fight and then quit training straight afterwards. This is even worse when the fighters teammates also have upcoming fights to prepare for. It is very unlikely the coach will be prepared to put the same effort into training the fighter in the future if he knows they lack commitment. Another side of this is to not chop and change your training every couple of weeks, stick with what has been getting you results and gradually increase the volume and intensity of your training.

Train Smart but be prepared to Train through Injuries.

Avoid unsafe training environments. These are usually found in tough-guy gyms where every session is 100% sparring with nobody actually learning anything or improving. If you have an experienced coach and a good team they will be able to supervise and plan your training and workload in such a way that you don't get injured. However, the reality is that MMA is a tough contact sport. You will pick up bumps, bruises and minor injuries along away the way no matter how careful you are. If you need to take three weeks off training every time you have a sore elbow you will never reach the top.

At the elite levels of any sport, every player is playing injured all the time. Get used to it, strap up your injured knee, elbow or foot and keep going. Select different exercises or techniques that won't exacerbate the injury but avoid taking time off at all costs. If training consistently to achieve your goals is important to you you will find a way to make it happen, if it's not important you will find an excuse.

Don't give up your Day Job. 

Do not try to become a full-time fighter until you have a winning record in a major MMA organisation. You will need money for training fees, competition fees and other expenses. You should be prepared to fight for free for at least the first few years of your fight career so you will need an additional income to support yourself. Beware of fight offers with promises of attractive fight purses early in your career. Chances are you are being set up to lose against a more experienced local fighter.

The amount of extra training you'll get done by not working will usually end up not being worth it. Most gyms and martial arts schools do most of their training outside of work hours. Even if you quit your job in order to train full time most of your training partners will be at work.

Find legitimate Coaches and a Team you can trust and stick to their advice.

Find experienced and trustworthy coaches, follow their advice and stick with them. Lots of experts will appear out of the woodwork and start offering advice once you achieve some success, but be careful who you listen to and take advice from. Beware of people offering to help out for free, usually, there is still going to be a price to pay, As a coach you are more likely to want to help and focus on the fighters who have been with you form the beginning and who feel part of the team rather than outsiders,

Forget about building your Social Media Profile. 

The amount of time and effort that people spend on this will be much better spent on working on developing your fighting skills. Let your fight results speak for themselves and then the opportunities and sponsorships will follow. There's no point building your social media following and then getting a chance to fight on a big event like the UFC if you actually aren't yet ready for it because you haven't put the time and effort into your training. 

Forget about lucrative Sponsorship Deals.

MMA is a relatively inexpensive sport compared to some others, the only expense is gym fees, occasional competition fees, training equipment which usually lasts a long time and some supplements. Being a sponsored athlete is usually good for the fighters ego but in general its not usually beneficial or necessary to their long term career. 

Get Experience.

Jumping into professional level fights too soon without adequate amateur experience is a recipe for disaster. Get as much experience as you can especially early in your career, Amateur fights are necessary to develop and build up your skills and experience. It's important not to fight above your level too soon as a bad loss may be very demoralizing and affect your future training and performance in fights. Fix the holes in your game before you reach the bigger stages. An MMA fighter needs to be skilled in the areas of striking, takedowns and groundwork and be able to combine them.

Focusing on only one area at the expense of other skills will leave holes in your game which will be easily exploited by more experienced future opponents. Competing in other combat sports such as BJJ or amateur Kickboxing is a good safe way to gain valuable experience and develop your skills so that you are more well rounded and more of a threat when you fight in MMA.

Check out our MMA Classes at DKMMA Melbourne

Learn MMA in Melbourne

Our first Amateur MMA Promotion - MMA Melbourne

This weekend we held our first-ever amateur MMA competition,

We've been planning to run something like this for years and now finally felt the time was right.  Over the years of training fighters we always felt that there were very limited opportunities for fighters to develop and get suitable competition experience in a way that prepared them for success in MMA.

The number one aim for our event was to provide a good avenue for fighters to gain competition experience in a way that would benefit them later in their fight career.

We were all very happy with how well the event ran and everyone who took part really enjoyed it and had great reviews,

We put a lot of work into the organisation of the event to ensure that it ran smoothly on the day and that everyone had a good experience.

Some of the things we focused on to make our event work well included.

A modified ruleset with No headshots. We were very clear about this in the lead-up and in the rules meeting before the matches. This rule-set is safer and means fighters can have several matches on one day. of course, it's going to feel different to fighting with headshots but the point is that fighters can gain valuable experience fighting under these modified rules that will serve them well when they do eventually progress onto fighting in pro-MMA rules,

We had several Fighters and Coaches say that they felt they would be at a disadvantage because they come from a kickboxing background and need to be able to strike to the head. In my opinion, the point isn't to win every match at this very early stage of your career. It is much more beneficial in the long term to gain valuable experience early in your competitive career and become a more well rounded and skilled fighter so that you don't get exposed later on in your career when the stakes are much higher.

I've always believed that the best career path for the long term athlete development of an MMA fighter is to compete in Grappling or BJJ tournaments as much as possible, compete in around 5 to 10 Amateur Boxing or kickboxing fights, compete in as many amateur (No headshot) MMA events as possible, then move on to Amateur MMA with head strikes and after 10 amateur MMA matches then you can fight under professional rules.

I believe this sort of long term plan is very important because too many fighters try to rush into pro rules MMA and then hope to learn on the job.

http://www.dkmmacoaching.com/2017/10/the-road-to-becoming-fighter.html

Another difference was that we made sure that all the referees and judges were experienced in MMA and or grappling so they understand the rules and were on top of the action at all times. This takes out a lot of the confusion and mistakes that I've seen in the past when you have kickboxing or boxing referees trying to understand what's happening on the ground during a fight.

We also made sure we were very clear on the rules meeting and that everyone knew exactly what was and wasn't allowed and the type of event we were trying to create. All fighters and teams stuck to the rules 100% and there was a great atmosphere.

Finally, we spent a lot of time making sure the format for the day was well organised and scheduled so there wasn't too much waiting around and less confusion about what's happening when. This, in turn, leads to less nerves for the fighters and overall and more enjoyable.

Overall Bushido #1 was a great success and we are already looking forward to running the next event on Saturday 1st February 2020.

Thanks again to everyone who helped out as judges, referees and staff. Thanks to all the fighters and teams who came along to take part and thanks to all the spectators who came along to support, Hope to see you all at the next one.

Check out our MMA Classes at DKMMA:

www.dkmma.com.au

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The Importance of Amateur MMA - MMA Melbourne

The Importance of Amateur MMA - MMA Melbourne

One of the biggest problems I see with aspiring fighters is that they are in too much of a rush to fight Pro. If you intend to have a successful long term fight career it is essential to gain as much experience as possible as an amateur. Generally, you will only get one shot at a contract with a major promotion such as the UFC so it's important that you are close to being the finished product when you get there rather than hoping you'll improve once you get there.

If you look at the most dominant UFC champions of the modern era you will see that they were all championship level by the time they made their UFC debut. If any fighter has serious flaws or holes in their game they will quickly be exposed and will have their contract cancelled then its back to fighting the next batch of UFC hopefuls as a gatekeeper on the local shows.

I encourage all my fighters to gain experience in amateur MMA, amateur boxing, kickboxing, muay Thai, compete in BJJ and grappling events. The time and money you spend on these smaller competitions will pay off in the long term because you will have a more well-rounded skill set.

MMA is a young sport which is changing and evolving all the time. In the past, it was possible for fighters with limited experience to walk straight into the UFC and do well but I believe we are at the end of that era. If you look closely at the previous champions you'll see that they actually had 100's of matches in other combat sports such as wrestling or BJJ before ever stepping into the cage.

Professional boxing is the biggest and most established combat sport. It is unheard of for any Boxer who wishes to become successful to fight professionally without first having an extensive amateur career. Floyd Mayweather fought over 90 amateur matches before turning pro, Muhammed Ali fought over 100 matches including winning an Olympic Gold medal and Roy Jones Jr fought over 130 amateur bouts before turning pro.

If you want to be a successful professional MMA fighter make sure you get as much experience as possible as an amateur first.

Our next Bushido Contenders Novice MMA Event is coming up on Saturday 9th July & our next Bushido Fight Night takes place at Thornbury Theatre on Saturday 30th July. Details for all events can be found at our official ACSA Bushido Website here:

www.acsabushido.com

Check out our MMA Classes at ACSA MMA & BJJ Melbourne:

https://acsamelbourne.com.au/mixed-martial-arts/

My 5 Most Popular Blog Articles

Here are my 5 most popular articles since I began writing my MMA coaching blog in 2012.

How to get ready for your first MMA Fight: January 2012

http://www.dkmmacoaching.com/2012/01/getting-ready-for-your-first-mma-fight.html

Advice for BJJ White belts to get the most out of their training: May 2018

http://www.dkmmacoaching.com/2018/05/getting-better-as-white-belt.html

What I've learned so far as an MMA Coach: July 2018

http://www.dkmmacoaching.com/2018/07/what-ive-learned-as-mma-coach.html

Being a Martial Arts Dad: August 2018

http://www.dkmmacoaching.com/2018/08/being-martial-arts-dad.html

My system for developing fighters: October 2017

http://www.dkmmacoaching.com/2017/10/the-road-to-becoming-fighter.html

Amateur MMA tournament - Saturday 9th November at Australian Combat Sports Academy:

Sign up here: https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/bushido-amateur-mma-competition-tickets-72835722607

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Deliberate Practice

Over my years of training and coaching martial arts I've seen many training partners and students come and go. Some students improve a lot and others don't seem to make any progress. In martial arts and particularly BJJ there is a culture of 'Just train bro' just keep turning up to class and eventually you'll get the hang of it. In my experience this is not the case, turning up to class and going through the motions is not enough to guarantee improvement and this lack of improvement will lead to loss motivation and quitting.

The key to improvement is Deliberate Practice. This is the opposite to just turning up to class and mindlessly hitting pads or doing arm-locks. It means concentrating and being focused on what you are doing with the specific intention of improving your performance.

Here are some of the basic requirements of Deliberate Practice :

A - Goals.

Having a clear 'stretch' goal of what you are working towards - Its important that this goal is something that will be quite difficult for you to achieve because this will force you grow and improve. Eg. Win all my matches by submission at my next BJJ tournament. Its also a good idea to have 'mini-goals' for each practice session Eg. Today I want to use that Combination/ Technique / Guard Pass at least 5 times in Sparring.

B - Concentration and Effort.

Full Concentration and Effort: When you are training in the gym, you are fully concentrating on what you are doing and giving it your full effort. If you are having a chat with your training partner while hitting pads don't expect to see great results.

C - Feedback.

Immediate and Informative Feedback: This could be from either a coach or from a training partner or alternatively you can just figure out how to give yourself feedback. Eg. I tried that arm-lock but my sparring partner got out of it and passed my guard - therefore what did I do wrong and what do I need to fix before next time.

D - Repetition.

Repetition with Reflection and Refinement. Lots of Repetition but not Mindless Repetition. You need repetitions with Reflection ('did I do that properly or did I screw it up?') and Refinement ('This time I'll make sure I keep my elbow close to my hip')

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My MMA Journey - Part 2

After losing my pro MMA debut I was in two minds about about continuing in MMA or just focusing on the safer option of competing in BJJ and Grappling.

I continued training hard and also around the same time became very interested in the mental and psychological side of fighting, how to control my nerves and adrenaline before a fight or a match, visualising what I'm going to do and how I'm going to feel and also avoiding the dangerous feeling of 'I just want to get this over with'. I spent a lot of time researching and reading about sports psychology and mental preparation and tried out everything I learned in local grappling tournaments.

Towards the end of 2003 I got another opportunity to fight in MMA. This time the fight would take place in Italy. About a month before this fight I had started a new job at an advertising company right in the centre of London and was also in the early stages of studying for my chartered accountancy qualification, this meant I was very limited on time so I had to fly to Italy on the morning of the event, fight in the evening and then fly home the next morning. Also, as previously mentioned MMA was an unknown sport back then, I couldn't really tell my employers I was going to overseas for a no rules fight at the weekend so I just said it was a martial arts event.

The fight in Italy was pretty tough. I had no idea who I would be fighting until I got into the ring. There was no weigh in and my opponent seemed to have a considerable weight advantage over me. I could tell i was in better condition though and I could see that he was getting tired halfway through the first round so it was just a matter of hanging in there, not getting hurt and waiting for my opportunity. By the start of the second round I could tell that he was done so I got my takedown and won by armlock.

This fight was a great experience because I overcame adversity. I always preferred the fights where I was losing at the beginning and manage to come back and overcome the opponent rather than fights where I had everything my own way.

One of the biggest lessons that I learned from my fighting career is the importance of having a coach, and particularly a coach who is experienced, who cares and is invested in you. Throughout all of my MMA career I had good friends and training partners who would help corner me but I never had a coach who had actually fought and could tell me exactly what to do. Advice such as how to train, how to prepare for a fight, which fights to accept and which to turn down. I pretty much did all of this on my own but in the long term I feel it was beneficial because I've been able to pass on the lessons I've learned to my students and fighters since then.

Learn MMA in Melbourne