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.
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.
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.
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.
Last week I taught a BJJ Seminar at 360 Martial Arts and Fitness in Ulverstone Tasmania while visiting the area for a family holiday. I have attended many seminars over the last 25 years and have had mixed experiences. Some have been great and have changed the direction of my martial arts training and coaching and others have been terrible. In some cases its clear that the instructor has not given any thought to what or how he is going to teach and is only there to collect a paycheck. I've always wanted to make sure that when I'm asked to teach that I have a great session planned and that every single person who attends will get something out of it and will improve their martial arts ability in some way. I always plan my seminar step by step and then hand out notes on what has been covered at the end of the session.
Here is what I taught last week:
Takedown & Open Guard Seminar - Denis Kelly MMA Coaching
Grip Breaks: Kumi Kata (From Right Hand Grip)
Right hand Fingertips to ear and pull back right Elbow
Both hands grip Right sleeve - Pull Down or Pull away and Lean Back
Shake - Pull down Collar grip with Left Hand
Grip Surfing Drill:
Get Grip and Prevent Grip
Flow from One Grip to the Next
Collar - Sleeve - Belt - Leg - Two on One
Fireman's Throw / Kata Guruma:
2 on 1 Grip - Pressure Down on Shoulder - Action/Reaction
Pull with Left Hand - Drop Penetration Step Right Knee
Right hand to Sky - Ribs on your Neck
Sink/Sit on your Heels - So he doesnt have too far to fall
Lower your left shoulder to the mat - let opponent do a forward roll over you
Open Guard Grip Surfing Drill:
Non competitive - Just flowing between grips - Partners gives correct energy
Block Tricep with your Instep - Lock your Elbow to your Hip
Test the Connection - Partner walks backwards and pulls you.
SASA Sweep - Yukinori Sasa (Paraestra Gym Tokyo):
Bring Right Foot from Left Hip to Right Hip - Shin across belt
Right Hand goes inside his left Knee
Bring his Right Shoulder to the mat with your Left Knee & Lift with right hand
Finish in Knee on Belly Position
To Oma Plata:
If they don't move forward after removing foot from hip
Right hand to outside of Right Knee - Rotate under stomach
Stretch both legs - Knees tight to force shoulder to Mat
To Triangle:
Right Leg over Left Shoulder
Grip right elbow with both hands
Pull Right elbow in - Stretch left leg through
Inside of left knee on right shoulder to angle off to your right.
Guard Passing Drills:
Slap-Head : Passer
Slap-Head : Both
One Arm Bandit
No Arm Bandit
Blind Bandit
I received a lot of great feedback about the session and could see that many of the participants were picking up the techniques and concepts really well. Really looking forward to getting back there to run another session in the near future.
