Showing posts with label MMA. Show all posts
Showing posts with label MMA. Show all posts

Tuesday 22 May 2018

White Belt Advice


White belt is the make or break stage in your Martial Arts journey. BJJ has a very high drop off rate and the majority of people who begin training don't make it past the three month mark. There are a variety of reasons for this but quite commonly students quit because they feel they are not making any progress.

There are several common problems that I see with most beginner students and in this article I will offer possible solutions that will help you improve and make progress in your martial arts journey.

Some Beginners will never suffer from these problems, particularly so if they are athletic or have a background in other combat sports. They may not get exhausted or stuck in bad positions when rolling with other beginners, however, I think its actually beneficial for students to go through this frustrating process and to get used to it. This is something you will have to experience again and again throughout your training career. The sooner you can get comfortable with being uncomfortable the more benefits you will get in the long term.

Gassing Out... 


The first problem for many beginners is lack of fitness leading to exhaustion during sparring. Don't base your entire BJJ game around fitness and outworking your opponent at the expense of proper technique, however, it will always help to improve your fitness if you feel you are struggling during sparring rounds. 

To achieve this I recommend simple solutions such as getting up half an hour earlier and going for a run, bike ride or swim twice a week. Yes there are more scientific and technical ways of maximizing your fitness but as a White Belt you aren't trying to win the Olympics just attempting to build your gas tank so you can roll at a sensible pace without feeling completely exhausted and having to sit out rounds.


Another tip to avoid gassing out is to make sure you roll at a pace that is suitable for your fitness level. If you find you are breathing heavily and exhausted within 30 seconds you need to slow down and concentrate on what you are doing. Don't waste energy relentlessly squeezing your opponents head when you should be figuring out how to move your hips and legs to escape.

Getting Stuck in Bad Positions...


This is one of the most common questions I get asked by beginners. They get stuck under side control or Mount for every round of sparring and never get a chance to use any of the techniques they have learnt. 

My first piece of advice is to learn and drill the escapes from these positions then practice them in isolation sparring. This involves rounds of starting from side control and once you achieve an escape or reversal resetting and doing it again. This method will improve your escapes 100%.

Another useful idea is to occasionally just ask your training partners to reset once you've been stuck under side control or mount.  Getting better at escaping especially against heavier and more skilled opponents is a time consuming process and you can't expect results overnight. For this reason I would advise new students to just ask their training partners to reset in a different position and work from there rather than wasting valuable training time.

At a slightly higher level the biggest key to avoiding getting stuck in bad positions is to avoid ending up there in the first place. The key to this is Guard Recovery and Guard Pass Prevention. The better you get at preventing getting your guard passed the less time you will be spending in bad positions. As mentioned previously this is a long term process but the earlier in your grappling career you get started on it the better results you'll get.

Can't get any Submissions...


Another problem is that the typical BJJ student learns or is at least exposed to dozens of submissions in their first few months of training but when they try to apply these techniques in live sparring they never work. This is because all the other students have also been taught the same techniques during the same period and so they are aware of them and are ready to shut them down. This often leads to the less than ideal 'Youtube Arms-Race' scenario where ambitious White-belts will scour the internet for secret techniques to catch their training partners unawares rather than just focusing on learning how to do the fundamental techniques properly. 

I advise beginners to follow the BJJ maxim - 'Position before Submission'. Focus on building your game, at least in the early stages, of getting to solid control positions such as Side Control, Mount and Back Control and then the opportunities for submissions will begin to present themselves. I also encourage building your game around submissions where you will not lose position if it doesn't get the tap. For example if you cant finish the Rear Naked Choke you are still in Back Control so you get to try it again and again until the end of the round.

Can't remember their techniques when Sparring...


As previously mentioned during your first few months of training you will be exposed to what seems like an endless amount of techniques. It is usually too difficult to remember everything you learn and it will be almost impossible to recall and use it effectively when needed in live sparring.

The first stage in the solution to this problem is to try to retain as much information as possible. Make notes on everything you learn as soon as possible after learning it. Drill the technique as much as possible after your Instructor shows it then try to drill it again a few times later in the class e.g. before each sparring round or a few reps at the end of class. This will help keep it fresh in your memory. Its also a great idea if you get to class early to grab a partner and do a few reps of the techniques you learnt in the previous class.

The key to being able to use the techniques in sparring is to find a way to speed up the decision making process. You need to write out a game-plan of exactly what you will do in each position and in each scenario. For example, when on top in Side Control rather than attempting to remember and choosing between twenty different submissions you will have one designated attack to go for. If the opponent defends this you will then transition to your secondary attack. As you progress and get more experience you will gradually expand and adapt your game-plan but you need to start somewhere or you will waste years sparring ineffectively.

Not sure what they should be doing during Rolling....


When watching beginners rolling its clear that their only objective is to win the round by any means necessary and this is something which will usually be detrimental to their long term progress.

If your're unsure about what you should be doing when rolling then try to spend some time watching the higher belts at your academy. Don't look out for spectacular techniques or trick moves but rather how do they do the basic moves, how do they move and react when they are defending a guard pass or any other common situation that you are likely to find yourself in, what sort of pace and tempo they are working at?

If possible try to video yourself rolling so you can get a clearer view of what you are actually doing in sparring compared to what you think you're doing.

Finally, try to have some objectives for each round of sparring or training session. For example, I want to use my Double Under Guard Pass or my Scissor Sweep. The afterwards go back and if possible analyse your video and see if you achieved your objectives and how you can improve upon your performance for next time.

My most important piece of advice for beginners who feel that they are not making progress is that they should not become too demoralized. All combat sports take a long time to get good at and you will go through periods where your progress plateaus and you don't feel you are making improvement. 

Over the last 20+ years of grappling training I've seen many people who looked very impressive after a few months of training but usually these same people were the ones who quit after a year or so because they stop improving at the same rate they initially did. 

Its not about who is best after six months, but who's best (and who's left) after ten years.

Please comment below if you have any other White Belt Problems not covered here that you'd like me to discuss in a future article and also please check out my other article on how to improve your BJJ Training here


How to improve your BJJ training


Tuesday 13 February 2018

BJJ Sparring




The Purpose of Sparring and Rolling



The purpose of BJJ Sparring is to safely try out your techniques against resistance. This is not the same as fighting and I’ve found that people who are overly competitive in sparring usually make very limited progress in their training. Sparring rounds need to provide realistic resistance without being too competitive. One factor which makes BJJ so effective is that students can spar relatively safely and can try out the techniques in a realistic manner not long after learning them. This gives the student feedback about whether they were practicing the techniques correctly,


Safety


As with any activity related to training, there's no point in doing it if it can't be done safely. All techniques need to be executed in a controlled manner. As a student you should use only techniques that you know and understand. Also, focus on techniques that your partner also knows and understands. Don't try to catch your training partners with ’Trick’ moves that they haven’t seen before and which haven’t been taught in class. Training partners may not recognise the danger and might not tap or may react unpredictably.


Safety Rules



Apply all joint locks in a slow and controlled manner rather than jerking them on quickly. Make sure you give your training partner enough time to tap out even if that means they might have time to escape the submission attempt.

For all choke techniques make sure that pressure is actually being applied in an even manner to the neck rather than just cranking on the neck or jaw.

Move in a controlled manner rather than jumping around or swinging your hands, elbows, knees, feet and head into your training partners.

If you are heavier than your training partner avoid driving your weight into your partner or using your strength or weight advantage to muscle your way in or out of positions.


Avoid sparring in an overly competitive or intense manner


Make sure both your training partner and yourself understand the techniques which will be allowed



How to Start the Round


Its important to avoid wasting time in your training. One of the biggest wastes of time in BJJ training is to spend too long wrestling from your knees in an unrealistic situation. There are two options to get around this, first both partners can start off from standing position (however this is usually not suitable for injury prone beginners), The second option is to just start on the ground in a more realistic position, for example, one partner on bottom closed guard or open guard and then go live from there.


Have a Purpose


Have a few techniques and strategies in mind to work on during the round. For example, this could be one submission or sweep from guard or certain type of guard pass. I’ve found that its usually counter productive to tell your partner what you intend to work on as they will often feel obliged to let you do your technique which defeats the purpose or even worse they may try to block your attempts completely. It's also a good idea to have a few options for what you want to work on just in case you can't get to the position you need to get to to work on your chosen techniques.


Tuesday 30 January 2018

Beginners BJJ Classes



In my previous article I discussed how I run my Intermediate BJJ Classes


This time I'm going to cover how we run our beginner BJJ Program.

For Beginners Classes I follow an eight week program covering a different topic each week. I try to give the beginner students a good introduction to the most important positions and situations and then they can go into much more detail on each position when they graduate to the intermediate classes.

My Eight week program consists of:

Week 1 - Mount Position
Week 2 - Back Control
Week 3 - Side Control
Week 4 - Closed Guard Submissions
Week 5 - Closed Guard Sweeps
Week 6 - Open Guard
Week 7 - Guard Passing
Week 8 - Escapes from Positions and Submissions

Warm Up


Warm Ups for beginners classes consist of a light jog, joint rotations and then some basic JiuJitsu related movements such as hip escapes. Intense warm ups which are usually not a good idea in these sessions as beginners will be too exhausted to focus on learning techniques properly.

Standing Techniques


Each Class starts off with drilling one basic standing technique such as an escape from a grips, basic throws and takedowns. I always make these techniques relevant for self defence situations as this is the primary reason that most students are learning martial arts. An example of a technique in this section of the class might be to clinch against opponent throwing punches, get body-lock takedown, secure mount position.

I will break each technique down into five steps and give a 'Cue' word for each step. I find that any more than five steps tends to be too much to remember for  new students. If necessary I will give each student additional information or technical feedback about the technique as I'm walking around the class.

Ground Techniques


Next we move on to techniques based around whatever theme we are covering this week. I stick to just the highest percentage techniques from each position to expose the students to what I feel are the most important movements. These are the moves that I feel they need to learn and understand first before moving onto more complicated techniques. For example in Mount week I teach the students how to maintain Mount position and how to counter the most common escapes then we will work on Americana from Mount, Arm-lock from Mount, Cross Collar Choke from Mount and Transitioning from Mount to Back Control. 

Where possible I will stay away from Techniques which are too Sports BJJ specific and stick to fundamentals which work with or without the Gi and whether or not the opponent is trying to punch you. There will be plenty of time in the Students training career to practice Sports specific techniques but I feel its important to get the basics right first.


Positional Sparring


In some Beginners Classes I will also include positional sparring. This helps beginners get an idea of what the techniques should feel like against resistance in a safer environment. I don't believe its a good idea to let beginners Spar right from the beginning. Beginner students will not to be able to apply any actual Jiujitsu techniques and will instead just spend five minutes trying to headlock each other. There is also a higher risk of injury and it will probably be off-putting for the majority of new students. 


Fight Simulation Drill


At the end of the class we try to link all the techniques learnt that day into a Fight Simulation Drill. This is a good way to revise the techniques and also linking techniques together based on a specific response from the opponent. An example of this could be:
  • Close distance and Clinch against Partner Throwing Punches
  • Get Body-Lock Takedown to Mount Position 
  • Maintain Mount for ten seconds as Partner tries to escape with 50% resistance
  • Execute Americana or Arm-Lock Submission based on Arm Position of your Partner
  • Get up and Switch Roles
I have found that drills such as this are a great way to bridge the gap between learning techniques and then applying the techniques in sparring.






Wednesday 24 January 2018

My BJJ Class Format

http://bjjmelbourne.com.au/

Heres a brief description of how I run my Brazilian Jiu Jitsu Classes. Since I began teaching full time eight years ago I've been experimenting with various methods of running classes and tweaking the formats to see what works best. 

I have trained at a lot of different BJJ academies across the world and I have tried to implement the best ideas I've come across when running my own classes.

This is the format for my Intermediate classes which are an hour and half, I will cover my Beginners program in another article.

Weekly Schedule


One of the first things I did when I started teaching was to create a weekly schedule focusing on a different theme every week. I think this is much more efficient than just having an instructor turn up and teach whatever ever he feels like that day as it ensures all the important areas of BJJ are covered.
I've changed around my weekly schedule many times since I began Teaching but my current system is as follows.

Week 1 - Guard Passing 1 - Passing Closed Guard and Half Guard

Week 2 - Guard Passing 2 - Passing Open Guards

Week 3 - Closed Guard 1 - Revision of Submissions, Sweeps & Transitions from Closed Guard

Week 4 - Closed Guard 2 - Using Combinations of Submissions, Sweeps and Transitions

Week 5 - Half Guard Bottom - Submissions, Sweeps & Transitions from Bottom Half Guard.

Week 6 - Open Guard 1 - Focusing on Basic Open Guard, Butterfly Guard & Sitting Guard

Week 7 - Open Guard 2 - More Advanced Open Guards such as De La Riva & X Guard

Week 8 - Top Control Positions - Side Control, Kesa Gatame, Knee on Belly 

Week 9 - Mount - Control, Submissions & Transitions from Mount Position

Week 10 - Back Control - Taking the Back from various positions & Submissions from Back Control

Week 11 - Turtle Position - Submissions, Turnovers and Transitions from Turtle & Front Headlock

Week 12 - Leg-locks - Entries, Setups, Controls and finishes for Leg-lock Submissions

Week 13 - Escapes 1 - Positional Escapes

Week 14 - Escapes 2 - Escapes from Submissions


Class Format


My Intermediate classes follow the following format:


  • Warm-Up
  • Takedown Technique
  • Ground Techniques
  • Specific/Positional Sparring
  • Free Sparring


Warm Up


I've experimented with a few different options for Warm Ups over the last couple of years from high intensity cardio warm up to completely skipping the Warm up altogether and just getting straight into drilling techniques. At the minute we are doing some functional warm up exercises and a sequence of BJJ specific movements such as Technical Stand ups, Oma Plata Stretch and Sit outs. I have found these work really well as they get the students warm but also get them doing moving the right way which transfers well into the skills training.


Take-down Technique


I teach one takedown technique at the beginning of every class. We work Judo throws on the Gi training nights and Wrestling Take-downs on NoGi nights. I feel its important that all students have at least some basic level of Takedown ability in order to progress in BJJ. Although BJJ is primarily a Ground-Fighting art, its very important to learn how to take an opponent to ground in order to use your techniques.


Ground Techniques


Next we move on Techniques on the ground based on the theme we are covering that week. I encourage my students to drill as many reps as possible and try to make each rep as perfect as possible. I've seen many differing opinions on the value or effectiveness of drilling techniques throughout the last 25 years that I've been training in martial arts. Some people believe that drilling techniques is a waste of time and that students should just roll. Although I think this method may work for the exceptionally talented athlete I've found that the average student paying to learn JiuJitsu just will not make much improvement unless they put in the time drilling the techniques over and over to build muscle memory. 


Specific/Positional Sparring


This is where we take the techniques that we've drilled and try to apply them against resistance. I use a wide variety specific sparring drills that I use in this portion of the class. I have different Drills that I use depending on what we are working on that week. For example, during Side Control week we might just spar with one person starting on top in side control and also building up the objectives for each round. Round One might be Top person just pinning / holding while the bottom player tries to recover guard. Round Two we might move on to Top Player also trying to get to Mount or Back Control.

Heres another article with more detail on the benefits of Positional or Isolation Sparring Drills:

http://deniskellymmacoaching.blogspot.com.au/2015/07/isolation-sparring.html


Free Sparring


In the last section of the class we put it altogether in Free Sparring. We usually do 5 x 5 Minute rounds with 30 second rest between rounds. We encourage everyone to do every round of sparring unless there is uneven numbers in the class. If a student feels that their cardio isn't good enough to roll every round I'll just tell them to roll at a pace they can sustain for the rest of the class rather than going crazy for one round then having to sit out for the next 25 minutes. We also have a zero tolerance policy for dangerous sparring in class. All techniques must be performed in a safe and controlled partner. If you hurt your training partner and he cant roll the next round that means you have to sit out the next rounds too.

As previously mentioned I am continually tweaking and adjusting my class formats and adding new techniques and drills based on what I learn in my own training but I've found that I've seen really good results with my students using this format.

Check out this article about the Gym Culture we have tried to create at our Team

My Gym Culture





Monday 16 October 2017

Gym Culture


I've trained at lots of gyms all around the world. I've trained all over Europe, in the USA, Brazil, Japan and Thailand  I have tried to pick up all the best elements of each place i've trained while avoiding the things I felt didn't work.

My dream was to create a gym with high level training in striking, grappling and MMA. I'd been to many places that had excellent BJJ but non existent or very limited striking, or MMA gyms which had fighters but no real technical BJJ or Striking training.
The things that I've tried to do which I believe will lead us to being one of the best teams in the world include the following.


Train Smart


Smart Training methods - Not just everyone smashing each other in every session. Using progressive resistance and trying to learn and improve with each round of sparring or rolling rather than treating every round like a fight.

Fundamentals


Focus on important fundamental techniques - We work on high percentage techniques 99% of the time. If you get those working well then its easy to add the rubber guards, berimbolos and flying heel hooks to your game. If you start with the fancy flavour of the month techniques you'll never get them to work.


Keep Getting Better


Focus on continual improvement - working on getting better every session, improving your game by 1% every day and after a year you'll be 365% better. This is a long slow process but you get better results than just training hard for 4 weeks leading up to a fight and then slacking off.


Team Culture


We have a culture of more experienced members helping the new guys and turning them into better training partners - This benefits everyone, New people get better quicker and experienced people have more quality training partners. The opposite to this is gyms where the people who've been training for 6 months consider themselves too good to waste their time on the new people.


The Right Atmosphere


We have a friendly atmosphere - Theres no need to convince people that you're a tough guy if you actually have the fights, wins and belts to prove it. Toughness is how you train and fight not how you act.
We still maintain the atmosphere of a martial arts academy. Everyone lines up, follows the rules, shows respect to their training partners, keeps the place clean and hygienic.

Respect 


We don't disrespect other gyms or teams. I think if you spend all your time talking about how bad other gyms or teams are it shows insecurity, we focus on making ourselves and our students the best that they can be in every session rather than worrying about what others are doing.

Check out this Documentary about our Team and our BJJ Program:

http://deniskellymmacoaching.blogspot.com.au/2016/09/team-nemesis-documentary.html



Thursday 6 April 2017

Fight Training Mistakes


Here are some of the things that I see aspiring fighters do which I think are very detrimental to their long term fight career success.

What is your Goal and What will it take to get there?

Not having a clear goal of what you want to achieve leads to unrealistic expectations of what it will take to get you there. If your goal is to win a local level amateur fight you will probably get away with training a few evenings a week however if you want to be an international level fighter you need to be in the gym for several hours every day, week after week, year after year even when you don’t feel like it or are running low on motivation.

What Stage are you at in your Fight Career?

Not having an accurate idea about what stage in your career or fighter development you are are at. This leads to not doing what you need to get to the next level. If you are already a UFC champion, you can probably get away with just honing you existing skills and doing training camps to make sure you ‘peak’ for your title defenses. Top level champions have already spent twenty plus years learning and perfecting the skills of Jiu-jitsu, wrestling and striking. If you are not yet at that level, you need to be working every day to build those skills.

How much Training are you really doing?

Not being honest with yourself about how much training you are actually doing. For example, some fighters are in the gym for three hours but they are actually training for 45 minutes’ total. They waste a lot of time chatting and training halfheartedly while chatting to their mates. Its OK to have fun and be sociable but its worth remembering that while you’re chatting and having fun your opponent might be already into his third hour of serious training and that will make a huge difference to the outcome of the fight.

Are you doing the Right kind of training or Just doing what you Enjoy?

Doing a lot of the wrong kind of training. Wasting too much time on the type of training you enjoy rather than on what you actually need to do to win fights. A big example I see of this is fighters doing fancy tricks in pad work routines which look good but which ultimately won’t help them to win fights. You need to identify the weaknesses in you game and spend your time working on fixing those holes. This is obviously not as much fun as doing the stuff you enjoy but its what you need to do to avoid losing fights.

Are your Training Partners helping you to become a better fighter?

Training with the wrong people. Training with seriously motivated people who want to train hard and work consistently to keep getting better is tough but its what you need to do to improve. If you waste time training with lazy, unfocused and unmotivated training partners it will rub off on you and you will eventually end up like them.

Are you Actually getting any better?

Staying in ‘maintenance level’ rather than focusing on continual daily improvement. Some fighters get to a certain level and the are not prepared to keeping putting in the same amount of work that will get them to the next level. You should try to improve your skills by 1% every day rather than being happy to stay where you are.

Are you actually sticking with the program or chopping and changing every few weeks?

Fighters can sometimes be easily influenced and will often adopt any new fad or training method to get short term results rather than thinking long term. Probably the biggest mistake I see with fighters is that they change their training routine and preparation in spite of overwhelming evidence that what they had been doing is working and getting them good results. Once you have a small amount of success in any field there will always be ‘experts’ who will appear to suddenly tell you what you should be doing better. If its not broke don’t fix it. Stick to what has been getting you the results.


Sunday 23 August 2015

MMA Teamwork

How important is your Team for success in MMA?



Boxing Vs MMA : Teams


One of the major differences between professional Boxing and MMA is the emphasis on teams rather than on the individual fighters. In boxing everyone knows all about Mayweather and Pacquiao but not too much about their training partners. It's usually the opposite in MMA. If there is one successful fighter from a team there are usually plenty more where they came from.




This has been the case right from the start. The first major team that had a lot of success was the Lions Den which featured Ken Shamrock, Frank Shamrock, Guy Mezger and many others. Following on from their example many other successful teams came along over the years such as Miletich Fighting Systems (Pat Miletich, Matt Hughes, Jens Pulver), Chute Box (Pele, Wanderlei Silva, Anderson Silva, Shogun Rua), Team Punishment (Tito Ortitz, Chuck Liddell, Ricco Rodriguez) and Brazilian Top Team (Nogueria Brothers, Mario Sperry, Ricardo Arona).


The Team System


The team system has worked so well that pretty much all the successful fighters in the history of MMA can trace their success back to being part of a successful team. This has continued up to the present day with the results of teams such as Jacksons MMA, Roufus Sport, AKA and Tristar Gym.

The career trajectory of a professional boxer is usually a lot different. Boxers typically start off at an amateur club where they are taught by volunteers a few evenings a week. If they ever become good enough to turn professional they will need to hire full time trainers and managers. They will also  need to pay sparring partners to come in and help them prepare for fights. The big difference here is that in MMA the sparring partners are usually working together to help each other improve. Boxing sparring partners are just there for the benefit of the star fighter. The sparring partners are not told to ‘look after’ each other. In some cases sparring partners would get paid a bonus if they could knock out the star fighter in training.

Iron Sharpens Iron

MMA camps usually consist of teams of people who train together all year round not just before fights. All members of the team try to improve each other and develop the others skills especially in sparring. In the long term this will lead to each fighter having better and more skilled training partners to train with. In professional boxing all of the sparring partners are just there to improve the big name boxer. The star boxer isn’t really concerned with developing the skills of the sparring partners.

Right from the beginning MMA has been a team focused sport. Pretty much all the champions in UFC and Pride have come through the tried and tested team system. Over the years there have been a few examples of MMA ‘superstars’ who tried to follow the professional boxing model instead such as Brock Lesnar and Alastair Overreem. These fighters usually have very limited success when they try to break away from the team system and are eventually faced with either retiring from the sport or returning to a successful team.

Advantages of a Team

What are the advantages of a team? Firstly, you get out what you put in. If you turn up consistently and train hard with a good, helpful attitude you will have good training partners who will in turn help you to develop into an even better fighter. If you come to the gym sporadically, train with the wrong attitude and injure your training partners nobody will be willing to train with you. This will make it very difficult to be successful as a fighter. You will be faced with the option of having to pay sparring partners. However MMA fighters don’t get paid enough to justify paying sparring partners and there aren’t really any MMA sparring partners for hire like there are in professional boxing.

Another advantage is that it is possible to produce multiple good fighters using the team system rather than just being focused on one person. This is because the trainers, sparring partners, training systems and structure remain consistent and if they have produced good results for one person then they can continue to reproduce the same results and success for others.

When a fighter steps into the ring or cage they are in there on their own but what happens and how they perform once the bell rings is determined by the team that they have been surrounded by up until that point.



Wednesday 5 August 2015

Mental Toughness for Fighters


Here is a short interview which I recently did with one of my clients who is completing a sports science degree regarding mental toughness and mental preparation in combat sports. 


How do you define "mental toughness"? 

I would define mental toughness in sports as ability to reproduce an athletes best performance under adverse & unfavorable conditions such as stress, pain or fear of injury. 

What do you believe contributes to mental toughness (e.g. nature vs. nurture, experiences, environments, upbringing)? 

The main contributing factor in developing mental toughness is gaining experience in overcoming obstacles. When an athlete repeatedly comes up against tough experiences and is able to overcome them he will develop mental toughness & confidence which will help him overcome further challenges & tough experiences in the future. It is important that an athlete is gradually tested against tougher opposition. In terms of combat sports this would mean starting off sparring against opponents who are on a similar or lower level and then gradually increasing the level of sparring partners as the athletes confidence & ability increases. It is important that the athlete is not just continually sparring people who he can beat & don’t present a challenge. This may boost his confidence but will give him a false sense of security & his lack of mental toughness will be exposed when he comes up against tougher opposition. The other side of this is that if the athlete is sparring against opponents who are too experienced for him it may be detrimental and lead to him losing confidence in his abilities and ruin his potential for developing mental toughness. 

How do you try to instil mental toughness in your athletes? 

To help build mental toughness in my athletes I like to use several types of sparring drills & exercises, these may include. 
  • Line ups - these involve sparring against a group of fresh opponents one after another. This is tough for the athlete as he is already fatigued from the previous rounds & needs to still perform well against fresh opponents. 
  • Fight Simulation Drills / Circuits - This involves placing the athlete in a series of disadvantageous positions for a set period of time which he must escape from or complete a set task before progressing to the next station. 
  • Winner Stays On Sparring - This involves a group of sparring partners & an objective such as scoring a take-down or submission, this will result in the winner then having to spar against a new opponent & trying to stay in against new opponents for as long as possible. 
  • Conditioning exercises such as sprints or 'burpees' done at the end of the training session when the athlete is already fatigued and trying to get the athlete to keep going & outworking his training partners. 

Do you think there are any downfalls to being mentally tough? 

Athletes who are very mentally tough may be likely to push themselves to extreme lengths and may take excessive risks such as continuing to train or compete in-spite of injury. There is also a risk in combat sports that an athlete may allow himself to take excessive punishment rather than quitting. This is obviously very dangerous and can be fatal in some cases.





Wednesday 22 July 2015

Getting Better at BJJ Faster

Speed up your Learning Curve with Isolation Sparring





Finding Better Ways to Train



Throughout my martial arts training and especially since I’ve been coaching I’ve been interested in investigating more efficient ways of training. I’ve never been convinced by people who say ‘this is the way they’ve trained in Japan/Thailand/Brazil etc. for 100’s of years’. Interestingly this doesn’t happen in other sports. Golf coaches don’t stick to the same coaching methods that were used in 15th Century Scotland, Soccer and Rugby coaches don’t use the same training methods that they used 100 years ago so why should training for Martial Arts and Combat Sports be different.




In my opinion a lot of traditional training methods such as (in the case of striking sports) doing 30 minutes of skipping, endless rounds of bag-work and then live sparring are inefficient. The majority of people who train in this way will not enjoy the training, they will not make any progress and will eventually drop off and quit. If only a tiny percentage of the people are getting any measurable results it indicates that there is a fault in the process.



Using techniques against Resistance


Another problem is that students spend a long time learning techniques and are often able to perform these moves perfectly on the punch bag or against an un-resisting partner but then as soon as they try to spar it all goes out the window.

One alternative which can be fun for the new student is to not spend too much time practicing technical skills and just do lots of sparring to get used to the speed and pressure right from the start. This often leads to the student not spending enough time actually practicing and perfecting techniques and instead relying on instinct and athleticism. They may also fall into the trap of becoming over reliant on their favourite techniques and avoiding their weak areas. This can leave huge holes in their game which may be easily exploited in the future by more experienced and well rounded opponents.

Speeding up Reaction Time


Another major problem that students experience in sparring is remembering which technique to do at which time. At the end the round the student realises that they could have used a specific technique which they had been practicing for all of last week. Too many techniques and positions at the early stage means there is too much to think about which slows down the students reaction speed and decision making.

The best way I've found to overcome these issues and to bridge the gap between practicing techniques and then using those techniques in sparring is to use a concept which I borrowed from the Straight Blast Gym. It is called Isolation training and involves zeroing in on just one aspect or skill and focusing on improving it under sparring conditions.

Isolation Boxing Sparring


An example of how this works can be seen in boxing sparring. A group of students have just spent the class working on their jabs and then moved onto slipping jabs, head movement and counters. Now if they go straight into boxing sparring it is likely that everything they have been working on will go out the window, they will be throwing lazy jabs and forgetting how to slip. The alternative is that we go into 'Jab Only Isolation Sparring'. I have found that this leads to much better results as there is less to think about and allows the student to just focus on and perfect one aspect of their game.

Isolation BJJ Sparring


There are many variations of these types of drills, some of the most successful that I have used in the past are BJJ positional sparring drills. A good example of this is the side control sparring progression drill. One person starts off on top in side control and just has to maintain the position while the other tries to escape, as you progress you can add other variables to the drills such as the person on top cannot use hands, person on top has to switch position every 5 seconds, person on top has a specific objective such as getting to mount or knee ride position.

Other good ideas for BJJ drills are sparring from just one specific type of guard e.g. De la Riva guard then going back to the start as soon as either partner achieves their objective which could be getting a sweep or passing the guard.

This idea can also be useful for getting students working on finishing submissions and escaping from submissions at the same time. One student starts with the submission such as a Triangle Choke semi locked in. He then tries to finish the submission while partner works on escaping. If either of them are successful they just reset and try again or reverse roles.

Benefits for Both Training Partners


The great thing about training like this is that it's beneficial for both partners rather than just one person doing the techniques while the other is the dummy. Also, training like this can be better than sparring if there is a big difference in the skill level between students. In a sparring situation the less skilled person would never get a chance to do any attacks of his own and would just spend the entire time unsuccessfully defending attacks.

There are infinite options for these types of drills and are only limited by the imagination of the coaches and students. It is important though that that you don’t just do drills for the sake of it. Ask yourself is this drill developing a skill which is transferable and effective in live sparring and competition . The objective is always to improve real fighting ability rather than to just get better at drills which look impressive but ultimately have no crossover benefits for real fighting ( which is where many traditional martial arts styles have gone wrong in the past)

Don't Try to Win The Drill


Also, within every group of students the majority will see the benefit of the drill and have 'lightbulb' moments (‘oh yeah I do struggle to regain half guard/check kicks/move my head… this drill will really help’) but there will always be one who tries to ‘WIN the DRILL’ by finding loopholes in the rules rather than using the drill the way it was intended. So make sure everyone is clear that the objective is to learn & develop skills rather than just trying to win. Like the person in this clip.




Long Term BJJ Training

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