Just in case you needed some motivation to party down or train hard, here’s a little something to help you kick start your weekend.
Tags: MMA, motivational posters
I am peeing my pants, right now. I’m yelling at the T.V screen.
Second round, Lyoto cleans Rashad’s clock. It’s a knock out.
First round, very slow. Machida lands a glancing roundhouse kick to the head, and a shot or two that stings Rashad, knocking him down. Lyoto pounces, dealing a bit of damage, but Evans stands things up and the round ends.
Second round, a couple of similar back leg round house kicks, a couple of tie ups. During one tie up, Lyoto puched Rashad in the head with 3 strong punches, then Rashad answers with 3 stiff shots of his own. These are the only shots that Evans will cleanly land on Machida.
Rashad on the defensive, Lyoto is chasing him down, scaring him with stutter-step rush-fakes. Cutting off some of the octogon, the karate champ get in distance and explodes into Evans, knocking him down again. Rashad shows some toughness, eventually getting up, but he’s wobbly. Machida takes advantage, landing punches on the chin, whipping Evans head to the side. Rashad slumps to the ground like a drunken failed attempt at the limbo.
During the post fight interview, Lyoto screams:
KARATE IS BACK!
Tags: karate, knock outs, lyoto machida, rashad evans, UFC 98 results
Everybody has their favorite fighters. When they win, it’s non-stop hero worship. When they lose, it’s tears and excuse making. Maybe Rashad Evans looks like your dad, or you studied Karate as a kid, just little Lyoto Machida. Who knows why you like ‘em, but you do. And if you’re on this particular fanboat, UFC 98 will bathe you in an epic shockwave of fanboy emotion. Glorious.
Anyway, debating predictions of who’s going to win and why has been intense. Dissecting each guy’s game is really pretty interesting. Here’s the some of my thoughts, as well as those floating around the web on how each fighter stacks up in different areas.
Explosiveness
The Rashad Camp: Rashad’s very athletic - he’s got a super strong wrestling background and he hits hard. He can burst with power and knock you out. He’s just too much for Lyoto to handle. Lyoto just can’t throw hard punches in bunches like Evans.
The Machida Camp: Machida doesn’t throw as often as Evans, but he makes them count. He doesn’t waste his power, getting beat up and exchanging blows. He explodes when explodin’ needs to be done. Like an assassin.
MMA Record
The Rashad Camp: Chuck Liddell + Forrest Griffin > Tito Ortiz + Sokoudjou. He’s beat some tough dudes, and he’s undefeated. Plus, you may know this, but he does have the the currently the UFC light heavyweight belt.
TMC: Rashad’s undefeated record isn’t as hardcore as Machida’s. Out of his last nine fights, Rashad had 4 SPLIT decision wins and one was a draw. More than half of the time (5/9), there was a judge who thought Rashad lost those fights. Now with his two big wins - Evans was losing until the last round of the Griffin fight, and beating Chuck recently and beating Chuck in his heyday are two different things.
Take a minute and think about fighters that both Machida and Evans have fought. He definitively beat Tito Ortiz, a fighter that Rashad pulled a lucky draw against. During the Evan’s/Tito fight, Ortiz was deducted a point for holding the fence - without this point deduction, Ortiz would have won the judges cards.
Then there’s the tough Stephan Bonner - who Rashad beat via 3rd round split decision, while Machida put him away in 1 round.
Then there’s Sam Hoger - Rashad got a split decision, while Machida took a unanimous decision.
Outside the fighters already mentioned, he’s put down some pretty tough dudes himself. Rich Franklin, Bj Penn, and (at that time) undefeated Thiago Silva.
Gameplan
The Rashad Camp: Greg Jackson. He’s a mastermind. Listening to his fighter’s post-fight interviews gives you a glimpse at how they unravel their opponents at the gym before the fight begins. Rashad has even said that his KO of Chuck Liddell was an exact copy of a technique they drilled specifically for the Iceman.
Mike Winklejohn, striking coach for Rashad, has said
Machida is a tough nut to crack.He’s a talented guy with good reactions; he steps back, causes a hole and counters real well. [The] plan is to have Rashad not be there when Machida wants to counter. We are going to counter the counter or make Machida come at Rashad.”
I told Rashad if the crowd starts booing, that’s a good thing; we have the right gameplan. [The] plan is to have Rashad not be there when Machida wants to counter. We are going to counter the counter or make Machida come at Rashad.
…
I told Rashad if the crowd starts booing, that’s a good thing; we have the right gameplan,” said Winklejohn, echoing the sentiments he imparted before Evans knocked out Liddell in Atlanta.
Rashad has said,
… I don’t think he’s too busy with his strikes. He’s a very technical fighter. He’s not going to throw punches in bunches, but when he does throw, he tries to make them count. I’m looking for him to try to explode a lot and see what he can get …
.
The Machida Camp: He’s a tad bit more tight lipped about the specifics of his game plan. Playing up to the camera’s a bit, Lyoto has put it bluntly: “My strategy is to knock him out … Rashad can’t defend my style. No one can… if you can conquer the will of a man you will conquer the man himself. That is my quest.” (See the UFC 98 trailer).
Outside of that, he’s mentioned how he’s noticed Rashad’s calm scheming style.
Rashad is a very strategic and calm fighter. Against Forrest he was being punished badly and turned the fight around, but my father and my brother are helping me a lot to bring up my game. I always dreamed for this opportunity and I’m training harder than ever to get this belt.
Training Camps
The Rashad Camp: GSP, Jason McDonald, Nathan Marquardt, Keith Jardine…
The Machida Camp: Anderson Silva, Machida senior, his brother Chinzo, Olympic Gold medalist Satoshi Ishii.
Chin
The Rashad Camp: Brad Imes hit him with some pretty big shots, and he still pulled through.
The Machida Camp: Lyoto’s style is to not take damage - however, he probably has a decent one since he got hit pretty hard in his fight with BJ Penn a couple of times and even with a stout elbow in his fight with Kazuhiro Nakamura. Still, his chin is “not being there”.
General Badass-ness
The Rashad Camp: He’s stared down Ramapage Jackson. It takes some serious balls to not back down against an aggressive mofo like that. (I hear Quinton eats babies and puppies, just to make him immune to being a pansy.)
The Machida Camp: Machida has said that fights are equal part mental and physical challenge, saying that “… he thinks the fight begins before he steps into the ring, and that his mind can be used as a weapon. He sees his body as a sword, as a samurai would.”
Standup
The Rashad Camp: So far, we’ve seen accurate punching at range, and some good punching close up. Evans has good take downs, a strong wrestling clinch, mean ground and pound … he can do damage to you at all distances. In addiction to being a precise striker, for a 205 ‘er, he’s exceptionally nimble and quick with his hands. Stylistically, he’s very technical and cautious. Also, Evans has good movement, head fakes, and footwork. He’s fluid. All in all, he’s one of the best striker/wrestler combinations in the game right now.
The Machida Camp: Lyoto excels at striking from outside the pocket, outside of the other fighters range. He’s got solid ground and pound, and uses judo sweeps from the clinch often. His stance is wide and a little lower, making it hard to sweep and take him down. This strong base helps provide power to his long range strikes. His style is elusive, avoiding engagement with the enemy until he has a major advantage with his attack angles and timing. IF he does start to take damage, he can use his clinch game to nullify a lot of the damage he might take, then execute a sweep or throw to gain dominant position.
Vegas Odds
Most betting places put Machida as the heavy favorite to win this fight (about a -200 advantage). Over at MMA Fanhouse, they point out this betting favoritism by saying,
It’s rare for an undefeated champion like Evans to be an underdog, but then again it’s rare for an undefeated champion to be taking on an opponent like Machida, who isn’t just undefeated but has used his elusive style to frustrate opponents and win all his fights rather easily.
Who Has Cooler Sponsors?
Well, there you have it. What are you thoughts?
Tags: greg jackson, lyoto machida, rashad evans, ufc 98
Because sometimes eating can make you angry too.
Summary:
Doing this diet can be a fun, satisfying, healthy way to live. There are a lot of great things about the Warrior Diet and it’s ideas, from tuning up your mental warrior to saving time on meal preparation. But this doesn’t make it useful to an amateur or pro mixed martial artist.
If you haven’t heard of the Warrior Diet (WD), it is essentially this: you eat only one meal a day (at night) avoid processed foods like the plague, and let warrior essence permeate your body until all your enemies lie defeated under your gladiator physique. Or at least something like that.
The Diet Specifics
As I mentioned, the basic idea of the diet is to have a controlled fast during the day and eat one big meal at night. During your evening meal, you can eat as much as you want, even if it would be more than you would consume in 3 regular meals.
For this meal, a few “rules” are to be kept.
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During the day, you can eat a little bit - fresh squeezed fruit and vegetable juices, raw nuts, low glycemic index fruits, lean protein - but no pasta/bread type carbs. Also, you should drink lots of water.
If you are very active, the diet makes some concessions and allows some eating post workout.
Outside of these eating based rules, the WD has several themes which run along side the dietary advise.
In general, live more naturally. Eat local, fresh, seasonal foods.
Enjoy what you eat and how you eat. Eat with pleasurable company, have lively discussion and laughter during and after the meal.
Let hunger be a positive thing. After eating like a warrior for a while, you’ll have a certain mastery over food, hunger, and desires. In the day time, stay active, sharp and “hungry for life”.
Workout in short, intense bursts. Make sure exercises build functional strength.
Be a warrior. Insert mental images of the movie 300 here.
Of course, this is just an overview. The book make a lot of claims and makes a lot of explanations. Ori’s scientific reasoning is sound in some places, and suspect in others. There are numerous references to ancient Roman and Spartan lifestyles; some times the history reading is a bit like hero worship, but interesting nonetheless. You’ll have to sort out it for yourself.
Personal Experience
I originally read Warrior Diet, by Ori Hofmekler, about 4 years ago and got sucked into the warrior idealism that the book exudes. Certainly, I am not a nutritionist, but I have diligently lived the WD for 6 straight months, as well as lived a modified WD for over a year, so I know what it does to my body. I’ve been reading different forums and diet logs, and all I can say is that your mileage may vary.
Some bodies work well with the whole under eating during the day/overeating at night gig, some people respond poorly. For me, the WD diet worked pretty well on many fronts. The diet works for the author, Ori, as you can tell that he’s fairly ripped.
For me, it the diet was a good lifestyle. You only have to eat once a day - which is a huge time saver - and by the time you get to dinner you are very hungry, which means food tastes really good. By cutting out processed, unnatural foods (overly sweet and salty preservatives muck up your perceptions) I started to have a much more acute sense of taste. I could taste everything I ate at a deeper level, for instance I began noticing the strong sweetness in carrots. As a side effect, junk foods didn’t appeal to me. I didn’t crave them or even like them when I did eat them (very infrequently, I might add).
I loved eating this way - my food tasted better and I felt satisfied every day. I suspect that you get a serotonin boost at night when you eat until you’re full.
The first little while, hunger pains were pretty tough in the afternoon. Part of it was a psychological addiction to food, part was a biological balancing act of blood sugars. The WD says you should eat a little bit to combat the hunger pains, but I wanted the full warrior feeling. No pain no gain. After a while, my body adapted and the cringing pain of hunger was all but gone. To this day, I still don’t get mood/energy swings when I don’t eat.
As a general rule, I used to get sleepy after lunch. By fasting, I avoided the afternoon grogginess. While on the WD, I had a lot more energy during the day and slept pretty well at night.
The warrior diet did funky things to my sex drive too. In general, in made me more aggressive and horny - but not in that uncontrolled high school type of way. Maybe it was all in my mind, but I felt more masculine and sharp. I didn’t “perform” any differently physically, but there was definitely a marked difference in my mental state.
In terms of athletic performance, I didn’t notice any significant change. I was a fit young man before I started the WD, so I didn’t look to the warrior lifestyle to give me a sixpack of abs. In fact, the first few weeks I gained a few pounds of fat. If I had to guess, it was due to increased cortisol levels associated with not drinking enough water. The diet says to drink a lot of water, but I didn’t really start drinking enough till week 3. Eventually, that fat came off.
Afterthoughts
If you’d like to try the warrior diet, I say go for it. If you are overweight, I’d guess that you’d lose weight because most people have trouble packing in 2,000 calories in one meal if the evening foods are natural and healthy.
However, if you’re looking to increase your MMA performance I just don’t see the Warrior Diet facilitating that. After reading up quite a bit on Billy Rush, MMA nutritionist superstar, I’m sold on the 6 small meals a day plan for fighters. When you’re really into MMA, you probably have more than one workout a day. With those workouts, you have optimal windows of nutrient uptake and serious needs of proper recovery. Your most important meal of the day is the post-workout recovery meal, second only to the pre-workout mini-meal.
Bottom line: The pro’s of daily fasting just don’t out-weigh the gains you could be making by eating more frequently, in time with your workouts.
If you have any questions, let me know or you can crawl the WD forums.
Tags: mma diet, mma nutrition, nutrition, ori hofmekler, warrior diet
Mixing up Mixed Martial Arts
By Garland H.
Editor’s Note:
I think Garland has done a good job and has really thought outside of the box in his written assignment for the MMA class at the U of U. I have left almost all of Garland’s writing intact, that is to say, I have only edited it in a minor way in order to be posted here. To sum up his whole paper, I use his words at the end of the essay:” I think that if the reader opens his or her mind and looks at things with open eyes, they will see the utility of sport techniques in the self defense and combatives arena, and traditionally combative strategies and techniques within the context of a sport framework.” - Bart
Kali Tudo 1
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Kali Tudo 2
Introductory Note:
I have written this editorial piece with the intention of opening people’s minds and helping shut down preconceived ideas about what belongs or does not belong in a mixed martial arts fight. I want the reader to keep in mind throughout this article that MMA is just a modern term for a certain type of pugilistic competition that incorporates striking and grappling, and does not necessarily preclude the supplementation of other arts to the thus far tried and true arts that comprise the personal styles of individuals fighting in mixed martial arts competitions today. In a more holistic perception of the wide-world of fighting, I also want to plant the seeds in the readers mind of where sportive techniques and techniques and tactics for combative or defensive application overlap in each other’s domain and pose to them a question; if something works, is it wrong? I have written what I believe to be true, I have trained in the Filipino Martial Arts for a few years but I do not consider myself an expert on these subjects.
…
The Filipino Martial arts are notorious for their combative applications, especially in regard to the use of knives and edged weapons and impact weapons such as sticks, batons, baseball bats, and so forth. Indeed the art of Pekiti Tirsia Kali as taught by Grandmaster Leo T. Gaje, Jr. and his son, Rommel is trained extensively by the Phillipines military, and has expanded to include firearms training and anti-terrorism tactics. Martial arts movie fanatics can also probably recognize Guro Dan Inosanto opposite his instructor in JKD and friend Sigung Bruce Lee in “Game of Death” wielding and manipulating two sticks in a beautiful and intimating show of skill and dexterity.
Perhaps the most overlooked aspect of the Filipino arts are their empty hand and grappling components that can be readily seen in panatukan (Filipino boxing), sikaran (a kicking art) and dumog (wrestling). These terms are, for the most part, general nomenclature for ranges rather than a particular subset of techniques, as Filipino systems are usually family based and tend to systematize and organize their arts differently. Also occasionally included under the broader umbrella topic of Filipino arts are the Indo-Malaysian arts of silat and kuntao, of which there are just as many family based arts, but are usually distinct from Filipino systems in their movements to a discerning eye.
Perhaps the most prolific and cutting-edge force in the Filipino Martial Arts today is a group that has just recently been getting the coverage they have long deserved. The Dog Brothers, currently lead by Guro Marc “Crafty Dog” Denny, has in the past few years released material on incorporating the Filipino Arts into different aspects of combat. They entered the world of firearms training with an emphasis on training at the zero to five foot range where most “good guys” are killed by knife wielding attackers along with firearms expert Gabriel Suarez in “Die Less Often” and “Die Less Often II” (see Tueller’s drill and the 21 foot rule).
They have also been covered by Discovery channel and MSNBC as well as other news programs for their rather unique method of practicing what they preach in their maxim “higher consciousness through harder contact.” – full contact stick fighting with the aid of only a fencing mask and hockey gloves for protection.
At this point in my paper, you are probably wondering just what the hell this has to do with Mixed Martial Arts. Well, the Dog Brothers are coming out with their second feature on using the Filipino martial arts in mixed martial arts, which they have aptly dubbed and trademarked as “Kali Tudo.” The Dog Brother’s idea is to supplement what works in the Filipino Martial arts in the context of mixed martial arts competition or how to make it work in the cage along with more conventional mixed martial arts techniques and strategies. As evidenced by their approach of finding out exactly what works in a full contact stick fight, the material in the first Kali Tudo tape is solid, and as with all of their titles, the second title is sure to live up to the bill “if you see it taught, you see it fought.” It is also important to state that the current alpha dog of the Dog Brothers also worked closely with Jean-Jacques Machado on developing grappling strategies with the stick different from those seen in conventional Kali and is himself well versed in jiu-jitsu as one can see in this highlight reel of his fights. (See this link for Crafty Dog Highlights)
What Works? (a rant)
Take the average individual on the street and ask them the difference between karate and kung fu and they will look at you as if you asked them the square root of some random prime number. Better yet, ask them the difference between mixed martial arts, jiu-jitsu, and Brazilian jiu-jitsu. The average everyday person with little to absolutely no interest in the martial arts does not make such distinctions or ruminate on martial matters. On the other side of the coin, ask a tae kwon do practitioner and a kyokushin karate fighter and ask each one whose kicks are “better”.
Although it may be amusing to watch the ensuing carnage, the real moral of this exercise is to bring to your attention the simple fact that talking about martial arts among martial artists from different backgrounds is like bashing Marx to a Communist, telling a Kantian philosopher that the Categorical Imperative is “slave morality”, screaming God is dead to a rabid fundamentalist, and talking trash about Manchester United to a bald and burly soccer hooligan in their own stadium all at the same time. You run the risk of trampling on something that another person holds sacred, and it is extremely important to note that opinions are just that unless backed by strong supporting evidence. Even then, it is necessary to note that “absence of evidence is not evidence of absence” in the world of martial arts. When introducing an opinion or idea that challenges the status quo of whatever a particular cult of martial artists consider their dogma, respect is of the utmost importance.
There is a long-standing controversy in the martial arts world about how to judge whether or not something is effective or practical by using a “street fight” as the benchmark. According to this school of thought, if something works “in the street” then it is the gold standard. The individuals that tend to support this ideology come from combatives or reality based self defense backgrounds and tend to tout the superiority of eye gouging, fish hooking, biting, hair pulling, spitting, using weapons improvised or otherwise, tail hooking (you really don’t want to know), and essentially anything else you can’t really practice with a partner over anything found to be effective in a sports arena. The other school of thought tends to be the combat athletes who fight competitively under strict sets of rules that stringently disallow these types of techniques and look poorly upon individuals that use them (remember the Holyfield-Tyson fight?), but actually practice their art on a non-compliant opponent who is intent on doing them harm as well.
The main question I feel is important to ask is…what the hell is a “street fight”?
The average everyday individual is highly unlikely to ever be involved in any sort of serious violence unless they live in Kingston, Sarajevo, Baghdad, or Kabul. The most common type of fight that most average Americans are prone to witness is a drunken brawl, which typically starts out with posturing and pushing, escalates to a haymaker punch, followed in short order by an attempted headlock and then the fight being broken up to the dismay of inebriated bystanders. Less common, but certainly feasible is when one of the drunks has some sort of weapon, or an entourage, which raises the stakes of the situation to a life-or-death struggle. Both of these situations could be easily avoided by being aware of your situation and then doing the smart thing by beating feet in the opposite direction, or employing well-honed communication strategies to disarm the situation verbally.
Using violence even in a self-defense situation is tricky from a legal standpoint, and using “too much” force, as decided by a vindictive state prosecutor and ignorant arresting officers, could place you in prison regardless of the true “objective correctness” of your response. I would simply like the reader to consider this: Is it better to use potentially lethal force and maybe live up to the maxim “better to be tried by twelve than carried by six” or box it out, as it were, with an assailant using high percentage “sport” techniques? Or…is it indeed better to mix the two in order to have a toolbox with just the right instruments for just the right occasion? I think that if the reader opens his or her mind and looks at things with open eyes, they will see the utility of sport techniques in the self defense and combatives arena, and traditionally combative strategies and techniques within the context of a sport framework.
Resources:
Interesting comment on the The 21 foot rule -
The 21 foot rule is not a law, or even really a rule: it is a study. The study tried to determine the distance at which an officer could fire two rounds at a subject that was charging at him with a knife.
The problem is, bullets do not act as a magic wand to stop a subject. Often, due to a determined mental state or the presence of narcotics, numerous rounds are required to stop a subject. Also, unlike the study, in real situations officers often do not know a subject has an edged weapon until the subject is in motion, or even after they have been stabbed.
What is Kali (from Kali Means to Scrape)
Pekiti Tirsia Pitbulls (Recon Marines) and Rommel Tortal (from Kali Means to Scrape)
Close Range Gun Combat Dog Brothers + Gabe Suarez
Tags: crafty dog, dog brothers, Filipino martial arts, FMA, Kali Tudo, MMA, stick fighting
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