A few days after a no-gi Saturday down at the gym, I was thinking about how to put together a fierce grappling game plan and detailing a jujitsu roadmap to get there, something hit me. At first, I wanted to dismiss the thought as too simple – but the more I dwelt on it, the more sense it made.
Get on top.
What made it really click is something Mike Colby said while teaching. He said something like, “If you have the opportunity to escape from a disadvantageous bottom position to either a top position or a more advantageous bottom position, always choose to go to the top. The more time you spend in the top positions, the more guys you’ll tap.”
This rung true with most MMA and grappling I’ve watched, as well as my limited personal experience. Submissions are easier to get and harder to defend when attacking top down. When in top positions, it seems easier to attack the different body zones (head, neck, arms, and legs) from one spot. In MMA, half-guard, side-control and mount are some of the most excellent places to go on the offensive with minimum risk.
If you can just focus on getting from wherever you are to a more dominant top position, a lot of things will just take care of themselves. Having such a simple “plan” will help to funnel all of your moves to one consistent goal easily, instead of getting caught in analysis paralysis.
Watching Mike wrestle, he certainly practices what he preaches. It seems like he’s always putting pressure on his opponent from a top position, creating submissions or waiting for an opportunity. And if you don’t know Mike, it’s my understanding that he’s one of the state’s top no-gi grapplers.
Anyway, “Get on top” is just a quicker way to say, “consistently attempt to gain positional dominance.” It’s not that you haven’t heard this before. But for me, I often don’t really hear the truth, on a deep level, until I’ve heard it 100 times.
Alice: Oh, no, no. I was just wondering if you could help me find my way.
Cheshire Cat: Well that depends on where you want to get to.
Alice: Oh, it really doesn’t matter, as long as…
Cheshire Cat: Then it really doesn’t matter which way you go.
Brazilian Jiujitsu is complex. There are dozens of distinct positions, hundreds of techniques, thousands of variations. The map above shows one small version of beginning BJJ.
Despite the nebulous complexity, I know you want to get as good as possible, as quick as possible. AND … you want to have a fight plan that you can use to defeat your opponents.
The solution to both goals is the same. You need a road map of where you want to go.
When thinking about progressing in your training, you want to list the things you need to learn and improve on. You highlight four or five things and find techniques and tweaks to get good at them, rotating your practice evenly over a period of time to cover all the things throughly.
You review your progress, make some tweaks, and go through the cycle again. If you don’t consciously control how you train and what you techniques you choose to train, you cannot make consistent progress.
Making a game plan, especially if you’re a beginner, is fraught with pitfalls. Even if you’re fairly advanced, having a coach to help you progress is virtually a must. Which moves do you choose? Which positions and transitions?
Steven Kesting, one of the most gifted grapplering instructors I’ve come across, has 35 page pdf called “A Roadmap for Brazilian Jiu-jitsu”, a copy of which can be found here. It’s a solid overview of BJJ and which positions and submission you should learn first.
In his own words, Steven says
The goal of this book is NOT to teach you specific techniques – you can learn those from your instructor, your fellow students, and other resources such as books and DVDs. My goal here is to give you a basic framework to help you make sense of all the different techniques you are learning. In essence I am trying to give you a big picture which functions as a kind of filing system to help you learn more efficiently,and to access the correct technique quickly in the heat of battle.
If you want to get good at BJJ – fast – check it out. If you want to tailor your own road map, try picking a half-dozen things from the chart at the top of the page, and then learn and drill techniques that associate with them.
Fight Roadmap
When you step into the ring, its time to play by your game plan and win. If you go into a match without a concrete plan, you will be at the mercy of the opponent, forever reacting, countering, and trying to squeeze in your moves. In the BJJ Road Map linked above, Kesting has a solid progression to use when grappling.
You’re in the opponent’s Guard and break it -> Side Control -> Knee Mount -> Full Mount -> Rear Mount.
The idea is that you should always know where you’re going. It shouldn’t be a time of meditation, “Okay, I’m in side control, what now? As you progress through the chain you should try one or two submissions at each place. Immediately go for one sub, then the other, then transition into the next position. Quickly, but smoothly – 1,2,3.
Here’s a map I made for when you begin grappling from a standing position.
When you start, you’ve only got two options – so not much thinking. Fake one to set up the other. You hit the next level down and still, only a few minimal choices.
Wherever you are in a fight, you should have a pre-memorized, ready-to-fire-off technique. Limiting your options speeds up your reaction time. No hesitation.
Bang, bang, bang. The opponent should always have to be defending your constant attacks. You flow don’t the chart, constantly trying to make it worse for your opponent by gaining progressively better positioning.
Now then, memorize at least one good escape from all the disadvantageous positions, and if you find yourself there, escape back into somewhere you recognize and continue down the tech-tree.
I know I haven’t covered all avenues, but I think you get the idea. Reading the BJJ Roadmap will help fill in the gaps, then start learning techniques to plug into your game plan. Happy scheming!
Warning: I’m no doctor. Train under the capable supervision. You are responsible for your own actions.
Get more sleep at night. Studies have shown that sleep plays an important role in learning – those moves you learned in class won’t stick in the brain without out it. Plus, no sleep = weak muscle recovery from workouts.
Stop running and start sprinting. I have mentioned this before – proper cardio for MMA isn’t just hitting the treadmill for an hour. Fights are generally a collection intense exchanges (strikes, take down attempts) and slower, grinding muscular endurance (ground and pound, wrestling for submission) – neither of which are well-modeled by running a marathon in the gym.
Go for positional dominance before submission attempts.
Video tape yourself shadow boxing and sparring.
Review the video and try to analyze what you’re doing well and what techniques need to be sharpened.
Send the video to me and I’ll give you a couple of ideas. (First come first serve!)
Review the video with your Sensei or coach. They probably know way more than I do. Plus, they probably like you enough to help you out with moves on the mat.
Find an expert and see if you can pick their brain. There are a lot of guys who are very accomplished that would be flattered if you offered to take them out to lunch and ask them some questions.
Know the “behind the scenes” guys. There are only a few high profile trainers and coaches, but many more skilled professionals. Just because they don’t have their names splashed on CNN or have an internet marketing team to make them well known on the interweb doesn’t mean they aren’t hardcore.
Interview fighters. You’d be surprised how many guys in the pro-amateur range are willing to talk with you and share insights.
Occasionally, spar with much heavier training partners.
Occasionally, spar with people outside your gym. Just keep your ego in check and be respectful.
Occasionally, spar with MUCH more advanced training partners.
Occasionally, spar with less advanced training partners and destroy them, figuratively. If you can’t run a rubber-guard clinic on a white belt, you don’t know the rubber guard.
On that note, try out the rubber guard.
If you haven’t, join an MMA gym. And train there.
Listen. Instead of talking about MMA, training, and weightlifting – try to make it a goal to listen about these topics. You might learn something.
Practice being more humble. A lot of good information gets filtered out of your brain before you even get to think about it. Some athletes become harder to coach the better they are. Don’t be one of them.
When you travel, plan a stop to the local MMA shrines / training facilities. Many places have open mat times and you only have to pay a small drop-in fee to train. Call ahead to make sure they’re cool with it.
BUY instructional videos. Seriously. Actually purchase them with money you made. I understand the allure of the internet pirating and YouTube. However, there is a distinct psychological effect that happens when you use hard earned money to pay for something. You’ll take the instruction far more seriously and will be more likely to incorporate what you learn. Thomas Paine said, “The harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly; it is dearness only that gives everything its value.”
Limit the time you search the internet for new techniques. Instead of watching 20 different vids, watch two and immediately try out the moves.
Workout without music. Let the sound of metal, sweat, and groaning be your symphony. Be focused, hardcore. Music is essentially a distraction or a crutch.
Increase the difficulty of your workouts in novel ways.
Try “micro-loading” – adding only a few pounds extra to lifts and drills.
Cycle training punching with different weights of gloves.
Do your cardio with extra clothes on – or if you train naked, just put some clothes on.
6 weeks before a competition, spar and wrestle with the exact rules that will be adhered to there.
Like the above, use the specific type of gloves, shorts and protective gear that will be allowed at the competition.
Shadow box in your car or when you’re out for a walk. Whats that? You have some illogical social fear about being seen doing MMA? Wuss.
Choose the stairs over the elevator. Then choose to sprint the stairs so you can beat the elevator.
Stop thinking that your cool Affliction t-shirt or Tapout shorts are making you any better at MMA.
Drink more water.
Practice deep breathing exercises.
Practice staccato, punctuated breathing exercises. (”Breath of fire” or “spitfire” breathing).
Make sure you are properly moving your head when striking. Fade your head to the right when you left jab, ect. Review the basics of mma striking.
Train specific moves in cycles like you would with body parts and exercises. Tuesday is toehold day. Friday is omoplata only day. The idea is to structure everything you can for optimized improvement.
Practice feigning and baiting opponents in lighter sparring sessions, but be strictly assertive and aggressive in more intense bouts.
Stop wearing cushioned shoes when weightlifting. Get specific weightlifting shoes or go barefoot. Mind where you drop your weights and you’ll be fine. This will help you better train your muscles and nervous system. I don’t have time to explain why, comrade. Search here and search for the barefoot section or go here to read why shoes are destoying the way you walk.
Occasionally train with tight clothes that squeeze you. This simulates an opponent grappling with you, limiting your breathing, etc.
Take six months off training at your current gym and learn something completely different. Go study Muay Thai if you train with the local wrestling team. Go learn ninjitsu, or boxing, or whatever. It might be heresy to train at you competing dojo’s, but it’ll do wonders for you and your perspective.
Watch MMA fights with a pen and paper. Make notes.
Start a MMA journal. Write down what you learned in class.
Be a re-runs guy. Instead of watching something new, re-watch something old and glean more knowledge about a move you already know. The saying goes – “I’d rather have 5 moves I can fight with than 500 moves that fight me.”
Train a little bit every day rather than a lot a few days a week.
Maximize your strength to weight ratio. MMA weight classes define the game – you need to add strength without body mass or decrease body mass without losing strength. It may look nice to “get big” , but in competition with weight divisions, size doesn’t matter.
Cross train in yoga or pilates. I know you may think they’re sissy. However, after a while you’ll find that you are more flexible, stronger (especially in strange positions), and have better body coordination.
Naturally increase your testosterone levels.
Keep your hands up.
Practice what you already know in as many different contexts as possible. An armbar can be used in no less than two dozen ways, in a myriad of positions.
Increase your mental toughness.
Have a vivid imagination – fantasize about being riddiculously good at MMA. Can’t get to your dreams if you don’t have them.
Practice visualizing success. In your mental eye’s vision, see a movies of yourself pulling off moves in completion.
Mentally see, as if you were doing it, yourself hammering an opponent into submission.
When you practice your strikes, imagine that each of them is landing onto an opponent successfully.
Train your mind to focus like a laser. Being 100% focused on the exercise or drill at hand will increase your proficiency.
Develop workout mantras to help you correctly breathe and stay focused. “Jab, jab, boom!”
Learn to give and take coaching directions phonetically. At first, coaches will have to break down each movement by saying things like, “Lift your knee an inch higher, engage your armpit muscles, straighten your spine, turn your fist over 90 degrees….” At higher levels, coaches will say things like, “Stay rooted!” instead of telling you to keep your center of gravity between your feet and under your hips, all the while keeping the knees slightly bent. “Push through the target!” “Drive from your hips!”
Pick only a limited number techniques and ideas to develop within one training cycle.
Have a fulfilling sex life. Sex, in its proper place, is vital for a full and healthy life. It does many good things for you physically, psychologically, and emotionally. Doing “it” can aid in healing, pain management, etc.
Predetermine whether or not to have sex before competition for the right reasons. Now as for the long standing advice to abstain sex before competition, my official opinion is “It depends.” There is a good article by National Geographic called “Does Sex the Night Before Competition Decrease Performance?“. Basically it states that physically, sex the night before doesn’t affect athletic performance but it could affect you psychologically. If you are restless and nervous the night before, it could help. This same calmness could weaken your concentration. Also, if you believe it that sex would release needed tension and aggression, refrain.
Become a fighter psychologically as well as physically. Don’t be afraid of calling yourself a fighter. Get into it. When you, deep down, associate yourself with being a fighter you’ll train harder and avoid those cupcakes at Christmas with ease.
Stop smoking.
Stop drinking alcohol. Yes, I even mean on the weekends. Among other things, it’s a worthless source of calories, dehydration, lost training time, and potential injury. How many accidents start off with just a few beers?
Don’t drink energy drinks. If you’re having trouble with your energy it’s probably caused by bad nutrition, hangovers, poor sleep habits, over-training, or lack of willpower. Treat the cause, not the symptom.
In that vein, lay off the juice you’d buy at the store. Packed with sugar. Eat fruit instead, or juice it yourself.
Be specific with your strikes. Instead of just striking the face, punch the specific knock out points and angles.
Systematically weaken your opponent. Relentless punch the exact same spot on the ribs. Shin kick the same spot on the left leg. If an opponent gets a cut, exploit the area. Like chopping a tree.
While you want to exploit your opponent’s weaknesses, don’t get sucked into a reactionary mindset. You’ll lose tempo and aggression if you sit around waiting for an opponent to show his weakness. As they say, fortune favors the bold – most often fights are won by the more aggressive of the two fighters.
Find where you can make maximum progress in minimum time. If you already have a 300 lb squat but a 100 lb deadlift, six weeks of focus will make a dramatic difference in the deadlift.
Avoid over training and know the law of diminishing returns. More training doesn’t always mean more benefit.
Don’t waste time making decisions where either choice is reasonably equal. Ex: You’ve got a fight next month and you are just about as good fighting on the ground as you are standing up. Should you focus on wrestling, Muay Thai, or jujitsu? Draw a name out of a hat.
Link to this article from your blog or in a forum, stating how cool it is. It’ll make you 15% stronger, I swear.
Develop a specialty move.
Be a king at the rear naked choke. It’s a fight stopper – very hard to escape and effective.
Pick a fighting style that naturally aligns with your strengths.
Be good at a move that nobody in your area or weight division is good at. After you attend a few competitions, you’ll get a sense of some under-used moves. It’s always a shocker when a heavyweight lands a spinning back thrust kick. People don’t expect it.
Train in front of a mirror.
Occasionally train with a blind fold or in the dark. If you fight long enough, you’ll be in a situation where sweat or blood is hampering your vision. Plus, wrestling in the dark helps you develop a body sensitivity where you can “feel” what your opponent is doing or about to do.
Physically, shore up your weaknesses. It’s far more important to add 30 lbs to your military press if your one rep max is 50 lbs than to your 440 lb squat.
Technically, shore up your weaknesses. Trust that an enemy will try to exploit them. If you can’t escape the most basic submissions, don’t try to make your decent left jab great. Learn the escapes.
Train with pain. There is a psychological skill to dealing with pain, be it sharp and sudden or dull and grinding. In a fight, your opponent is going to make winning as difficult as possible. You are going to be fatigued mentally and physically. You will have to fight against pain. Find ways to train increase your ability to perform under stress and pain.
Know the difference between discomfort pain and injury pain.
Tap out early, tap out often.
Train your nervous system, as well as your muscles. Hand speed and reaction time have large neurological components.
Train in all 3 dimensions. Use free weights, sandbags, and kettlebells. Work all the strange-named stabilizer muscles. Fighting is very non-linear, and no doubt you’ll find yourself ascew in dozen of odd positions in any given fight.
Always wear the maximum amount of protective gear. It’s like wearing a seatbelt. There isn’t a good reason to put yourself at risk and have to stop training for 6 months due to an injury.
When you do get injured or sick, get competent medical care ASAP. Being macho won’t make you a better fighter, being smart and logical will. If it turns out your rib isn’t broken, great. But if it is, you can put yourself out from fighting entirely by training while injured. Every gym has a guy who has some weird Chinese remedy or massage technique. When alternative medicine can do nothing but help – sure, try it out, but don’t replace proven fixes.
Keep track of your opponents eye movements. Often, a fighter will flash a brief look at the area he is about to attack.
Never underestimate the jab’s usefulness. It sets up combination and takedowns. It hampers your opponents vision.
Keep your chin down.
Practice with your friends, family and spouse – but always keep it fun. If they were into MMA like you were, they’d work out at your gym.
Practice controlling the distance between you and your opponent. Circle, jab, circle, jab, parry …
Let your instructors do their jobs. Don’t back talk or try to teach other guys in your classes. Coaches can push you to new levels – even though you “know” more than they do.
Learn to “cut off” the ring with your strikes and angles. Cornering your opponent is a tricky, but important thing.
If you are truly outclassed in all respects, try to keep the fight standing up. You still have “a punchers chance” or that is to say, you can pull off a lucky punch. The more experienced your opponent, the more likely it is to pull off a lucky punch than a lucky submission.
Do your dirty work in the gym long before the fight and expect it come out in the ring. The last few weeks before a fight aren’t a time to learn new techniques. It’s time to cement what you do well and not get injured.
Don’t be overly pedantic about strategy on the day of the fight. Train how you want to fight, and then trust your training. Sudden large shifts of gameplan, nutrition and exercise typically backfire.
After you have done your serious training, have some fun. Laugh and play – playing around can make you a better fighter. Plus, this is not the movie gladiator. You can smile if you want to.
Waaaagh! Wrestlers. They’re a tricky sort, and as big names like Randy Couture, Matt Hughes, and Brock Lesnar have shown. The purpose of this article is to help fighters who have difficulties in dealing with wrestling based mixed martial artists. Certainly, I don’t know it all. Hopefully though, you’ll get some tips and ideas to take to the mat and gain an upper hand against wrestling MMA’ers.
In part 1, I discussed the basic wrestlers strategy, side control management, preventing the guard pass, and striking from the guard.
In part 2, I want to add some details about dominant positions, submissions from the ground and elaborate a bit about the standing striking game.
A lot of times fighters will excel at a handful of moves, perhaps even developing “signature” moves. While this is great, you need to make sure to be aware of the situation and never get stuck in your ways. For example, a competitor will start fighting and try to assert his/her plan A. If it works, great. Logically, if it doesn’t, they should switch to plan B or plan C. However, it’s common for people to just try asserting plan A again, only this time, doing it harder. Some people even do this socially – they tell a joke that flops and instead of dropping it and moving on, they become louder to compensate, repeat the punchline with extra gusto, or worse try to explain the joke, hoping it gets funnier.
Cut your losses and do something else. The real problem, in my mind, isn’t that the technique failed. That happens all the time. The error is the lack of awareness to shift from what’s not working and adapt. We all do it to some extent, so it’s good to be on guard against it. (If you can, tape your sparring sessions and review them with this in mind)
Yin/Yang Combinations
In boxing, it’s common strategy to work the body with strikes and then send some punches upstairs. The idea is that hurting the abs will drop the hands and open up opportunities to head punches. Even if the blows don’t land, often the hands will come down and create the opening. Same thing goes if you’re working attacks that aren’t going through – do the opposite of what you’re doing. If punches aren’t going well, try kicks. If punches and kicks aren’t doing the job, try grappling.
Within grappling, you’ll see a lot of yin/yang setups. A jujitsu player will attempt a sweep, but the opponent posts out his arm, stuffing the technique. Anticipating this, the grappler takes the posted arm into a shoulder or arm attack.
The Zen-like philosophy is that every time someone defends strongly in one area, they simultaneously become weak some where else. Strategies like punching for the takedown fall under this kind of thinking.
Here’s one vid that illustrates the concept pretty well within one specific technique. Attempted scissor sweep gets blocked and opens up a hip sweep.
It takes time and effort to develop a broad skillset, but it’ll pay off. The mental self awareness takes just as long. The days are gone in MMA where guys can only be good at one thing alone. There are probably too examples of how to switch up your attacks to enumerate – can you think of any? Let me know what you’re favorites are.
