Planet BJJ

I am sitting here in Melbourne airport waiting for my flight to Loas Angeles. Today it is a pleasant wait as I have met up with Melbourne martial artists and good friends Frank Monea and Marcia Beselas , who is also heading over to the Supershow in Las Vegas. I am meeting my family in Los Angeles - they went over the day before me - and spent the day with Rigan MAchado at Disneyland. I'll arrive in 15 hours and after an afternoon at Universal Studios, I need to head down to Long Beach to deliver a seminar at the Krav Maga centre. The beat goes on ...

JBW

I've seen a few good articles on fight prep over the last couple of months.  I've noticed some consistencies and the occasional difference in opinion (imagine that).  I'll look into gathering some links up and posting them this month.  In the meantime, my friend Josh Robinson was nice enough to contribute to the site.  Enjoy!

-Shawn

 
Fight Preparation

Fight preparation is often ignored and taken very lightly. Preparing for a fight does not mean that you go to your gym and roll with your friends/team members and then jump into a national level competition.

Even if you are having relatively intense sparring sessions, you need to break down your fight preparation for yourself as an individual competitor. Each athlete has his or her weakness and strengths and your training and game plan should cater to your needs.

Fight preparation should begin about 6 weeks before a scheduled competition (depending on the intensity of you training leading up to this point).

Any weight lifting that you have been doing up to this point should be pulled back significantly or stopped all together.

Any strength you've gained should have been gained by this point and no amount of lifting in the next 6 weeks will make a lick of difference come fight day.

Also, we are not interested in adding any additional weight before a fight. It's more likely that you'll want to shed any unwanted weight in order to qualify for a lighter weight class. Weight training prior to the 6 week lead up is something I can write about another time. After all, strength is a hugely important part of the game.

Your typical sparring sessions at most gyms are between 3-5 minutes at medium to high intensity. This should be increased immediately to 6 minute rounds with a 60 second break between rounds. Personally I would never spar less than 4 rounds. That is 24 minutes of hard sparring. Each week you should increase your sparring time maxing out at 12 minute rounds x4. = 48 minutes of sparring.

week 1 = 6 minute rounds
week 2 = 6 minutes rounds
week 3 = 8 minute rounds
week 4 = 10 minute rounds
week 5 = 12 minute rounds
week 6 = technique and game planning sparring only

When not sparring you should be perfecting techniques that have been successful for you and working tournament style drills. For example:

Start of on your back with a team mate in side control. You have 60 seconds to score 1 point. "GO"

Start in side control. You are up by 1 point. You have 60 seconds to maintain your lead or submit your opponent "GO"

Start on your feet. It's currently a draw. You have 60 seconds to score a single point. "GO"

Etc...

Do not obsess over any new techniques or tactics that have not been working for you in the gym. Do not try to introduce new submissions that you are not intimately familiar with. Identify what you have been successful with. What have you been catching people with? Focus on those strengths and perfect them. Figure out how to put yourself into a position to pull off that specific submission. This is where game planning comes into play.

Game plan, game plan!!! You must have a very specific game plan. Do not enter into a tournament thinking, "I have good submission skills and defense. I'll just roll and catch what he gives me." Doing that just means you are fighting HIS fight and hoping you'll be better at it. You need to fight YOUR fight. He should be trying to get out of your game. Not the other way around. This is essential.

If you are a good guard player and you are constantly nailing sweeps, triangles and arm bars from the guard then you better seriously consider pulling guard on your opponent so you can implement your game.

Now let's say you get to the tournament and your first opponent is standing very flat footed and high. Everything in your body may tell you to shoot in for a single. But in doing that you've already deviated from your game plan. What if he's an exceptional guard player. Now you're in his guard playing HIS game. You must avoid that initial instinct and remember your original game plan. Force them into YOUR plan.

Always have 3 options. Decide what those 3 options are before fight day. Know the 3 options you have from your desired position. If you are a guard player and option number 1 is your arm bar but you are unable to finish. Keep the arm, hook his leg and sweep for the points.

You get an "advantage" for the arm bar attempt and the points for your sweep. You now have a healthy lead. Another option would be to keep the arm and transition into a triangle. You MUST go through these scenarios in your head and your gym. Assume you will finish your submission. But have 2 other options in case you can't. Have those 3 options available so you're not putting all your eggs in one basket.

When not in the gym sparring or working on technique you should still be working on cardio and considering your weight cut technique. There is no wrong way to do cardio, but you can walk on a treadmill like you're just hanging out or you can do it in a way that will actually increase your cardio.

I have the benefit of living in California and I can use the hills/mountains to my advantage. I wear a 20lb weight vest and run the Santa Monica stairs. It's 400 stairs straight up the side of a hill. I run a quarter of a mile to the next set and run down 400 steps. I run a quarter mile back to where I started. Rinse and repeat. Don't take any breaks. Your break is that you get to run down and not up.

If I'm really moving it takes me 6 minutes to do 1 lap. I try to do 5 laps or more. That is a 30 minute rib cramping, lactic acid building, cardio crushing run. If you don't have access to this type of thing there is no reason why you can't throw on the same weight vest and run at a 10 degree incline at your gym for 30 minutes. Turn around and run backwards at the same incline every 5 minutes for 1-2 minutes. This focuses weight to the front of your quads. Similar to running down hill.

Good Luck and happy rolling!

About Josh:
Josh Robinson is currently teaching Muay Thai at the Beverly Hills Jiu Jitsu Club, where he also trains in BJJ.  Prior to that he ran his own MMA program in San Diego.  In Josh's 10 years of fighting, he has competed in professional MMA and Muay Thai fights, as well as national grappling tournaments.  He's been coaching and cornering fights for the last 5 years.

Alright, I know I have not been very good at updating my blog for quite a while now, but as always, I am returning and promise to post some stuff again :)

I had a pretty bad shoulder injury for about 5 months that made it really difficult for me to train, and that always makes me lose a lot of motivation for writing blogposts. Injury time is not a time where I feel very innovative about my game, I just wanna train around the injury and get over with it. But now I am fit again, and training is going really well.

I have filmed a lot of sparring lately, but mostly MMA. I will put some of it online soon together with some rolling gi and maybe no-gi. Even though it is really warm summer weather now, I train BJJ mostly in the gi. I am going to London 21-27 to train in the Roger Gracie and Carlson Gracie gyms which are mostly gi-based so all my gi-training will be good preparation for that. Also, my weightlifting has really come up in gear again, and I am focusing a lot on core- and gripstrength.

Next week, I am going to Estonia to teach and train at the Summer BJJ and MMA Camp in Tartu. I think it is going to be a really cool week with lots of training. I myself is going to teach gi, no-gi and MMA and I am also really looking forward to attend all the other classes and get some inspiration home myself.


If you feel like coming over, check out this link:

http://www.bjj.ee/?page_id=21

For those of you, who don't know Estonia, it is probably one of the most exotic places in Europe. Lots of little islands, beaches, palm trees, etc. Some people call it "the Thailand of Northern Europe".

In days gone by – when communities were smaller and lives were simpler – we knew who we were and we were ‘there’ for each other. If someone needed a barn raised, then he or she could rely on the whole community to come and lend a hand. When someone else needed their own barn raised, without question, we would have packed our tools and gone to lend what assistance we could – we helped and proffered assistance to the wider community and could expect the same in return. Today we are much more solitary animals. We each earn ‘our own way’ in the world – and often ‘compete’ aggressively with each other to do so. It is less a world of co-operation and more a world of competition – are we better off? In many ways, I do not think we are.
Villages have turned into towns and towns into cities; the world is a smaller, more accessible place, yet human beings are lonelier than ever. The world over, it seems the sense of community is more and more, a thing of the past.
Each of us though, builds or constructs their own community; a community that is not necessarily comprised of the people who live in our street – as it once did – but more likely comprised of a mix of family and friends that remains unique to each and every one of us.
Perhaps, many of us yearn for a greater sense of community; perhaps this is a part of the reason we feel such kinship with our fellow martial artists on the mat. In our mutual struggle we find kinship; we share victory and defeat alike and our souls are bared – even if only for a few hours a week. The human spirit can be a solitary thing; and each of us sets up our own unique set of boundaries that we apply to the larger outside world; we let some people in and share certain portions of our lives with them; and fewer still with whom we comfortable enough to bare our inner most thoughts with. Most friendships, begin with some kind of co-operative behaviour. We give something, we get something – it works out for both parties and bonds begin to form. Co-operation always feels good. The lack of struggle affords a kind of peace in an otherwise competitive world. Together, human beings can achieve remarkable things – competition builds strength and adaptability – but co-operation builds a foundation upon which we construct lives that allow us to transcend the ‘tooth and claw’ existence that nature alone, offers.
JBW

My pals Seph Smith and Jen Flannery got their brown and purple belts, respectively, from Felipe Costa last night! I spoke with Seph very briefly, and he was incoherent from the brutal hour of rolling with maybe 30 different people. I'm sure Jen felt similarly. But these promotions were well-deserved; Jen has been placing in every competition she has entered this year, and Seph is a monster. A perfectly safe, friendly monster, but a monster nonetheless.

I'm very happy for them!

To Anonymous who asked about the Murph: I have done that workout 3 times, all as prescribed (so, run the mile, do all the pullups, do all the pushups, do all the squats). The first time was in the fall of 2007. I did the pushups from my knees and assisted pullups. It took me about 62 minutes. The second time I did it was maybe 6 months ago. I did the pushups from my toes and unassisted pullups. It took me about 60 minutes. The third time was Memorial Day, same as the second time. It took me about 58 minutes.

It is a grind. But it's always fun to be done!

As for all the comments on the hero part of the post, thanks for those. I am still conflicted, but I am just going to continue doing what I'm doing and hope it shakes out for the best, for as many people as possible.

More later!

Class #231



Nova Força Epsom (BJJ), Tim Radcliffe, Epsom, UK - 30/06/2009

I've had a few weeks off due to a bunch of job interviews (none of which came to anything, unfortunately: just have to keep plugging away, like the massive horde of other people applying for the same jobs...), so good to get back on the mats. Ricardo is in Brazil at the moment, so instead class was taken by his top student, brown belt Tim (who incidentally won yet another MMA fight recently).

Tim kicked off with a gi choke. Start by pulling one side of their gi out of their belt (if its already loose, so much the better), then feed it around their back to your other hand. Shift your torso to that side, then change hands. This frees up your first hand to grip whatever material you can on the back of their gi, still on the same side (if you try to grip on the other side, your partner is likely to see it coming and defend). Finally, bring that arm over their head whilst maintaining your grip, then bring your wrists up for the choke.

Next, Tim demonstrated a basic loop choke. Grab their opposite collar, with a deep grip. Break their posture by pulling that collar towards you, while also pushing their head down and to the side with your other hand. Next, slide that other hand across the back of their head and under your own elbow, hooking with the back of your hand. Finally, raise the elbow of your collar-gripping arm for the submission.

Rowan Cunningham, who puts out the best free BJJ videos on the net (unfortunately not the most famous, as the Abhaya vids aren't heavily publicised or flashy), has a typically excellent demonstration up on YouTube, where he calls it an 'encircled collar choke'. I first saw this choke when Aesopian put up the Abhaya vids, probably on Bullshido somewhere:



Tim mentioned as he was walking around that you need to be quick with this, so its something to spring on your opponent if you have a collar grip but see they aren't defending their neck. Even if you don't get the choke, you're likely to still manage a sweep, as in order to avoid getting submitted they'll probably have to roll out. You can simply follow them and end up in mount.

Sparring today put me mostly under side control, which is good as I always like to try and improve my escapes from there. As per Saulo's advice (both in his book and DVD), I was concentrating on keeping my head stuck to the floor to prevent the cross-face, while also blocking their arm with my hand.

While I did ok getting that far into Saulo's 'survival position', I was rather less successful getting onto my side. I also wasn't preventing the knee on belly too well, as usual, but I think I managed to use my elbow and knee as a barrier slightly better than last time. The difficulty is getting them properly locked together, with forearm to upper leg, rather than just touching elbow to knee.

From knee-on-belly, I also couldn't avoid Mark's choke, so must have done Simon's defence wrong. I know you're suppose to swim your arms in and turn towards them, but forgot which arm went where.

With one of the white belts, I managed to get to my knees from side control, but couldn't then trap an arm in order to roll them. I was thinking about the wrestler's sit-out too, but didn't feel I had the space to get free: as their arm was ready to look for chokes, my neck felt exposed. In retrospect, I probably should have been less hesitant and just gone for something, as eventually I tried to spin to guard as they left some space, which merely landed me back under side control.

My last spar was against somebody fairly new, so I had a chance to play around with triangles. I'm still missing lots of important details, like proper head control, so even as a noobie they were able to slip out, but it was nice to confirm the 'trigger' position Ryan Hall talks about. Whenever somebody is trying to open your guard by driving their elbow into your thigh, you can open your guard and cause them to lean to one side. This leaves your partner vulnerable to the triangle, as you can now fling your leg over that arm and to their neck, locking your other leg in place.

Sometimes we expect too much from ourselves, our performance or even from other people. Sometimes - it is the differential between the desired outcomes or behaviours and the actual outcomes or behaviours that causes us stress or concern.

In terms of our own performance, it is easy to 'expect' too much. On one hand, if we set the bar to low, we are cultivating with ourselves an acceptance of mediocrity - if we always set the bar too high, we are setting ourselves up for failure. My own view is that we should set the bar high, but not overly concern ourselves with the outcome - that way we move beyond mediocrity but don't find ourselves always paying the emotional price for failing.

When it comes to what we expect from others, in terms of performance - or even just in terms of how we expect people to behave or to act - it is even easier to set ourselves up for disappointment. This is largely because we think others will think and behave like we do, have the moral standards as we do - and we tend to forget that people are, as the saying goes, 'queer as folk'.

Other people will behave, perform and act in accordance with their own set of values and from within their own particular world-views. Oft times, those values and those world views do not match our own. This can cause problems, but only if we have unrealistic expectations of how people should perform, behave and act. But hey, sometimes, it may just be that they have 'other stuff' going on in their lives and their behaviour or performance, although hypocritical, sub-par or not in alignment with our own, may just be a temporary thing - fueled by an unfortunate series of events or feelings that they are experiencing. As a friend of mine used to say 'They are who they are - don't expect more and you won't be disappointed'. Sage advice.

It is also important to note, both for the individual and for the professional coach - that everyone has ups and downs in their lives and in their training. The longer the relationship (and the stronger the relationship) between friends, or between coach and student, the more 'friendship or relationship credits' should be available to get over the 'hump'.

I see people dealing with these issues all the time - in their personal lives and on the mat. Having unrealistic expectations about our own performance can send us spiraling into a state of unease; having unrealistic expectations of our we think others should behave and act can casue us heart-ache and sorrow.
My advice - cultivate tolerance - for ourselves and for others. People after all (including ourselves) are only human.
JBW

Sad news. I got injured in training and got my knee bent sideways. Felt and heard it pop and snap. The short story is that after being bounced between different walk-in clinics and doctors and being referred to ERs, I found out that while I didn’t tear the ligamanets (thankfully), I did damaged the cartilage. I haven’t been able to train and I’m only now getting to where I can walk OK. Unfortunately this means my big trip to Europe is cancelled and I won’t teaching at the Estonian BJJ camp.

I know, pretty presumptuous to quote the last words of Jesus Christ to describe the completion of my project to empty out the storage locker I have been renting lo these 3 years since I left Chicago for grubbier, grapplier pastures. But as of about 2pm Tuesday (today as I write this longhand, perhaps later in the week as I type it in), that’s what the project is: finished. I also thought about saying, “Now we finish it,” like that one kid in the Seinfeld episode right before the entire pee-wee karate class beat the shit out of Kramer in the alley as payback for him tossing them around. But that’s not quite as accurate, at least not anymore.

Maybe I should go with, “I’m done mucking around in my past and feeling an overwhelming mixture of nostalgia, regret, love, fear, anticipation, hysteria, sadness, and even shame. May I please be excused? I have to go curl up in the fetal position and engage in a soothing, repetitive behavior.” Only that’s not entirely accurate either, because I’m not done with the feeling part, much as I’d like to be (not even today, as I type this in.).

I’m having trouble pinpointing exactly what I’m feeling and why this exercise, of finally getting rid of a bunch of stuff I haven’t missed in 3 years anyway, is dredging up quite so MUCH feeling. I guess I don’t really need to know—or what I need to know will become evident when I need it to, but I wouldn’t be me if I didn’t try to pick it apart and ascribe some meaning to it. I’m sure it’s about roads not taken, and sometimes wishing desperately that the untaken road were the right one for me because it would make life so much more straightforward, and of course about feeling like the more things change, the more they stay the same.

Coming face-to-face with that storage locker brought the memories flooding back of me, 3 years ago, contemplating the gaping maw of my existence, knowing that my journey was the right thing, but feeling terrified, alone, and worried about money, identity, and whether I was going to get the things I want(ed) in life. Three years later, that storage locker conjured the same feelings in me. Only I know it’s not only the storage locker. It’s that I’m back there again feeling that way about my life again.

There are some notable differences between the me of 3 years ago and the now me. I know this. I’m not THAT worried about money; worrying about that after all the synchronicities I have experienced related to money is now more of a habit. I am a crapload better at BJJ now. I can break parallel on a squat. And I know, even during the hard times, that the life I have been choosing since I started my vision quest is a much better fit than the one I left behind.

But that’s where I start to feel like nothing has changed. I am feeling pretty much exactly these days the way I did when I was in the final month of planning for my trip: scared, alone, unsure of what’s anchoring me, like I’m behind where I’m supposed to be at this stage of my life, but simultaneously like I have to do what I’m doing because I don’t know what else to do. Back then, it was plan for my trip and trust that it would lead me to my next step. Now, it’s work on my proposal, train, CrossFit, teach conditioning at New Breed, and trust that it will lead me to my next step.

I’m drained, though. In the past couple weeks, no fewer than 10 people have told me that they, or someone they know, consider me their hero. Nora (my channel, whom I’ve been consulting lately because the past couple months have been pretty hard) says it’s because I need the reminder that my journey and I are awesome. That’s a truly nice sentiment. But it makes me feel like a fraud. I don’t feel very heroic right now.

At the moment, I have heartburn because I have been relaxing my Zone habits in favor of expediency. I am soul weary from the cumulative effect of a couple months of confusion, sadness, anger, and befuddlement from a variety of Life Occurrences such that I could easily fall asleep on my feet right now if I allowed myself to. I am covered in scrapes—burns on my shins from rope climbs and on my wrists from muscle-up practice, and rips in my palms from pullups—that make it look like I barely said the safe word in the nick of time. And at inopportune times (like while waiting in El stations or while chatting with some of the friends I have gotten to see while I’ve been in Chicago), I frequently start to laugh or cry, as being back in the place where I first started to go crazy and hatch my vision quest plan reminds me of important people, intentions, and assumptions, some of which I have taken with me, and some of which poke at my heart because they stayed behind.

That doesn’t sound very heroic, I’m afraid. I don’t know why people think I’m a hero. I have more gray hair than the average hero (is “average hero” an oxymoron?), and my handwriting is messy and illegible like a doctor’s. Or a serial killer’s. I’m flattered, but I’m also pooped. It doesn’t compute. Heroes don’t eat ice cream for dinner or watch Judge Judy to make themselves feel better about themselves.

Well, hero or not, I confirmed some things. One thing I know for sure is that I don’t belong in Chicago. It isn’t my home anymore. I love so many people there, and it was good to me for the first part of the time I was there. But it's not the right fit now. This is a great thing to know, and I’m thankful that I do. It’d be even greater, though, to know where I DO belong, which I don’t anymore because this trip, among other things, is giving me perspective. (“Too much fucking perspective,” to quote David St. Hubbins.). But like I said, another thing that I do know is that the thing I need to be focusing on right now is my proposal. The rest should fall into place if I focus on that. That at least has been the formula since I went walkabout—whatever is the thing I’m preoccupied with is the thing I must do; even if it seems like a detour away from the things I feel I need to accomplish next, it is usually the express train directly to those things.

Okay, enough heavy stuff. Next entry will be how the week has been going and all the annoying things I’ve had to deal with, turned into witty, self-deprecating anecdotes, of course.