Another article from Lockflow.com
Those Who Can, Teach
Posted by Marshal Carper
With most combat sports prescribing to an open door philosophy, seasoned veterans frequently find themselves sharing the mat with someone completely new to training. The signs are all there: their gear is still creased from the packaging, their hands and feet aren’t calloused from sparring and grappling, and their eyes gleam with the same excitement as everyone else present for training.
If you have been training for any length of time, whether it be for a few months or for a few decades, chances are that you have shared your knowledge and experience with someone else at the gym. Teaching is an important part of training that comes with a plethora of benefits. The following are five ways that teaching can aid in your development as a fighter:
1) Creates a Positive Atmosphere
Having quality training partners at your disposal is an integral part to improving your own abilities. Their skills will elevate yours and your skills will elevate theirs. Taking a moment to help a struggling newbie will ultimately benefit you. Not only will he become a better fighter, but he will be friendlier. Students who help each other act more like comrades than as rivals; everyone is training together to reach the same basic goals, and competition between training partners fades into the background.
2) Improves Your Technique
Teaching a technique requires you to break that technique down into simple steps, and you have to highlight the minor details and nuances of the move for someone else to understand and use the same move. Going through this process forces you to think critically about your technique and distill the key elements that make a particular technique effective. The more details you know about a move, the more that move will be effective in your game.
3) Increases Your Mental Awareness
As your technique improves from having to be critical of a move, your awareness of how that move connects to others will also improve. A student asking for a counter or an escape to a technique that you just showed is virtually inevitable. In this situation, you have to come up with a technical response. You are forced to see the bigger picture, to see the next step. What should your students do if they block their escape? What should they be looking for? What other options are there? Answering these questions vastly improves your ability to think about the fight game and will translate to improvements in your own training.
4) Longevity
Fighting seems to be a lifetime commitment, but competing well into the grey-haired years is not an option for most people. Learning to teach is an excellent way to remain a part of the sport, stay abreast of the developments, and continue to enjoy training without the pressures and stresses of competition. Making teaching a part of your training now will make it much easier to dedicate yourself to teaching more in the future. The wisdom that you gather in your career is valuable and personal, but for the most part, that wisdom is given to you by others. Passing your wisdom on to others is essential to the growth of the sport.
5) Rewarding
There are few things as gratifying as seeing one of your students apply something that you taught them during sparring or during competition. That visible improvement, that evidence of their understanding can be more rewarding than you personally winning a fight. You put time into someone’s life and made a difference. Few experiences can compare to that.
So, teach.
Thursday, July 31, 2008
Constructing Confidence
Here's another good article from Lockflow.com.
Constructing Confidence
by Marshal Carper
Confidence is a vital component to success in any part of life. In combat sports, having confidence in your techniques and in yourself can mean the difference between victory and defeat, between your hand being raised and going to the hospital to have your face put back together. While confidence issues tend to occur in the early stages of training, when a student is first learning the ropes of grappling, confidence issues are not limited to neophytes. Even seasoned veterans can find themselves questioning their abilities, especially following a loss or in the face of a serious challenge.
Though confidence may be largely internal, confidence in yourself begins with external factors. In the case of grappling or mixed martial arts, before you can be confident in your techniques and your ability to achieve victory, you must find coaches and instructors that you believe in. If you are constantly questioning the skill level of your instructors and the validity of their advice, you will never have faith in the techniques that they teach you.
When your instructor gives you information that immediately benefits your game, such as technical adjustments during your drilling or coaching during sparring, your confidence in your instruction grows. If you trust the source of your knowledge, you are on your way to having confidence in your technique and have taken the first step to having confidence in yourself.
Learning to trust the advice your coach gives you is relatively easy, especially if they have an impressive competition record or have produced quality fighters, but developing confidence in your techniques can be a bit more difficult. When you first use a new move, your movements are uncoordinated, sloppy, and jerky. As you rehearse the move over and over, the connection between your brain and limbs strengthens, making your movements more efficient and smoother. Eventually after thousands of repetitions, the move becomes instinct, and you can perform each step of the technique without conscious thought.
To have confidence in a technique, you must have practiced it enough to make instinctual, but that is not enough. Move from compliant drilling into drilling with resistance. Drilling with resistance generally requires isolating a position and a scenario with a training partner. To be truly confident in a move, you must have executed it successfully in a live situation multiple times, and this can be difficult. Being conscious of your training practices is essential at this point.
In Gracie Submission Essentials, Helio and Royler Gracie recommend trying a new move on the lightest, least-skilled training partners as possible. If you’re a blue belt, of course a training partner at blue belt or higher is going to shut down the move you just learned. Your favorite guard sweep may be at the blue belt level, but your brand new arm bar set up is still at the white belt level.
Just like in a video game, the skills you use repeatedly improve and become stronger. Skills you don’t use stay low or deteriorate. Individual techniques are the same way. So start on the new guys and work your way up. Raise the skill level and weight of your opponent as you get more and more comfortable executing a technique in real time against a live, resisting opponent. Once you are catching people at or above a skill level with a move, you will have developed confidence in that move. Creating a collection of these effective moves brings you that much closer to having confidence in your ability to enter into a contest and come out victorious.
With a game plan of well-rehearsed moves at your disposal and a trusted coach on your side, the next step to having confidence in yourself is taking your game that is effective in the gym to competition. There are plenty of well-written guides dedicated specifically to easing pre-competition jitters, so I won’t rehash what has been said better by others.
I do, however, want to add that part of easing pre-competition jitters and having confidence in yourself stems from knowing that you have prepared well. These pieces of advice are important and will certainly help you develop confidence in your abilities, but the most important factor to developing confidence is having the work ethic and dedication necessary to train consistently and intelligently.
Good luck.
Constructing Confidence
by Marshal Carper
Confidence is a vital component to success in any part of life. In combat sports, having confidence in your techniques and in yourself can mean the difference between victory and defeat, between your hand being raised and going to the hospital to have your face put back together. While confidence issues tend to occur in the early stages of training, when a student is first learning the ropes of grappling, confidence issues are not limited to neophytes. Even seasoned veterans can find themselves questioning their abilities, especially following a loss or in the face of a serious challenge.
Though confidence may be largely internal, confidence in yourself begins with external factors. In the case of grappling or mixed martial arts, before you can be confident in your techniques and your ability to achieve victory, you must find coaches and instructors that you believe in. If you are constantly questioning the skill level of your instructors and the validity of their advice, you will never have faith in the techniques that they teach you.
When your instructor gives you information that immediately benefits your game, such as technical adjustments during your drilling or coaching during sparring, your confidence in your instruction grows. If you trust the source of your knowledge, you are on your way to having confidence in your technique and have taken the first step to having confidence in yourself.
Learning to trust the advice your coach gives you is relatively easy, especially if they have an impressive competition record or have produced quality fighters, but developing confidence in your techniques can be a bit more difficult. When you first use a new move, your movements are uncoordinated, sloppy, and jerky. As you rehearse the move over and over, the connection between your brain and limbs strengthens, making your movements more efficient and smoother. Eventually after thousands of repetitions, the move becomes instinct, and you can perform each step of the technique without conscious thought.
To have confidence in a technique, you must have practiced it enough to make instinctual, but that is not enough. Move from compliant drilling into drilling with resistance. Drilling with resistance generally requires isolating a position and a scenario with a training partner. To be truly confident in a move, you must have executed it successfully in a live situation multiple times, and this can be difficult. Being conscious of your training practices is essential at this point.
In Gracie Submission Essentials, Helio and Royler Gracie recommend trying a new move on the lightest, least-skilled training partners as possible. If you’re a blue belt, of course a training partner at blue belt or higher is going to shut down the move you just learned. Your favorite guard sweep may be at the blue belt level, but your brand new arm bar set up is still at the white belt level.
Just like in a video game, the skills you use repeatedly improve and become stronger. Skills you don’t use stay low or deteriorate. Individual techniques are the same way. So start on the new guys and work your way up. Raise the skill level and weight of your opponent as you get more and more comfortable executing a technique in real time against a live, resisting opponent. Once you are catching people at or above a skill level with a move, you will have developed confidence in that move. Creating a collection of these effective moves brings you that much closer to having confidence in your ability to enter into a contest and come out victorious.
With a game plan of well-rehearsed moves at your disposal and a trusted coach on your side, the next step to having confidence in yourself is taking your game that is effective in the gym to competition. There are plenty of well-written guides dedicated specifically to easing pre-competition jitters, so I won’t rehash what has been said better by others.
I do, however, want to add that part of easing pre-competition jitters and having confidence in yourself stems from knowing that you have prepared well. These pieces of advice are important and will certainly help you develop confidence in your abilities, but the most important factor to developing confidence is having the work ethic and dedication necessary to train consistently and intelligently.
Good luck.
NY Times Article on Cauliflower Ear
Badge of Honor for the New Fighter: Mangled Ear
By MICHAEL BRICK
Published: July 31, 2008
Is your son into mixed martial arts? Check his ears.
Once an outlaw sport derided for its brutality, the prizefighting style known as mixed martial arts or ultimate fighting has toned down its act to gain government approval, a loyal television audience and hundreds of gyms training youngsters across the country. Now, to herald its full arrival, mixed martial arts has claimed a signature injury — cauliflower ear.
A deformity initiated by repetitive trauma, cauliflower ear can crumple an outer ear to a misshapen shell.
Unfazed by the prospect of living life as a walking what’s-grosser-than-gross joke, a nationwide corps of professional fighters, amateur enthusiasts and teenagers have taken to leaving their ears untreated or self-treated, wearing their shriveled, hardened waxen auricles as badges of honor.
“It’s definitely part of the culture,” said Dr. John H. Park, a physical therapist in Rockville, Md., who specializes in treating M.M.A. participants. “They say, ‘Chicks dig that stuff because they know you’re a fighter.’ “
A familiar chasm separates what women dig from what dudes imagine women dig. But for mixed martial arts, a combination of boxing, wrestling and jiu-jitsu that has found favor among young men, cauliflower ear has assumed a place alongside such evocative conditions as torn elbow ligaments in pitchers, knee tendinitis in marathon runners and torn anterior cruciate ligaments in female basketball players.
In gym locker rooms and online discussion forums, teenage boys trade advice on ways to gain that telltale look.
“It’s man’s ear,” said Nisar Loynab, 15, who trains at Capital Jiu-Jitsu in Alexandria, Va. “When you get cauliflower, you’re really a man.”
Nisar, a 10th-grader who has lost weight and gained an incentive to make good grades through his pursuit of mixed martial arts, said his sore ears had yet to calcify. By leaving them untreated, he hopes to cultivate the appearance of more seasoned fighters, like his father.
His father, Abubakr Loynab, 43, who trains at the same gym, said he expected Nisar to develop the ailment.
“In my family, we’ve had boxers and stuff, and it’s just one way you toughen up the kid,” Loynab said. “There’s some people in here that he looks up to. He’ll go up and show them, ‘Look, I’m starting to get the cauliflower ear.’ ”
As a signature injury, cauliflower ear stands alone in one illuminating respect. Although most athletes tend to err on the side of overtreatment, or at least treatment, fighters develop cauliflower ear by avoiding medical care.
Long familiar to amateur wrestlers, the condition begins when creasing, pulling and rubbing creates a blood clot between the cartilage and the connective tissue of the upper ear, said Dr. Gregory Ator, an otology specialist at the University of Kansas Medical Center. Infection and swelling can follow.
Properly drained, sutured and insulated, the ear can recover. The condition poses no serious threat to hearing, Ator said. But without medical care, scar tissue can reshape the skin and cartilage to give the outer ear a mangled, stunted, pale appearance.
In a study of 635 mixed martial arts matches in Nevada, researchers at Johns Hopkins University found that the most common injuries were lacerations and wounds to the upper extremities. The study did not count conditions that develop over time, like cauliflower ear. In an article in The British Journal of Sports Medicine last year, the researchers concluded that overall injury rates for mixed martial arts roughly matched those of other combat sports.
With minimal subtlety, cauliflower ear announced itself to a national audience during a Saturday night broadcast on CBS on May 31, when a British fighter’s ear exploded in a shower of blood and pus. The match was stopped as a technical knockout, causing no small controversy among fans, rival promoters and some mixed martial arts officials.
The declared victor, Kimbo Slice, had been promoted as the star of the show. The loser, James Thompson, who had been winning on the scorecard, insisted he was ready to continue despite his bloodied ear. In hindsight, some considered the size of his ear and the volume of its gush suspicious. One popular theory held that his ear had been pumped full of blood for dramatic effect.
By MICHAEL BRICK
Published: July 31, 2008
Is your son into mixed martial arts? Check his ears.
Once an outlaw sport derided for its brutality, the prizefighting style known as mixed martial arts or ultimate fighting has toned down its act to gain government approval, a loyal television audience and hundreds of gyms training youngsters across the country. Now, to herald its full arrival, mixed martial arts has claimed a signature injury — cauliflower ear.
A deformity initiated by repetitive trauma, cauliflower ear can crumple an outer ear to a misshapen shell.
Unfazed by the prospect of living life as a walking what’s-grosser-than-gross joke, a nationwide corps of professional fighters, amateur enthusiasts and teenagers have taken to leaving their ears untreated or self-treated, wearing their shriveled, hardened waxen auricles as badges of honor.
“It’s definitely part of the culture,” said Dr. John H. Park, a physical therapist in Rockville, Md., who specializes in treating M.M.A. participants. “They say, ‘Chicks dig that stuff because they know you’re a fighter.’ “
A familiar chasm separates what women dig from what dudes imagine women dig. But for mixed martial arts, a combination of boxing, wrestling and jiu-jitsu that has found favor among young men, cauliflower ear has assumed a place alongside such evocative conditions as torn elbow ligaments in pitchers, knee tendinitis in marathon runners and torn anterior cruciate ligaments in female basketball players.
In gym locker rooms and online discussion forums, teenage boys trade advice on ways to gain that telltale look.
“It’s man’s ear,” said Nisar Loynab, 15, who trains at Capital Jiu-Jitsu in Alexandria, Va. “When you get cauliflower, you’re really a man.”
Nisar, a 10th-grader who has lost weight and gained an incentive to make good grades through his pursuit of mixed martial arts, said his sore ears had yet to calcify. By leaving them untreated, he hopes to cultivate the appearance of more seasoned fighters, like his father.
His father, Abubakr Loynab, 43, who trains at the same gym, said he expected Nisar to develop the ailment.
“In my family, we’ve had boxers and stuff, and it’s just one way you toughen up the kid,” Loynab said. “There’s some people in here that he looks up to. He’ll go up and show them, ‘Look, I’m starting to get the cauliflower ear.’ ”
As a signature injury, cauliflower ear stands alone in one illuminating respect. Although most athletes tend to err on the side of overtreatment, or at least treatment, fighters develop cauliflower ear by avoiding medical care.
Long familiar to amateur wrestlers, the condition begins when creasing, pulling and rubbing creates a blood clot between the cartilage and the connective tissue of the upper ear, said Dr. Gregory Ator, an otology specialist at the University of Kansas Medical Center. Infection and swelling can follow.
Properly drained, sutured and insulated, the ear can recover. The condition poses no serious threat to hearing, Ator said. But without medical care, scar tissue can reshape the skin and cartilage to give the outer ear a mangled, stunted, pale appearance.
In a study of 635 mixed martial arts matches in Nevada, researchers at Johns Hopkins University found that the most common injuries were lacerations and wounds to the upper extremities. The study did not count conditions that develop over time, like cauliflower ear. In an article in The British Journal of Sports Medicine last year, the researchers concluded that overall injury rates for mixed martial arts roughly matched those of other combat sports.
With minimal subtlety, cauliflower ear announced itself to a national audience during a Saturday night broadcast on CBS on May 31, when a British fighter’s ear exploded in a shower of blood and pus. The match was stopped as a technical knockout, causing no small controversy among fans, rival promoters and some mixed martial arts officials.
The declared victor, Kimbo Slice, had been promoted as the star of the show. The loser, James Thompson, who had been winning on the scorecard, insisted he was ready to continue despite his bloodied ear. In hindsight, some considered the size of his ear and the volume of its gush suspicious. One popular theory held that his ear had been pumped full of blood for dramatic effect.
The rumblings posted all over online discussion forums were never substantiated. Nicholas Lembo, legal counsel to the New Jersey State Athletic Control Board, which approved the fight, said Thompson’s ear had been drained twice and examined by doctors before the bout. He dismissed the speculation as nonsense.
But whatever the circumstances, the spectacle of that stomach-churning ear disaster proved memorable. Overnight, the tomato ear became the glass jaw of the mixed martial arts set.
“People started seeing it because it was on TV,” said Steve Fossum, president of the International Sport Combat Federation, an organization that handles mostly amateur events.
By the time the phenomenon reached prime time, fighters at all levels were growing acquainted with the curious changes on their heads.
“People started seeing it because it was on TV,” said Steve Fossum, president of the International Sport Combat Federation, an organization that handles mostly amateur events.
By the time the phenomenon reached prime time, fighters at all levels were growing acquainted with the curious changes on their heads.
“Most of the guys have cauliflower ear to one degree or another,” said Aaron Stark, 32, a professional fighter for Team Quest of the International Fight League.
Stark, who has experienced symptoms since his collegiate wrestling days, does little in the way of prevention as an M.M.A. combatant.
“You can wear headgear, but to be quite honest, headgear’s a pain,” he said.
Sure enough, purveyors of protective equipment for mixed martial arts report exceptionally low sales of headgear. Jim Cristia, owner of the online shop Ground and Pound, said his customers buy far more gloves than head protection.
“I guess the hands are the weapons they’re using,” Cristia said, by way of explanation. Michael Jen, a jiu-jitsu black belt who operates the online store Smash Supply, reported similarly low demand for ear guards. “Sometimes the ear protection actually makes things worse,” Jen said, adding that the guards can cause trouble when an opponent tries “to squeeze the heck out of your head and it just presses the ear protector hard into the injured ear.” The role of machismo extends to treatment, or lack thereof. Once the condition develops, some fighters seem willing to try anything as long as it does not involve a doctor. Many young men cannot afford medical care, but there is also a do-it-yourself ethic at work.
“The guys that it tends to happen to are the tough guys,” said Kurt Osiander, 43, a trainer in San Francisco who has seen cauliflower ears on students as young as 15. “They don’t stop. They’ll go home, they’ll drain their ears, they’ll sleep uncomfortably on them and they’ll go back to it.”
For all the tough guys out there, Osiander has filmed a two-minute instructional film demonstrating one way to drain an infected ear with an insulin needle. The video clip is not for the squeamish. (It should also be noted that Osiander’s technique departs from the advice of medical experts at certain key points, such as doing it yourself in the first place.) Posted on YouTube in May, the video has been viewed more than 33,000 times.
Still, many young fighters display little interest in treatment, even the ill-advised sort demonstrated online. Jeff Hammond, 24, an amateur fighter from Tyler, Tex., has been nursing his most recent case of cauliflower ear since April. His first developed last year.
Hammond sought treatment for the first case. But in preparation for his next fight in August, he has no such plans. “I’ll brag about it,” he said. “People always, when I tell them I’m a fighter, they say, ‘You got that cauliflower ear yet?’ I say, ‘Yeah, you want to see?’ ”
Hammond’s approach to aural hygiene tends to mystify his coach, Drew Arthur, 57, a retired deputy marshal. Arthur, who built an octagonal cage to train his students in the forum used for the most popular professional fights, describes his Lone Star M.M.A. Gym as Christian-based.
Arthur’s theory about cauliflower ear goes like this: “I think it’s this generation. It’s an all-about-me type thing, and ‘I can make my own decisions.’ There’s a lot more independence with these guys saying, ‘I read this on the Internet’ or ‘I saw a guy drain his ear,’ when you should be in a doctor’s office when you’re starting to get a deformity.”
Fight Science: Anatomy of an Armbar
An interesting video on the amount of force that can be applied using the proper armbar technique. Rickson Gracie is the guy that's doing the armbar, so the technique is about as good as you'll ever get.
Friday, July 25, 2008
Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu vs. Kickboxing
Just found some more Gracie challenge matches. I always liked the style vs. style of the first UFC, and these remind of the early days. The poor video quality is the only negative.
Monday, July 21, 2008
Monday, July 7, 2008
Is MMA bad for Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu?
Is MMA bad for BJJ?
The answer is YES and No. How can that be you ask. Well, let me first start with the good. First off, I, along with most of the United States, would probably never know about Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu if it wasn’t for UFCs 1 – 5. Yes, I know Martin Riggs pulled off some sweet Jits against Mister Joshua in Murtagh’s front yard in Lethal Weapon 1, but BJJ didn’t really gain notoriety until Royce’s skinny ass started triangle choking everybody on Pay-Per-View.
Back then, no one knew what really worked in a fight. I mean we knew about punching and kicking. And we thought that the Japanese maintenance man in our mom’s apartment building had special skills that he would only impart to that one lucky kid he found worthy enough. I used to think if you had a black belt in Karate, even if you were a 10 year old Asian kid named “short round”, you could kick any normal person’s ass. But, my fantasy was busted by the events of the Ultimate Fighting Championship #1. Then came the mystical days of BJJ. Back, when if your name was Gracie you couldn’t be beaten. Then we found out that there were about 500 guys named Gracie and some of them COULD be beaten, even my personal hero “Royce”. As time went by more and more Brazilians came to America to teach BJJ. As the UFC became more popular, smaller events began to pop up and the term Mixed Martial Arts was coined. Over the years more and more rules were thrust upon MMA. No kicks to the head of a downed opponent, no strikes to the groin, and if you’re not working on the ground the referee will stand you up (I’ll come back to that one), just to name a few.
Back, to the good of MMA. MMA showed that BJJ is very, very effective. It finally showed that a smaller person could beat a larger person in a fight. A claim that almost every other martial art had been making for centuries. So, for that I thank the sport of MMA, the UFC, and everyone else that introduced me to Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. I just wish I would have discovered it at 7 instead of 36.
Now for the bad. MMA is bad for Jiu-Jitsu because a person new to the sport of MMA could easily think that BJJ is not as effective as it really is. And I’m talking about in a real fight, a self-defense situation. What I mean is that the modern rules of MMA favor the striker far more than the grappler. For instance the last rule I mentioned above, the referee standing you up for perceived lack of activity on the ground. One effective technique of Jiu-Jitsu is conserving your energy while your opponent becomes exhausted. For example, a larger person knocks you down, you pull guard, keep his posture broken down avoiding strikes, until your opponent gives up an armbar, triangle, etc. The stand up rule was made to make the fights more exciting. Most of the crowds don’t appreciate the ground game. They’re just looking for the knock-out. That’s the reason the UFC has DVDs called “Ultimate Knock-outs” and not “Ultimate Submissions”. Actually there are DVDs of submissions (101 submissions, etc) but those are for guys looking to learn submissions, not for guys to go “oooh!” and “Oh, shit!”
Also, newbie’s may not realize how hard it is to pull off a rear naked choke, triangle, armbar, or omoplata on a half naked man covered in sweat. In a real fight, if you have to fight, unless you’re at the beach your opponent is probably going to be wearing more than board shorts. He’ll probably be wearing a VanHalen (or possibly Winger) T-shirt, Levi jeans, and a pair of high top white Nike shoes. (I’m sorry my last fight was in 1988). In this instance sweat probably won’t be a factor, a referee won’t stand you back up after a minute of inactivity and you’ll be able to grab a hold of his concert T-shirt. Oh, and you’ll be able to grab onto the fence without having a point deducted. If Joe Dirt is able to punch you, he won’t be wearing five ounce gloves, so it will probably hurt his hand as much as it will hurt your head.
Now days, all fighters train Jiu-Jitsu. Maybe they only train to defend against BJJ techniques, or defend against the take down, But they all train it in some form or fashion. The fighters also study each other. They watch tapes of their opponents, the last time they won and the last time they lost. In a self-defense situation, I’m almost positive the guy who wants to kick your ass for ordering a Zima at his tough guy bar isn’t going to allow you to watch a video of his last fight and study his weakness.
So, New Guy, don’t think because Patrick Cote beat Ricardo Alamedia, some no name guy beat Roan Carneiro, or that Matt Hughes beat Royce Gracie, that Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu is not a top self defense art. If you invest some time training in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, at a quality school, and some dumbass tough guy off the street picks a fight with you, I can almost guarantee that your BJJ will work like magic on him. Just like in UFC 1.
Back, to the good of MMA. MMA showed that BJJ is very, very effective. It finally showed that a smaller person could beat a larger person in a fight. A claim that almost every other martial art had been making for centuries. So, for that I thank the sport of MMA, the UFC, and everyone else that introduced me to Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. I just wish I would have discovered it at 7 instead of 36.
Now for the bad. MMA is bad for Jiu-Jitsu because a person new to the sport of MMA could easily think that BJJ is not as effective as it really is. And I’m talking about in a real fight, a self-defense situation. What I mean is that the modern rules of MMA favor the striker far more than the grappler. For instance the last rule I mentioned above, the referee standing you up for perceived lack of activity on the ground. One effective technique of Jiu-Jitsu is conserving your energy while your opponent becomes exhausted. For example, a larger person knocks you down, you pull guard, keep his posture broken down avoiding strikes, until your opponent gives up an armbar, triangle, etc. The stand up rule was made to make the fights more exciting. Most of the crowds don’t appreciate the ground game. They’re just looking for the knock-out. That’s the reason the UFC has DVDs called “Ultimate Knock-outs” and not “Ultimate Submissions”. Actually there are DVDs of submissions (101 submissions, etc) but those are for guys looking to learn submissions, not for guys to go “oooh!” and “Oh, shit!”
Also, newbie’s may not realize how hard it is to pull off a rear naked choke, triangle, armbar, or omoplata on a half naked man covered in sweat. In a real fight, if you have to fight, unless you’re at the beach your opponent is probably going to be wearing more than board shorts. He’ll probably be wearing a VanHalen (or possibly Winger) T-shirt, Levi jeans, and a pair of high top white Nike shoes. (I’m sorry my last fight was in 1988). In this instance sweat probably won’t be a factor, a referee won’t stand you back up after a minute of inactivity and you’ll be able to grab a hold of his concert T-shirt. Oh, and you’ll be able to grab onto the fence without having a point deducted. If Joe Dirt is able to punch you, he won’t be wearing five ounce gloves, so it will probably hurt his hand as much as it will hurt your head.
Now days, all fighters train Jiu-Jitsu. Maybe they only train to defend against BJJ techniques, or defend against the take down, But they all train it in some form or fashion. The fighters also study each other. They watch tapes of their opponents, the last time they won and the last time they lost. In a self-defense situation, I’m almost positive the guy who wants to kick your ass for ordering a Zima at his tough guy bar isn’t going to allow you to watch a video of his last fight and study his weakness.
So, New Guy, don’t think because Patrick Cote beat Ricardo Alamedia, some no name guy beat Roan Carneiro, or that Matt Hughes beat Royce Gracie, that Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu is not a top self defense art. If you invest some time training in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, at a quality school, and some dumbass tough guy off the street picks a fight with you, I can almost guarantee that your BJJ will work like magic on him. Just like in UFC 1.
My Jiu-Jitsu Instructor did inform me today that he thought more fights have been won by submission than any other method in the UFC. I'm not going to dispute that fact, because he's right, and he can also choke me pretty much at will.
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