Archive for July, 2011
Are you smart enough?
For the general public their perception of us “cage fighters” is that we are thugs and just want to fight, in some cases they are correct. These people do not want to hear that the good fighters are smart and need to be switched on to keep up with the shifting sands of MMA. Intelligence is one of the most important weapons in a MMA fighters? arsenal.
If you are up against a superior athlete, that is someone that is faster and stronger than you, then you need to be smarter to beat them. Your tactics have to be better than their athleticism. You must know where you strengths are, your opponent may be stronger than you but the chances are you will have better endurance. That is based on the fact that the more muscle you have the more oxygen and energy you use and the quicker you run out. Against someone like this you would think that you would get them in positions that they are using a lot more energy than you this could include up against the fence or on their back. For the first round at least I would be inclined to work and keep active but not go for the finish on the ground, just keep them defending and trying to escape while all the using up energy. Against the fence same thing keep them defending without going for the big takedown, to keep them defending as they are in a bad position. All the very athletic guys I have come up against in training get very frustrated when their muscle doesn’t work then you can capitalise on their mistakes and get the win.
On the flip side you also need superior tactics to beat superior technique. If you are up against a superior grappler then plan A would obviously be to not go to the ground and then when you did get there get up as soon as possible. If it was that easy then there would be very few submissions in MMA. It is common for the ground fighter to try traditional takedowns, such as single and double legs, when they do not get success with that their next option is to try and pull guard. Defending someone pulling guard is a little harder than you would think but there is an upside, you now have top control. However there is also a downside when you are in a good grappler?s guard it can be difficult to survive, if your tactics aren’t up to the task. When Randy Couture is in his opponents guard he puts his hands on their biceps and keeps his chest low and looks to posture for ground and pound, which has become a common way to deal with the guard. Then the ground fighters found ways to deal with this so new tactics had to be made. When a Lockdown fighter is up against a good ground fighter we work on constant movement in their guard, we posture then back down then stand to get their arms reaching for defence then back down to the knees for ground and pound and so on, lots of level changes. This is based on the theory that whoever is dictating the movement is controlling the position, and if the guard player is allowed to throw up submission and sweep attempts then you are constantly defending and more or less losing.
It is never too early to work your tactics, during sparring you should be watching the guys you are up against and work out ways to combat their style, watch their set ups for takedowns as most people do similar things to set up the same moves. There will always be the guys on the mat who have good tactics and technique and they are the guys that will be hard for most people to beat, but a challenge is always fun. As I have mentioned in previous posts that the best guys just do the basics very well and shut down the holes that the rest of us have. One tactic against the top guys is to have a round off while they are up against a guy that will push them then grab them the next round, nothing surprising there but sometimes you need these little advantages to get a win.
Get thinking about what you are doing and what your opponents are doing, figure out a way to keep the fight in your best areas or at least in your opponents weakest areas, stay smart and work your tactics.
Gareth Lewis
Head MMA Instructor
Specialist versus Generalist
The downside of MMA is that you give up being a specialist in one of the disciplines. No matter how good you are at MMA if you had focused on one thing, such as striking, you would be better at that than you are now. The nature of MMA means that you should be very good at one area and good at the others thins means that your training has to include all areas of MMA and then put them all together.
Striking for MMA, this is an over simplification but you have to decide to give up a few leg kicks for takedown defence. In traditional striking the stance is quite high and light on the feet. If you have heavy feet it makes it harder to move around the ring and get away from your opponents attacks or get close to unload yours. As you are so high your striking is good but it makes it very easy for a wrestler to get to your legs, if a good wrestler gets hold of your legs you are going to get taken down. To have a more effective takedown defence you need to get lower in your stance and plant your feet, this makes it harder for the wrestler to get underneath you and get hold of your legs. The down side is that you are more likely to be to on the receiving end of some leg kicks, so therein lies the dilemma, do you look to throw and defend kicks and possibly get taken down or plant your feet to keep it standing and possibly receive a few legs kicks. So when you are training striking against strikers to you stand tall and work your pure striking skills or do you stay low and work your MMA striking?
Wrestling, the specialist wrestling stance is low with you elbows tight against your side, like a T-Rex, obviously this works for wrestling. If you take this stance in to MMA you are going to get punched in the head a lot and then your takedowns will not matter as your eyes will be swollen shut from all the punches. The other fun part is the ground aspect of wrestling, where you never go to your back no matter what. Which when you learn BJJ makes it a little tricky as you have it hard wired in your head to be on your back when you are on the receiving end of a takedown. So when training wrestling do you work “their” ground skills to adapt your game or do you avoid it as when it hits the ground in MMA you switch to BJJ?
BJJ, when training BJJ you usually start form your knees when rolling and go to submission. There are no punches and there is usually a gi. BJJ is the sport the put MMA on the map and is a major part, even though it has to be adapted for MMA. BJJ in MMA is a little more vigorous, that means that there is striking and it’s more about position and there are not any so called safe positions where you can stall. For example in half guard when you are on the bottom you can hang there with some simple hip movements to stay in a safe place you do not get this luxury in MMA as if they can’t do anything they will punch you. The other big thing is the gi; do you wear it or just stick with the no-gi?
Overall it is my opinion that when you train at the specific places that you play by their rules and try to beat them at their own game, then take these skills and adapt them for MMA. That being said all our coaches have to put up with us in at the specific sports as we do things that are not usually done, fall to our back in wrestling, grab to much in striking and we are the biggest munters on the mat in BJJ. As we have gone down the MMA track we have decided that we are not going to specialise in one area so we will not be as good as what we could be – that is the down side of MMA we are giving up being a specialist and becoming a generalist.
Gareth Lewis
Head MMA Instructor
Swimming with Sharks
The famous Shark Tank.
So what is it? Usually a shark tank is used for fight prep. It consists of 5 people, give or take, surrounding the person preparing for the fight and every minute they get a fresh opponent. This is very common way to get people ready for the fight.
The people that are part of the shark tank need to have good intensity; if they go in worrying about the fighter then they are not helping them at all. The fighter needs to experience the pressure that they will get in the fight; if the opponents go easy then they are not helping the fighter at all, as all they get is a false sense of security. That just means that you need to pick the people in the shark tank to fulfil the skills that are required
What is great about the shark tank is that the fighter gets one hell of a workout, it doesn’t matter how it they are they will be struggling by the end of three 5min rounds in the tank. Maybe the best thing is that if the fighter is the biggest most skilled person on the mat then with the shark tank they will get pushed to the limit as fatigue is a great leveller and people who usually gets their ass kicked can get their pay back.
However where Lockdown was going wrong with shark tanks that when the fresh person came in after each minute they literally jumped on to get the best position possible and start laying the smack down. The theory behind this was that they learnt how to deal with bad positions when tired so what ever happened in the fight they had experienced it in training. This was flawed system as all the fighter learned was to take a beating. So when they went in to the fight all they had trained under pressure were bad positions so what do you think happened when the pressure came on – that’s right they ended up on their back taking a bit of a beating. As a trainer this was the most upsetting thing I had missed and was very disappointed that I didn’t notice sooner, so don’t make the same mistake that I did.
The upgraded shark tank – work smarter not harder. After thinking about what was going wrong what Lockdown decided to do was to work more offence in the shark tank. The first fight we did this for was when one of our guys was up against a skilled grappler. So the first minute of the shark tank was all about striking to keep distance, as to avoid the takedown, second minute clinch work avoid the takedown in the clinch and getting out of the clinch to get back to striking, third minute getting form the ground back to feet, then fourth and fifth minute was all about offence from inside the guard. Minutes four and five the person who had guard was going for the submission and sweeps, Lockdown was very lucky as we had some good grapplers to use for these two minutes.
The new shark tank paid off as in the fight I would say it was one of the best performances from one of our fighters he gave the guy hell on the ground and at the end of the fight there was very little between the fighters. Since then most of the shark tanks at Lockdown have been all about getting the fighter ready for the skills they need. But most important we make sure that they are practicing how to get success in specific areas when they are gassed. This means that in the fight they fighter knows that they can get the position that they need even when they are gassed and mentally they know they can get it which is possibly they most important thing.
Overall with the shark tank make sure you have the people that will replicate the opponent as best you can, they give the fighter hell, but most of all make sure the fighter practices the skills that at they need to get the win. On the flip side you also need to give them the beat down shark tank just so they don’t get complacent with their training and waked them up to the idea that this stuff is hard and if they are not at the top of their game then they will not get the win
Gareth Lewis
Head MMA Instructor
Don't fear the munter
Munters are special breed, they are the guys that try and kill you during a training session. If you are striking with them they throw big looping punches to take your head off, in BJJ their main objective is to pull your head off and in wrestling they push you away until they feel like grabbing something hard enough to break off.
Generally you have to be in the right frame of mind to train with these guys as it is always a 100% death match. What happens with these guys is they get told by almost everyone to calm down, training partners and their trainers all tell them to relax and so on. This is a bit of a shame believe it or not.
So why is a shame that we try and get these crazy guys to calm down? Because these guys pressure test our game, they are as close to what we will face in competition as we can get. Think about the guy that just wants to take your head off in striking, in your first few fights in the kickboxing / boxing that is exactly what happens your opponent will go head hunting to take you out. Obviously we hope this doesn’t happen but if you get in to a fight in the street the person you are up against will sure enough try and take your head off with big punches. In BJJ you will be up against a guy that will try to force everything and generally uses strength to get what they want. Also if you do get in to the dreaded situation in the street then the guy you are up against will not be using technique rather strength and anger will be their allay. Finally in wrestling when you are down on points your opponent will do their best to not engage with you so dealing with someone that keeps distance on you is a great thing to practice.
But the best thing that munters do is that they don’t play by the rules, they will do things a little faster and harder than other people you train with. They are not worried about playing by the rules and making friends they just want to win and if they get your arm as a trophy then so be it. With striking having someone trying to knock you over ensures that your defence is up to task, when you focus on defence your offence is left behind so again this is a great pressure test for your defence.
Finally, embrace these munters pick your moments to train with them and see how your game deals with the pressure. Enjoy it and make sure you do either all of these or at least one of the following – keep your hands up, tap early and don’t let them get a grip just to be safe against these so called trouble makers.
Gareth Lewis
Head MMA Instructor