Archive for August, 2011

It seems that in MMA you have about ten years of fights in your body.

This is not based on science, but just an observation from watching fights for years. Obviously it can vary for certain people but it seems to be around the ten year mark that people lose the dominance that they once had.

The first person that most people will use to disprove this theory is Randy Couture. However, his first MMA fight was in 1997 at age 33. He then was at the top of his game for the next few years until his defeat against Brock Lesnar in 2008 – since that loss he had a few fights with some wins but never fought for the title again. Even though he did fight until a late age, because he started at a late age he had a decade where most of fights were title fights and then after that decade the body had just had enough.

Wanderlei Silva had his first fight in 1996 and went through to July 2006 with a record of 31 – 5, then from there he has had two wins from eight fights. With the way that Wandy fights – just going in their to destroy people – he has put his body through hell and sadly his dominance came to end in July 06.

Chuck Liddell had his first fight in 1998 and up until December 29 2007 he was rather dominant. Then came 2008, ten years after his debut, and he had three ko losses in row and then he retired. With Chuck we are talking about one of the most feared strikers in the sport, but once his time was up he was on the receiving end of the ko?s.

These are just a few examples but I could go on all day with some of greats of the sport, it is like the body can only take so much damage and then goes in to protection mode and just can?t handle the hits anymore. I do believe that this trend will change as the new breed come through and I think that the decade will shorten, and people will be able to compete at that top level for a shorter time. There will always be the legends but it is getting increasingly difficult to hold on to a title.

Gareth Lewis

Head MMA Instructor

http://www.lockdown.co.nz

MMA is more than just being able to scrap in the ring – you need to have a good balance with your training and your life to be able to do well in this sport. In my opinion, here are some of the foundations of success:

Strength ? To be successful in MMA you need to be strong for your size. This doesn?t mean that you need to be a weight lifter, or be able to get twice your bodyweight above your head. The key to MMA is being strong in the positions that you need. For example, what is the point of being able to deadlift 200kg if you can?t lift your opponent off the mat? Absolute strength is important but functional strength is more important – hence the saying ?train the movement, not the muscle?. The good thing is that every time you train BJJ, wrestling and MMA you are doing the exact type of resistance training that you need. Because you are on the mat it doesn?t feel like weight training, but you are moving a lot of weight around. This means that the more you are rolling and wrestling, the stronger you will get at the positions that you need. You can then put the gym on top of that to get all the strength you need.

Speed ? The adage ?speed kills? is true – the more speed you have the less time your opponent has to defend. The thing with speed is that you are born with it, or you?re not. If you are blessed with speed then your training will keep your fast twitch fibres firing and your speed will always be there. If you are a little unlucky and are not blessed with speed then you have to work to get more of it. People who are blessed with speed are also blessed with strength, which is often referred to as athleticism. GSP is the best example of this – he can shoot from further out because of his speed, which means he can maintain a greater distance when fighting, which gives him a decided advantage over the rest of the competition.

Cardio ? ?Fatigue makes a coward out of all of us?. It doesn?t matter what your skill level is, if you do not have a good cardio base then you will get beaten by people with less skill. When you are fatigued your reflexes go, and you can?t fight for those 50/50 positions with any real effect. From there it doesn?t take long for you to go in to survival mode, and once you are in survival mode the fight is more or less over as your opponent doesn?t have to worry about your offence as much. When in survival mode all you are likely to do is throw up a ?Hail Mary? – either big one-off punches or one-off submission attempts where neither the punch or sub has any setup. Again we are lucky with the cardio as we get a lot of it in training but not everything you need – just like strength you need to train your heart the way it used in the fight, with lots of up?s and down?s. Doing cardio training where you heart stays at one level will not help as much as training where your heart rate has lots of variations.

Tactics ? There has been a blog post already written about how to beat someone with better technique than you – you need better tactics – so I will keep this brief. Basically, you have to use your head when training and fighting – any idiot can train hard and throw a punch, it?s all about doing it right. Train specifically to what you need and fight to a plan that makes the most of your strengths and avoids your opponent?s strengths. Most of all, keep your head in the fight so you can stick to your plan and don?t get caught up in a street fight.

Technique ? This is obviously very important because when your strength and cardio are running low all that you have left is technique, so you had better make sure that it is good. All those little things that your instructor tells you about and you don?t listen are the most important things. The smallest things can have the biggest effect, such as hand position, having your hips a little lower, underhook a little higher, hand facing the other way etc. These are the little things that can save your ass when you are in trouble. When you are training make sure you pay attention to what the good guys are doing and look at the subtle things that they do to stay out of danger.

Head ? It is very important to keep a level head and stay positive. Fight training is one of the hardest times to stay positive. Training is only one aspect of the fight game you have to stay positive with – there are also the other aspects of your life in which you have to keep the stress down and positivity up, such as work and home life. The last thing you want is to come home angry after training and be short with your partner because you missed a few arm bars.

Heart ? This is the most important part, as without heart all the skills in the world do not mean s**t. Heart is what keeps you training hard, and pushing harder than the next guy. You must believe that you can beat anyone and be up for any challenge. If you do not have the passion and drive for fighting then you shouldn?t do it. Here is a quote that may help you train when you don?t feel like it: ?Anyone can do it when they feel like it, it?s the people who do it when they don?t feel like it who succeed?.

Each one of the elements are not isolated – if your fitness is not there then that takes time away from working technique and tactics. If your head is elsewhere then that affects every element of your training. Keep focused and stay committed and that will take you a long way.

Gareth Lewis

Head MMA Instructor

http://www.lockdown.co.nz

There have been big changes in MMA over the years, and there are some specific fights which have marked the change.

Evolution One: The Ground

BJJ was introduced to the world at UFC 1 on November 12, 1993. At the time people didn?t know which style would win out of (among others) Karate, Kung-Fu, Boxing andTae Kwon Do. People had no idea what to expect, but one thing people did agree on was that you can?t win a fight from your back.

Royce Gracie came in and showed the world the strength of BJJ by submitting his opponents off his back. This was such a foreign concept to the martial arts world that the commentators didn?t know about the guard, and had no idea what any of the submission were called. This continued in UFC 4, when Gracie fought Dan Severn, who was a very powerful wrestler. Gracie went for a triangle and Jeff Blatnick , who was an a Olympic gold medallist in Greco Roman wrestling, said he ?as long as his arm is in there he is safe?. Blatnick was completely surprised when Severn tapped from what they thought was some sort of neck crank. BJJ made such an impact that after UFC 1 people knew that to win you had to have skill on the ground – this was possibly the biggest evolution in martial arts as a whole.

Evolution Two: Combination

The Gracie?s dominated MMA for the 90?s, until they met a Japanese fighter namedKazushi Sakuraba. Sakuraba was a wrestler, amateur and professional, who had ground fighting and submission skills. He was the first person to beat one of the famed Gracie?s, when he defeated Royler Gracie at Pride 8 on 21 November 1999. To make it more impressive he didn?t knock him out, he beat Gracie by submission which at the time was considered as unlikely as the All Blacks losing to France in the Semi finals of the RugbyWorld Cup.

This win was not a flash in the pan either. Sakuraba went on to beat another three Gracie?s, Royce, Renzo and Ryan, which ended the Gracie domination of MMA. Sakuraba showed that you needed to have a more complete game, wrestling combined with submission defence or striking and ground ability, to be at the top of the food chain.

This trend continued to the final ?passing of the torch? at UFC 60 on May 27 2006, where Royce Gracie fought Matt Hughes. Gracie was soundly beaten by Matt Hughes, who won his fights with takedowns and ground and pound. He was, at the time, the most dominate UFC Champion ever. It become clear that if you were a specialist in one area and become good at another then you would be hard to beat in MMA.

Evolution Three: The Complete Fighter

The third fight between Matt Hughes and George St Pierre (GSP) was at UFC 79, on December 29, 2007. The first fight went to Hughes, and in the second GSP soundly beat Hughes. The third fight, however, caused many people to call it ?a fight that made me question everything I know about MMA?, and say ?it was like watching Superman die?.

GSP simply demolished Hughes – he made it look easy. If you didn?t know that Hughes was one of the greatest fighters in the sport, you would?ve assumed he was a no one, as the fight was so one sided. GSP was a very good striker, wrestler and ground fighter – this means that where ever the fight went he was happy. In fact GSP took Matt Hughes? strength – wrestling – and beat him at it. No one had seen anything like it before. GSP evolved a little quicker than others, but it is clear that to be the top in MMA now you have to be very good at everything – you cannot have one area in which you are weak.

Evolution Four: The Freaks

From 2007 there were some guys that were good at everything, as they had years of training behind them – GSP and Fedor spring to mind. In 2010 there was a change – it was the start of the ?freaks?. The best example of this would Jon ?Bones? Jones – Jones is 22 and has trained MMA for only 3 years, and time of writing he seems unbeatable.

He hasn?t learnt BJJ, Striking and Wrestling – he has learnt MMA as a style and as a complete package. He hasn?t had to learn how to put the skills together because to him it is all one package. With this skill set he has been adding transitions that most people haven?t even considered. The fight that made this apparent was when he fought one of the greatest talents the sport has seen in Maurício ?Shogun? Rua for the UFC Light Heavyweight Championship at UFC 128 on 19 March 2011. Jones used a spinning elbow against the cage that made Shogun look average, and completely dominated Shogun. It seems that to be the best now you have to be young (as there is only one UFC champ over30 years of age) and have some freak ability.

MMA has changed the way we look at martial arts. The argument on what the most effective fighting art is has been answered – and it?s not one, but a mix of arts. Now it seems that that mix is becoming its own art, due to these new ?freaks? who just make it look all so easy. The way the sport has changed since November 12 1993 is incredible, and any one of the original guys wouldn?t last a round against a middle of the road fighters these days. This is great, as in a few years GSP will be knocked off his perch and we will get to see Jon Jones pushed to his limit by the latest young guy who will change the game yet again.

Gareth Lewis

Head MMA Instructor

http://www.lockdown.co.nz

Everyone in training has at least one person that causes them grief in a certain position. In reality, most of us have a number of people that give us a lot of grief in a number of different positions.

Wrestling – If someone sets up their single leg takedown offence from the underhook, and they take you down with this combo time after time, it is common for people to ask their instructor how to defend the single leg.However, if you look at the move, the problem isn?t the single leg, it?s the underhook. The question should be ?How do I stop that set- up??, or more specifically ?How do I defeat the underhook??. So when you are wrestling that person again, if you work on defeating the underhook you should notice that they are not having the same success. They may get you with other moves, but as long as they do not get you with the single leg from the underhook then you are taking a step forward.

Striking – If you trained striking with the mentality of escape over prevention then you would take all the punches on your gloves, or head, and stay in a straight line. But to be successful you should be setting up your offence, to make it as hard as possible for them to land their shots.For example, if you are up against a guy with a good left hook, if all you work on is keeping your right hand up then you are doing nothing to stop the left hook – you are just putting some padding between the left hook and your head. There has to be a better way! What you could do instead is aim a lot of your offence at the left side of his head – yes, even your jab – which will tie up his left hand with defence and make it harder for him to throw that left hook. On top of throwing at the left side of his head you should make the most of your movements to your left to stay away from his power shot. Of course if you are a better striker then you will beat them anyway, but if all things are equal you a need to take away from their strengths.

BJJ – If you are up against a guy that has, for example, a great triangle, sitting in guard and working your triangle escapes and counters is only teaching you how to work a number of different ways to get in to the triangle. Let?s assume that most people get the triangle from guard. In practice you would start by working your takedowns and avoiding their guard as you both hit the ground. It would also help to avoiding someone pulling guard from standing. On the ground, instead of avoiding guard, work on keeping positions. Think of it like this – after getting the takedown, you might land in side control. Obviously you want to keep side control, but if you really want to avoid guard then you have to stay away from their legs – north south would be an option, as for them to get you in to guard you have to regress your position on three levels (side control, half guard then full guard). As another example, when in half guard if you think about locking up their leg then it also makes it very hard for them to get back to guard (even if it does make you a little easier to sweep). If you keep your position then they will not be able to get to guard and get the triangle, no matter how good they are at the triangle.

Overall, if you practice escapes for particular moves then all you are doing is finding different ways to get caught with that move, so work on stopping the transition to their set up and you should find that you get more success.

Gareth Lewis

Head MMA Instructor

http://www.lockdown.co.nz