KISS

Keep It Simple Stupid is one of the best things I have been told. In this blog, we’re going to look at the simple things that can improve your striking, wrestling and BJJ.

Striking: The best thing about striking is that your opponent can only hit you with one thing at a time. If we use kickboxing here in this example (which often serves as the striking base for MMA). In this case, generally, you can get punched with both hands and kicked with both legs. Knees and elbows are available but not used that often. Even top kickboxers will use knees and elbows in an MMA fight for a about 1-5% of their attacks. If you watch any MMA fight, you will see that more often than not the first attack is a jab. Of course,this doesn’t happen in every fight but it would be a pretty safe bet to say about 90% of fights will start with someone throwing a jab. Outside of that you have a cross, leg kick and takedown which mostly happens in that order. 

So, when striking why not keep things as simple as possible. This means you set your defence and movement ready for a straight punch. Think about whenyou’re sparring, what the first shot you throw might be. Additionally, think about pad work and what the first shot you throw is – 9 times out of 10, it’s a jab. If this is what you and everyone else does in training then it will happen in a fight. If you can move and counter on a jab then a lot of your problems are solved. To make your striking better, work on that skill – you will be surprised how it makes everything after that a little easier. One thing you can also guarantee is that any movement is better than no movement. If you keep your head still then you have a great chance of being hit – if you don’t move your head, someone else will and that often happens with a swift punch. Once you start moving your head, you decrease the chance of being hit – simple. 

Wrestling: out of the three, wrestling should be the simplest because the whole point is to get the person to the ground. But just because something is simple does not mean it is easy. The simple way to improve your wrestling is to keep posture, posture helps with everything. When going for takedowns, if you keep good posture, it increases the chance of success. In MMA,when going for takedowns, one of the biggest mistakes is dropping the head. As people are trying to punch you in the face, you tend to be are away than normal wrestling,which can make people reach for the takedowns (usually for the legs). When reaching, people can easily drop their head and let their shoulder get well in front of their hips (think a rugby tackle). This makes the defence a lot easier as the eyes are facing the mat and as soon as any weight goes on from the opponent, the face will be on the mat as well. Think about a weightlifter (clean and jerk) when they are standing up with the weight their eyes are up and their shoulder are over their hips. If their head is down or their shoulder go in front of their hips then the lift will not be successful. Posture is the simple key in wrestling.

BJJ: Not everyone has the same style in BJJ so there will be two simple ideas here. The first one is for people like me who like top position control/lack finesse. It is all about the hips. If you can keep your hips level then you can’t get swept onto your back. If you can stay off your back then you are happy. Even in top position those, hips are everything. If you make them heavy the you can keep position and make it very difficult for your opponent to recover guard. From my perspective, my hips are the one thing that keeps me alive when grappling against better people. For people that have more options than just side control, the point is to have a position that you are happy in and work ways to get that position. This could be guard, half guard or any other position that you feel comfortable in. Once you have a few ways of getting to your ‘happy place’ grappling becomes a lot more fun. The same goes for submissions. Don’t have 1 way to get 10 submissions have 10 ways to get 1 submission. Keep your game simple, a couple of positions that you are happy with, a few ways to get to a single submission and then work from there to add more skills. Hips are underrated, if you can keep your hips level, then you will not get swept (of course easier said than done). Simple, hips, happy place and multiple ways to get one submission.

As each of these sports are technical, we can get ‘paralysis from analysis’ with the all moves and looking for the secret technique to improve your game. What we should be doing is working the basics, the jab, moving your head, posture, set up, hips and positions. If I am missing a move or not getting the success that I used to when you drill that move you realise pretty quickly that you are just missing a basic element. This usually happens with overconfidence, or rushing a technique. When things are not working right it makes you try and force them which only makes things worse. This is the best time to go back to basics and drill the technique to get those fundamentals back which will  improve your game and get your groove back