Why we fight - 6 points to convince your friends and family

Some people call MMA a "bloodsport" and I suppose it is by definition. The whole idea of punching the crap out of someone is quite primal and calls up our dog pack instincts. Imagine the junk-yard dogs gathered around watching two mutts tear each other apart. As much as we try to think we are above the animals and so much more civilized, we have not changed very much at all.

1. Check out Richard Nikolai's blog "Free The Animal" he clearly sees himself and all other humans as the animals we are and embraces his genetic heritage with vigor. 

2. Look at any war zone and tell me that we are better than dogs or monkeys. We blame the individual soldier or terrorist for their behavior but very few people would act any differently in the same circumstances.






3. The movie "Natural Born Killers", to me was a commentary on the human instinct to violence when the normal filters and constraints of civilization are not present.

4. At a moments notice all hell can break loose; just look at all of the "brawl" videos on Youtube where shit goes down at the drop of a diss!







5. There is an area in Winnipeg Manitoba where at certain times of the night the bars empty and the people all spill out onto the street and start a mass rumble. No-one is fighting about anything in particular, they are fighting for the sake of fighting!!

6. The movie - "Needful Things" by Steven King showed how with a little subtle manipulation an entire town can implode into chaos.Here is a scene from the movie where 2 normal women turn into blood thirsty savages from a letter sent by a third party (the devil).







My point is that the violence is in all of us and to deny it is, I think, more dangerous. I have found that fighters are some of the most well-adjusted individuals as they get all of their aggression out on the mat and in the ring or cage.
Maybe if we settled political disputes this way things might be better, we could keep the civilians out of the battles and save lives and money; or maybe I'm full of shit! The thing is, when I hear people say that the combat sports I love are just some sort of gladiator fantasy and that we are a bunch of neanderthals, I think to myself; "Yah, so what?". Go ahead and cage all us animals up and try to keep us civilized and one day we will go off like a ---

3 components of good standup fighting / Don't eat the sand

There was an expression going around at the audio engineering school I attended that was sort of a nice way of saying "Don't be an idiot!" ; the expression was "Don't eat the sand!" You know when you are sitting there in an exam, scratching your head, trying to come up with the answer: then you realize the answer is right there in the question? Remember when you used to play in the sand box at the park and your mama would yell out "Don't eat the sand!" Well, both of those scenarios are similar.
Most of the time we over think things that would otherwise be simple and put unnecessary pressure on our selves. I had a student once tell me another expression - "Don't try to reinvent the wheel man!" He was referring to how I would get stressed out about trying to come up with brilliant new techniques to dazzle the students and not trusting my already comprehensive repertoire to satisfy their quests for knowledge. In my ongoing search for better training, diets, and mental and athletic performance enhancements I sometimes over think things. 
I have seen so many fights where one of the combatants is throwing bombs and combinations and rarely landing a shot.
I have also seen amazing talented fighters using minimal effort but connecting with every blow. A great example is a brilliant fighter from Leone Italy by the name of Giorgio Petrosyan. If you watch video of his fights you will see how he gets his opponents to charge in and how he perfectly sets up his counters. It is not magic, this is the result of hours of intelligent training and thoughtful practice.



At Carlson Gracie MMA in Maple Ridge British Columbia we are very strict with the process of training a fighter and learning new techniques. I often get asked to teach spinning flying kicks and other fancy moves but these fundamental building blocks of stand-up fighting are crucial and without a strong foundation, you can not build the top floor! 

Three components of good standup:
1. Timing
2. Distance
3. Accuracy

1.
When it comes to timing there is only one way to train and that is with a partner. When your partner throws a punch, for example, you parry and counter with your kick or punch. This takes hours of training with partners to develop your reflexes but staying strict with your technique and slowly but gradually increasing your speed will get you amazing results in a short time.
I FEEL A STORY COMING ON!
I recall one student who had been training his basic head movement and it saved his eye or maybe even his life. He was at a pub and as he walked outside to head home, he witnessed a fight taking place in the parking lot. Two guys were laying a beating on a smaller guy and my student, being a good Samaritan, tried to break it up. He yelled "Hey, come on guys you're going to hurt him!" and as he stepped toward the group, one of the guys pulled a knife and threw it right at my student's head! He slipped to the right and the knife cut his head along the temple but missed the eye. The point is that, through hours of drilling you can create new pathways in your brain and "muscle memory" that will not only improve your reaction time but also condition you for the correct response.

2.
Distance can be learned, at least in the beginning, by bag work. Moving away from the bag after every combination and coming back into distance to land the next will teach you the optimal landing place for the front foot. The problem with the bag is that it doesn't go anywhere which is unrealistic compared to a real fight. Working the pads or training with a partner also helps to train your distance. The main thing to pay attention to while doing any drill is, where your front foot lands. For boxing punches, it should land directly in the opponent's center line (point your toes at his nose).

3.
You don't need me to explain accuracy. Landing a punch on the "button" is more effective than any one technique known in martial arts and combat sports! ( http://neurology.about.com/od/Trauma/a/Treating-Traumatic-Brain-Injury.htm )
A great way to train your accuracy is to place small pieces of athletic tape on strategic spots on the heavy bag. Try hitting the mark on every jab and right cross that you throw to improve your accuracy and eye/hand coordination.
Hitting the focus mitts also helps, provided you try to hit the dot in the center of the mitt with every punch.

Low carb diets

People with Diabetes milletus are constantly testing, using a blood sugar meter to track changes in their blood glucose levels because they have lost the ability to control it naturally. I like to say that a blood sugar meter also works as another kind of BS meter. You can't BS about your diet when you are reading the effects of it on the BS meter! What this means is that if you test a type of food or diet regimen, you could wait for the results - a big belly or loss of same - or you could easily check your blood sugar with a meter and know without a doubt how you are affected by it.

How is this useful to people without diabetes?
The mountainous volumes of information gathered on the effects of various foods on our blood sugar has given rise to things like the glycemic index. The "GI Diet" and any other diet that reduces your consumption of carbohydrate will lower your dependance on insulin, raise your sensitivity to insulin, along with other hormones like leptin and adiponectin which regulate the hungry or full signals.

Here is a summary: (Ultra-simplified)
We know that sugar in all forms, including starches and the so called "complex carbs" spike our blood glucose, thereby spiking our insulin. We know that insulin is a fat storage hormone. We know that at no time in history have we ever had such a multitude and availability of food and refined sugars and starches. Put these facts together and try to understand that what we think of as a "low carb" diet is, in evolutionary terms, still a very high carb diet. Now take into account that over consumption of carbs in any form breaks down the beta cells of the pancreas and desensitizes the insulin receptors throughout the body creating a higher need for insulin production. The vicious cycle begins and you set yourself up for a rough time. We evolved to do this, it is not an accident. Picture yourself in a frozen wilderness, subsisting on small animals you can drag back to the cave. You need a tremendous amount of stored energy; like the hump of a camel or a bear fattening up for hibernation, to get you through the winter. In the fall when you are hunting and you run across a huge berry patch, every cell in your body tells you to eat all you can before you move on. Bring that forward to today and you walk to 7-11 and snag the legendary "Big Gulp" with your great hairy hands gripping its neck like a saber-tooth on a wild boar! Red liquid running down your chin like the blood of your fallen prey!! You tear the wrapper off your snickers bar with you teeth and pieces of its nougat skeleton crumble under your bite! Thing is, you can do this three times per day and the average store is within a block of the average couch!   

The 7 Steps To Learn How To Fight

We have so many tools at our disposal in the gym to work out each technique or combination. Every tool that we employ lends different dynamics to the training.  At some gyms I have witnessed people doing countless hours just hitting the bag, some gyms jump the student right into sparing and others just working the shit out of the pads. At Carlson Gracie MMA in Maple Ridge, we use a progression from Coach Toby Combat Systems, which I developed from my studying under Sifu Hon Lee and attending many martial arts schools, Muay Thai gyms and Boxing clubs. I apply drilling methods using different strategies adapted from years of music training and my study of how the brain works and how we learn using cognitive learning principals from DeBono and Erikson. As a coach it is my job to communicate with the student and transpose the knowledge between their body and brain; easier said than done! A structured process is absolutely necessary. (learn to box here)
Whether you are learning to fight or teaching a class, try taking a technique and put it through this formula. 

The 7 Steps To Learn How To Fight:

1. Basic instruction: This is usually not so basic, as there are so many elements to a particular technique. The instructor can spend time correcting all of these pieces of the puzzle before bad habits set in and make sure that the student is strict with their execution. Show the student exactly how to do the technique properly and make sure they understand.
2. Mirror: The student, looking in the mirror, will try to mimic the posture, hand and foot positioning and movement patterns of the instructor as well as the more advanced students. A side benefit to punching and kicking the air is that it teaches you how to balance and control your trajectory in the event that you miss your target. As you get to know the proper way to do each technique, you can begin to self-correct. I often call the mirror "the other coach in the room".   
3. Bag: The stationary opponent is great to work out your reach from one position and striking an object that provides resistance will teach you to compensate for the stopping of your movement when you do connect in a fight. The more advanced training on the bag will work your angles left and right. Remember, bag work is not about how hard you hit it. Pounding the crap out of a heavy bag will only accomplish joint problems, besides, there aint no judges there to give you points and it’s very hard to knockout a punching bag.   
4. Pad-work: Now we have the dynamic of unpredictable movement and forward and back that we never had on the bag. The pad man can call out combinations and throw punches and kicks to work on some defensive skills and reflexes. This method will teach you timing and distance much better than a punching bag! Also, hitting focus mitts and Thai pads are very different. I like using the Thai pads to train powerful punches because there is a weight to them that is similar to hitting a chin and if you practice carrying your power through the target it will give you that leverage you need for that knockout punch.
5. Specific, one-on-one drills: This is not sparing but we are getting close. An example would be; one student punching and the other countering with a kick. Another would be, slipping and countering with a jab. Now we are drilling a single technique but we are under pressure to defend and while remaining composed. This method will teach you timing and distance better than any other form of training in my opinion, partly because you feel safe enough to execute your technique in good form while the pressure is minimal, therefore you have less chance of developing bad habits!   
6. Single technique sparing: The students begin, usually by jab sparing to establish timing and distance, then add one technique at a time to teach them how to pull off that punch, kick, take-down or combination while in danger of getting hit. It is important mentally to be able to pull off the technique in real-time; otherwise you will never feel confident enough to use it in competition. Use this strategy for learning a ground technique while the opponent sits up and throws punches at your head, try to set up that submission. It is a much better time to do this while in the gym than wait until you are in the cage on the receiving end of “ground and pound”! 
7. All in: For Boxing or MMA this will look different but the idea is to put all your skills to the test. The trick with this stage is to have several levels of intensity which are agreed on by the students. One way to do this is to use percentages i.e.: 50% intensity would mean that you are not hitting very hard, mostly working your technique and timing. Closer to a fight you might want to build it up to 80% or more to prepare you mentally for the battle. If you or your students spar full out all the time they will develop bad habits, particularly getting "punch shy". They will lack the confidence to “do their thing” and, instead, work off instinct; which we know is the wrong way to fight against a trained competitor.

As a coach I watch closely all of the students and fighters to make sure that they are keeping composed. If/when I see their stance and proper technique start to fall apart, I stop them and bring them back to basics then slowly work everything else back in piece by piece.

Sport Specific Training For MMA

Over the last few years we have been pelted with thousands of posts, articles, books and lectures on "sport specific training". I want to take a minute to hash out some of my ideas on this subject. Of course, a lot of "my ideas" come from studying other people's theories and putting them to practice. ("Theory To Practice" I even stole that from Keith Norris. Theory To Practice ) after all, we are the sum of all the people who influence us and our experiences. The basis for doing extra-curricular training is to somehow make ourselves super-human; to gain an edge over our opponent through scientifically superior methods. We are striving to work "smarter not harder". There is always room to improve our physical strengths, coordination, endurance and skill set. I'm not opposed to finding new ways of doing this, in fact, this is my mission for the most part; to find the fastest and most efficient ways to improve and build a fighter from the ground up. I often use examples of my music days and how my journey to become proficient at lead guitar playing parallels my search for skill building methods in martial arts. An example would be doing specific exercises to strengthen your fingers without playing any actual music or practicing scales and arpeggios over and over to improve your speed. Of course we have to prepare in so many ways to train our muscles, nerves, bones and brains to be ready to fight but we need balance in our schedule. We lift weights and run miles, ride the Aerodyne and roll our shins; anything to build the machine! We use tools like punching bags and focus mitts to drill one particular combination at a time which we need to gain the muscle memory to pull it off in the ring but nothing beats sparing and fighting to make you a better fighter and get you into fight shape.



Next I'll give you 3 reasons why doing "sport specific training is a good idea and 3 reasons why its not. Make sure to weigh these variables as you put together your training camp.

3 Reasons why it IS a good idea to incorporate "sport specific training": 
1. Overuse injuries: If you are punching bags or jumping and kicking pads for thousands of reps or in the case of a sport like football hitting the tackle dummy a billion times, the chance for repetitive stress injuries goes up substantially.
2. Pre-hab: Doing loaded stop and start as well as rotation and anti-rotation type training not to mention strength training can prepare you for unexpected, violent movements and lessen the damage caused by these events. You can also correct imbalances like those caused by being in your stance for hours and turning your punches and kicks out always the same way.
3. The over-load principle: Doing something like adding weight to the body, hands and feet while shadow boxing as well as wearing an elevation mask or doing under-water running can add load to your cardiovascular system training and cause an over-compensation effect to give you an advantage in endurance. Here are some great trainers who have worked out fantastic programs to improve the fitness of fighters:

MMA FITNESS TRAINING AND CONDITIONING

THE MOST COMPREHENSIVE COURSE ON MMA SPECIFIC TRAINING!

3 Reasons why its not a good idea: 
 1. Time limitations: You have a limit to the amount of time in a day so training your skills as part of your conditioning work will kill the proverbial "two birds". If you have 5 hours per day to train, BJJ, Boxing, Muay Thai, Wrestling you aint got time to do no Crossfit!
2. Risk of injury: Any strength or power lifting exercise has the potential to cause injury. Even doing ladder drills or aqua fit can have their hazards! The lead up to a fight is fraught with perils and you have already won that contest if you make it to the ring.
3. The best reason: Nothing approximates the sport like the sport and nothing prepares you to do a particular movement like actually doing it.

4 steps to POWER!

I'm going out on a limb here and assume that every fighter would want to have powerful punches, kicks and take downs; that on the ground they would want unbeatable submissions and un moveable positions. The process that any athlete uses to go about increasing the power of anything from a right cross to a power-snatch, a paddle stroke to a high jump is the same. When asked how to get "power" in a punch my coach Hon Lee gave this very concise formula which can be used in any sport but is essential to the fighting arts:





1. Technique
2. Flow
3. Speed
4. Power

1. Technique: Absolutely every technique we use must be mastered before we try putting any force behind it. Take an Olympic lifter for example, imagine violently throwing 300? Pounds over your head without knowing how to properly execute the movement! The process that most lifters work through consists of going over the steps of the lift many times, sometimes for months, with only a broomstick. Throwing a punch is also risky but for different reasons, still, the process is very similar. How many times do you practice a punch, first in the mirror, then on the bags and pads before the coach lets you spar with actual people? Make sure that every aspect of the technique is perfect, the turn of the foot, the torque in the hips.

2. Flow: The next step in the process is to make the technique flow. Weather you are throwing one punch or a combination; weather you are pulling a triangle or using it as a set-up for an arm-bar, you need to learn how to seamlessly flow through the movements keeping your defense tight. The smoothness of your movement also adds to your momentum which leads us nicely to the next step. "We want to move efficiently because it gives you higher performance, its energy-conservative and ultimately its safer. If you want to move often and more frequently you've got to be efficient with your movement to maintain safety and maintain that quality. That's why these skills, techniques and efficiency principals are so important." Clifton Harsky

3. Speed: A car traveling at 100k will do a lot more damage to a person than a bus traveling at 3k. Likewise, a fighter who has speed in their hands will cause much more havoc than a slow one, even if they are bigger. As long as we keep the technique sound and flow from one to another, adding some speed will automatically generate the power for step 4!

4. If you followed the last three steps you have already arrived here! Power is some thing we shouldn't be trying to do, it comes as a result of using you body with the most efficiency, hitting the target with accuracy and committing to our technique without reluctance. In my observations of hundreds of people training in the fighting arts I see similar patterns recurring often related to this. One of these is the way a fighter will slowly revert to instinctive reactions like pulling away from danger. If you think of fighting like placing your hand on a hot stove; holding the hand to the fire goes against our base human drive and we will do anything to remove it from pain. In order to have success in a fight we have to put our face, head and body into a dangerous situation in order to be in position to do damage to our opponent. I see this withdrawal in every fighter as the sparing heats up. In a class setting I am always aware of that and pull the students back to basic movements and get them to focus on technique, timing, distance and posture. Does this sound exactly like what a strength trainer would do? Any athlete that thinks that they are too advanced to revisit the basics will never advance!

Boxing, Kickboxing for MMA, defense Low bobs and rocks.MPG

Both the "bob" and the "rock" can be used in many different applications. In this video I show you how you can use them for setting up low body punches or to use a s defense against an attack and thereby countering with the low punches. There are many other punches, kick and takedowns that can be set up using them, largely up to your own imagination. I will give some of these examples in the upcoming videos.

Boxing, Kickboxing, MMA, defence - "The Bob"

The next type of head movement that we will look at is the bob. We have a couple different ways of avoiding straight punches but the hooks, overhand and big power right cross can be avoided by circling your head under the punch. The three elements to doing a proper bob are:
1. First, move the head away from the punch.
2. Drop with the knees and circle under the punch.
3. Come back up tucked and plant the foot for the counter punch or kick.

Boxing and Kickboxing for MMA - Slipping punches

Of all the different types of head movement slipping is the fastest and works very well to avoid straight, fast punches. It also aids in adding momentum to your lateral movements Slipping left and right will not help if your opponent is throwing looping punches like hooks or over hands and also they are no good for countering with power because you don't build up any torque. They are, however, fundamental to the jab game and keeping the head moving as you change angles.
The elements to the slip are:
1. "Slip with the hip" shoot your hip out to the left to move you head right and vice-versa.
2. When countering allow your opponent to come to you by a slight pause, then slip and counter. 3. Stay forward of your hips with your head.

STRESS!!!

When you think of the word "stress" you probably picture driving home from work on a Friday evening, boss had you stay late and now you get to stare at buddy's bumper for an extra half hour. Maybe to you it means all of the bills you have to pay and the amount of work you will have to do to cover them. Most of us have a pretty good understanding of the concept but hardly anyone understands that stress is not merely the product of attacking beasts or falling from heights but anything that disturbs the homeostasis or balance of the body and its normal functions. Take away water for a couple of days, run 20 miles, eat a tub of ice cream or stay up watching TV for 3 days with no sleep and the effect on the hormones that regulate inflammation are similarly strained. Stress also comes as a result of any sickness; viral, bacterial or fungal. Some ailments can have an immunizing effect on the body while others can tear us down and leave us in shambles.
As I have said in past posts, as fighters (or any other athlete for that matter,) we are trying to become "more" - good is just not good enough. We want to take our body to new limits and we are using science to show us how to train smarter rather than harder. We learn the mechanics of our techniques then we try to use "functional" conditioning and strength training to beef up the power, efficiency and speed. All of this is good and we are learning so much about the human body and its adaptations to the stresses of training. Doing a push-up is a stress that can wake up your muscles but 5000 push-ups might stress you to the point of having a heart attack; something in between will make your arms stronger and your punch harder. "Hormesis" refers to this process of stress adaptation. - "In the fields of biology and medicine Hormesis is defined as an adaptive response of cells and organisms to a moderate (usually intermittent) stress." [Mark P. Mattson, Laboratory of Neurosciences, National Institute on Aging Intramural Research Program 5600. In the pursuit of super-humanness we are going to do things that add to our stress load but the key is in balancing this with sufficient recovery.
We evolve as a species slowly and incrementally but we can also expect changes in hormone regulation, ep-genetics, body composition etc. within our own lifetimes.
Ok, so what am I getting at?
Start here: if you do those 5000 push-ups every day you will wear the cartilage right off your humeri, jogging on the treadmill everyday for 10 years to burn those calories from the fructose in the sports drink you had before your workout will get you some rickety old knees.
We do want to stress the body to prepare it for the battlefield but we want to live to fight another day as well.
I'll say it again; The ultimate key to efficient training is in balancing stress and rest!
I heard a coach on "Super Human Radio" on the round table discussion with Rob Regish & Coach Wade Johnson saying that he likes To get his football players and weight lifters of various sorts to do very low impact, steady-state cardio between hard-core training days. He said that it helped with increasing blood flow for recovery among other things.

According to Butler University's Adrian Shepard, assistant director of recreation overseeing fitness. "Challenging yourself in fitness training is good. But overdoing training is counterproductive to realizing your fitness goals." -- Science Daily (Jan. 31, 2010) He gives 3 simple guide-lines on how to avoid over-training:

1. Gradually work your way into exercise, especially if you are a beginner, are recovering from an injury, or have been physically inactive for some time.

2. Ask staff of your fitness center to take you through equipment and facility orientations. You'll learn what equipment is available, how it works and what to use for desired results.

3. If your fitness facility offers them, schedule a fitness assessment to determine your current physical health status and fitness level. This will be your baseline measurement for evaluating future progress. The assessment also identifies any potential health and injury risks in training, and helps in developing your personalized exercise program and goals.

How to boxing, kickboxing right uppercut or #6 punch

The right uppercut is a power punch but it is very short so it is used primarily as a way to make space while your opponent has you against the ropes. You can use it to lift the head to set up for the #3 or left hook. [Remember that there are tonnes of different combinations and I am only giving you some very fundamental basics to get you started.] Using the left shoulder to push him off then turning and lifting the 6 can give you the opportunity to slip out to the right and shove him to the ropes as an example.
The main points for throwing a good right upper-cut are:
1. Push and turn off the back foot.
2. Translate that turn through the entire body until the left shoulder is pointed behind you, rotating the right shoulder on the axis of your spine, keeping your head to the right of your opponent.
3. Connect with the chin, try to lift his head from inside his guard.
4. Bring the hand back to the face.

Boxing for MMA left upper-cut (#5 punch)

The next inside punches we will look at are the upper-cut punches. The number 5 or the left upper-cut is used sometimes as a set up for the 4 punch. It is rare that a fighter has the power to knock their opponent out with the upper-cut. Mike Tyson would be an exception but we don't all have his genetics. Picture the opponent's chin protected by both his hands covered with boxing gloves; not easy to punch through that to hit the button but lift the head with the 5 and it's ripe for the 4.
The main points for throwing a good left upper-cut are:
1. Lift and turn off the front foot.
2. Translate that turn through the entire body until the right shoulder is pointed behind you, rotating the left shoulder on the axis of your spine, keeping your head to the left of your opponent.
3. Connect with the chin, try to lift his head from inside the guard.
4. Bring the hand back to the face.

New techniques in MMA

I apologize in advance for all the video in this post but I feel that it's the only way to convey my thoughts.
The sport of MMA is evolving at a dizzying pace with the strong foundation of wrestling, boxing, Judo and Muay Thai, now comes the addition of techniques from other martial arts. If you look at a fighter like Lyoto Machita coming from a Karate background and his unorthodox style you can imagine the possibilities.



In the beginning we saw Karate, Sumo or the Samoan bone breaking art "Lua" Gung Fu, most of these were quickly wiped out by the more competitive disciplines. What I mean by that is; the martial arts that converted into a sport like Wrestling, Kickboxing and Judo reap the benefits of years or centuries/millenniums of trial and error through thousands of actual combat situations. Martial arts like Karate or Gung Fu were designed, as I have said before, often for multiple opponents, based largely on theory and might not be best suited for one-on-one sport fighting. Machita's win streaks will belie that assumption but you can not deny that he has more skills than Karate! He does rock the traditional Japanese stance but those don't look like Karate punches and he aint using no Kata on the ground!

A nice example of this is this famous Capoera knockout by Marcus "Lelo" Aurelio of Axe Capoeira in Vancouver when he knocks out Keegan "The Marshall" Marshall at North American Challenge #24 in North Vancouver, BC on April 4th 2009. Marshall is a pretty straight forward kickboxer and in the video you see him watch the first kick fly by which made him flinch and drop his hands then the second kick lands on his chin flush like the cheeks on a red-head skating Lake Ontario!



Edson Barbosa spins around quite a bit for his kicks and backfists, so does Cung Le. Jose Aldo and Jon Jones love the flying knees and land them better than most folks can land a punch.






Conclusion:
What ever you do, make sure you get a solid foundation with the basics. There was an article written by Coach Mike Boyle called "There Is a Reason There Is a Box" on strengthcoach.com where he talks about the need for any coach or athlete to start with a good, solid, basic foundation before moving on to specialized movements. Now, granted, he was talking about weightlifting but the same applies to any type of training; before you explore "outside the box" training, you gotta master "the Box".
Most MMA athletes will have a schedule of rolling Jits, working take-downs and clinch with a wrestling coach and hitting focus mitts and Thai pads along with sparing standup. After the fundamentals are sound, the fighter has to learn the art of putting them all together. We know now how a fighter who is extensively trained in boxing can be thrown off his game by a wrestler shooting in and this is because the human brain can only consciously pay attention to a couple things at once. An MMA competitor has so many things to focus on at one time and it is difficult to train for this. Imagine your opponent brawling it out with you against the cage, then suddenly dropping level to catch a single and finally lifting off to a flying knee to your face. With so many ways to make a mistake and be beaten and yet, be able to pull off a spinning heal kick and actually land it is an amazing feat of mental focus!
Be first!
Coach Tobywan

How to boxing, kickboxing, MMA right hook #4 punch

The right hook is another very powerful punch, though, it is short enough to be considered an "inside" fighting technique. The torque on the punch is tremendous so it makes a for great knock-out but it has to be set up well. The same rules apply to the #4 as to the #2 punch except we don't extend the arm at the end, it is kept in the hook position throughout. Some of the ways it can be set up are; from the outside with a low jab and a step to the right or with an upper-cut from the inside. As I have said many times; any technique will work with the proper timing, distance and accuracy.

The main points for throwing a good right hook are:
1. Push and turn off the back foot until the leg is straight and the heel is pointing outward.
2. Translate that turn through the entire body until the right shoulder is pointed at your opponent's chin, the left shoulder replaces it to protect your own chin.
3. Connect with the chin, try to pull it across to his opposite shoulder.
4. Bring the hand back to the face.

Howto boxing, MMA Fighting Stance

The fighting stance that we use is a great crossover stance that will serve you well in MMA. We use the basic foot position used in wrestling, boxing and Muay Thai which are the essential parts of the standup game in MMA.
The trick with adapting it to Mixed Martial Arts is to be quick and versatile with the level changes and to train counter techniques for the transition between toe-to-toe and inside grappling as well as take downs and the defense of take downs. For example; a traditional Muay Thai stance is very upright and the advantage it lends is the speed at which a person can throw a kick from there or check and counter. The problem is that, with so much weight on the back foot, it is hard to keep good balance when the opponent is driving forward as a wrestler would. In this case, a fighter who is very confident with his ground game might be ok with this because he knows he can take a toll on his opponent with kicks and if he gets taken down he will survive. An example of this type of fighter would be Donald Cerrone. Most of the time he can get the better of his opponents with his fantastic stand-up and if someone does shoot in and take him to the floor Cerrone would make his life suck badly! Where this is not good for him is when dealing with a boxer like Nate Diaz.
The lower stance, the crisp boxing head movement and the angles tore down Donald's very upright stance and defense.
Another aspect that is coming in to play in the last few years is the fact that Dana and many other promoters are paying bonuses for fight of the night and the careers of the fighters depends so much on making exciting fights and the brawling stand-up battles are becoming more common. No matter what you can do on the ground, the stand-up game is in play!

How to do a Boxing left hook or #3 punch

The left hook is a power punch based more on torque than pure horse power. What I mean is, the power for this punch comes from the turn of the body, the shifting weight and the pull from the head moving from one side to the other. There is no arm power needed to knock someone out with a hook! Keeping your punches and combinations tight and clean, leaving no openings for your opponent to sneak in will give you more success and less damage. As for the fist itself, You have a couple options. There are some fighters who prefer to hold the fist palm down but I was taught to hold it "hammer style". The idea being that you are trying to catch the tip of his chin with your fist to get the leverage to crank the button. As with all punches, the more you throw your head into the motion, the more power you will generate and at the same time, you give him a moving target.

The basic elements of the punch are:

1. Plant the back foot in the fighting stance. (do not let it turn whatsoever)
2. Shift the weight towards the back foot.
3. Turn the front foot on it's ball.
4. let the turn move through the entire body.
5. At the last second, bring the hand away from the face and the arm in a "hook" shape or at a right angle, while the shoulder replaces it to cover your chin.
6. Bring it back to the face, returning to your stance.

How To Throw A Boxing / Kiockboxing Right Cross

We continue with the primer on the basic punches. Today we talk about the #2 punch or "Right Cross".
This punch is statistically the best knock out technique because of the leverage, reach and accuracy. You could probably get more raw torque with a hook or over hand but if your opponent's hands are up you will most likely hit an arm or glove wear as, the two punch lines straight and is designed to connect to the button.
The main points for throwing a good right hand are:

1. Push and turn off the back foot until the leg is straight and the heel is pointing outward.

2. Translate that turn through the entire body until the right shoulder is pointed at your opponent's chin, the left shoulder is completely turned the other way.

3. At the last second, the hand leaves the face, pushing straight from the cheek to connect to the opponent's chin. The right shoulder replaces the hand to protect the chin.

4. Get the hand back to the face as quick as possible.

How To Throw A Jab

The best way to describe how to throw a powerful jab is to compare it to whipping a towel or bull-whip. If you can imagine the soft piece of cotton slowly slinking along in no big hurry, then suddenly, at the last split second, the tiny end of the towel changes direction. The violence at the end of that motion is all too well known by many a football player and boarding school alumnist!
Trying to throw any punch by simply using arm power will not get you the results you want but it will tire you out very quickly. Imagine floating in space and swinging a punch; The force pushing you backwards would be as much as the punch itself because you have nothing to anchor your power to, nothing to push off. We, on the other hand have the whole earth to push off, so use it!
Any time I demonstrate a punch in the gym I start with the feet. You should either be pushing, turning or a combination of the two. At least one of your feet should always be planted in the fighting stance to give you something to anchor to. If you let both feet turn, you will not be balanced when you fire out more than one punch. I see so many big guys beating the crap out of the punching bags with no proper foot positioning. When you are fighting in the ring, it is be much different because there are so many dynamic forces at work; pushing, pulling getting hit, hitting him or missing a punch, take down attempts etc. Having one foot always strongly based on the ground is necessary as you can see.
Allt that being sai, here are the basic fundamentals of the jab:
1. Push off the back foot.
2. rock the head forward and up as though you were trying to head-but your opponent.
3. at the last second, the hand snaps , from the face strait out and slightly uppward.
4. The shoulder replaces the hand to protect the chin.
5. snap the hand back to the face.






The next posts I will show the rest of the punches as well as a great way to put them together with balance, speed and power.

"The Magic Pill" short story

With the smell of incense and stale gym bags, another brutal training session ends with the familiar gruff Asian voice saying "Ok, let's have a seat and talk about yack about." The hard, worn out, blood red industrial carpet not the most comfortable seat but still a welcome break from the grind as we sat cross-legged on the floor. The Richmond Kung Fu and Muay Thai school was packed with about 40 guys and girls with boxing gloves slung over the necks, shirts and shorts, soaked in sweat. Sifu Hon Lee, cousin of Bruce Lee and generally bad-ass old Chinese man, occasionally had these sessions where we would talk about "street smarts" - his version of self defense. He would often encourage people to chime in with their questions and that there were NO stupid questions. (Picture a rated "R" version of Mr. Miyagi.)
During the discussion, a student who was pretty new to the class asks a question that earned gasps and muffled snickers from the veteran students. I'll skip the question but here is the reply that all the older students knew was coming next:
"Ok, I tell you what, go down to London Drugs and walk all the way to the right side of the store. Go strait to the back and on the second shelf, right beside the vitamin C you will find a special vitamin call 'How to stop a guy try to choke me'." Of course, the whole class starts to laugh at the kids stupid question and Hon continues. "You see, my point is that you don't even know how to do a jab and you want me to tell you how to defend against somebody choking you?! It doesn't make sense!"
The moral of this tale is:
You must put in the time with the basics! Being tight with your basic BJJ positions and having strong take downs and take down defense are a must! The stuff I talk about being on autopilot, footwork, head movement and jab have to be mastered before moving on. I see fighters who have quite a few fights under their belts and are still shaky on these things. When you get to a higher level of fight competition, you better believe that they will have their shit together with these basics! So before you move on, thinking that you are the protege everyone has been waiting for, drill the crap out of your basics. Keep those hands up - you aint no Carl Froch or Roy Jones jr. yet and you aint that fast!
Stay tuned for some upcoming video on basics and drills to build skills!

Head Movement Part #1

In the last few years, as MMA continues to evolve, we see more and more use of boxing technique in the cage. The obvious would be the punches and combinations but we are also starting to see some good footwork and head movement. At Carlson Gracie MMA in Maple Ridge we study boxing and Muay Thai / kickboxing separately, put it together, then blend it with our wrestling to get the best positioning for take downs and defense. A large part of boxing is in the defense which includes head movement and foot work. These basics should be in what I call "Auto-pilot". The way we train our fighters is to have these things along with the jab working constantly to keep the opponent busy while we strategize and look for openings and weaknesses from the corner. I expect my fighters to be busy from the start with non-stop movement, so I can concentrate on calling out punches, kicks, combinations or shots. I don't want to be telling them to do these basic things. A fighter should never be standing in front of his or her opponent waiting, unless it is part of a strategy to suck them into a counter.
The three components of "Auto-pilot" are :

1. Footwork
2. Head movement
3. Jab

If a fighter does not have these 3 things absolutely mastered, they are not ready for the ring.


For this series of posts I will concentrate on head movement and it's key components and uses.

Head movement does 3 important things.
1. Defense - It makes you a moving target; Add head movement to your combination and any time you are not punching or kicking you should be moving your head or moving your body.
2. Adds power to your punch or kick by hiding your windup in your defense.
3. Adds momentum to your lateral movement.
4. Can be used as a set up or fake by making him flinch.
(We don't fake with punches, either throw em or don't!)


Check out Couture vs. Sylvia to see a great wrestler who learned how to employ the use of head movement to get past a larger opponents long reach.

New years workout

I'm doing a couple short blog posts on getting back into shape after the holidays. I say they will be short because there won't be much bullshitin' as you know, I like hearing myself talk but for today let's get right to the workout.
{Remember that you should always check with a medical professional before starting an exercise program. This workout is pretty hard and the people I am training have been doing this for a while so you might need to work your way up to this intensity.}


The next couple weeks we are trying to get back into the swing of things so we went a little easy on the workouts. The first day we did aerobics mixed with some plyometric intervals of one minute followed by a small circuit of weights. It went like this:

First we did a slow warm up and then 10 minutes of medium impact aerobics; ie. Jumping jacks and twists etc. Once well warmed up we did some plyometric interval sets, going from a high intensity sport-specific movement to a more plyometric movement. These you can mix up any way you like for your sport.

Do each set 3 times.

Set 1. Straight punches for 1 minute then hit the floor for wrestling hip heist 10 times.



Set 2. Punch, knee punch knee alternate sides for one minute then hit the floor for 10 clap pushups



Set 3. Left and right upper-cuts fast for one minute then hit the floor for sprawl to knee alternate sides.




Then we switched to full body weighted movements
1. Squat press - 20 reps



2. "Raise the dead" (stiff leg deadlift to a front row) - 20 reps



3. Curl to press - 20 reps




Then we did another round of aerobics with plyo intervals.




Try this out yourself this week and I'll shoot you some more later.


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The next 2 workouts will be based on Tabata intervals.
A Tabata interval consists of the maximum reps or intensity you can do for 20 seconds of work and 10 seconds rest. Do up to 7 of these interval sets for each exercise.