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.

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.

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.

How to control fear and axiety leading up to a fight.

One of the most important pieces of the training puzzle and one that is most overlooked by fighters, is the so called "mental" aspect. You know: "one part physical, three parts mental" - bla-bla. What does any of that crap mean? Try to visualize your next fight, or for that matter, your last fight; picture all the hours of training technique, strength conditioning and sparring as well as dieting your butt off!

See yourself warming up in the dressing room then walking down the isle towards the ring or cage suddenly feelings of self-doubt and fear as you look at the size of the crowd and the dude you have to fight and realize that they are all here to watch you either do your thing or get yer ass kicked! We didn't think about this very much when we were training did we? I have seen it all, from fighters with supreme confidence to outright paralyzing terror. Sometimes these feelings start much earlier in the training building to a crescendo on the night of the fight.

Depending on how green you are as a fighter but also affected by the amount of time since your last fight your level of fear is variable. It is almost not fair when you have had a one year hiatus between fights and you are thrown into the ring with a guy who has been fighting regularly, you feel like a rooky all over again. They call this "ring rust" but it feels more like "shit my pants".

I have been in these situations and spent a great deal of time trying to understand the mechanisms behind the sensations and trepidations and also, how to deal with them, possibly master them.

"Why do some people seem to have no fear while most of us have a hard time getting one foot in the water? What can I do to get past this issue? Does it ever get any better?"

We have to be honest with ourselves, first of all, and admit that we are not all Thor, god of thunder and rock-n-roll! The guy standing across from you probably had his own diaper to change on the way to the cage!
I spent some time working with a mental coach and I also studied NLP ( neuro-linguistic programming) as well as trance induction and hypnotherapy techniques. I have used many forms of meditation from different martial arts and Yoga etc. I am going to lay out my secrets and tips in the next series. I believe in coming up with tools, be they drills to build skills or simple techniques to create new constructive habits.

In The next few weeks I will be posting some of the techniques that I use myself or that I encourage my fighters to use for the purpose of gaining control of fear and anxiety as well as focusing the mind on the task at hand (breaking some dude's face).

Please send me your feed-back and let me know if this is useful to you. I understand that some of you may find all this too esoteric and fluffy but give it a shot, you might be thanking me next time you roll up to the battle front!


Tool #1. Mental relaxation:
This technique has to be practiced on a regular basis. The more you use these methods, the more you reinforce the structures in your brain and create strong pathways. I break the technique into 2 separate parts a) for relaxation and b) for focus.
The technique for achieving mental relaxation is basically the same as the technique for learning focus. We can never have too much focus, if anything, we are a very scattered species!
Think of something that you do very well, a hobby or something job-related that you are very good at. I will give you an example;
I have been a tradesman drywall, paint carpentry for many years and I am quite good at all of these things. I think that anyone could possibly be good at painting, especially the rolling part!

a)I like to picture an enormous black wall and a huge pan full of white paint. I proceed to mentally roll the entire wall over with paint and then roll again until the wall is stark white in my mind.

b) Then I take a huge paint brush and a can of red paint and start painting the numbers from 1 to 10 in massive violent strokes. Keep going from 1 to 10 for as long as you wish but the longer the better. If you feel a slip in your focus take it back to step a) and start over as often as you want.

Try these 2 techniques out for a week and see how your focus and concentration improve and how you feel more mentally relaxed. Keep following for the next few weeks for the next tools I will be posting regularly.

Wrestling 101 - Last Weekend

This is going to be a short blog post this week, but I would like to go over some of the things from last week end. I'll go over the tournament as well as touch upon the UFC and what transpired. Next week will be more technique on wrestling and mma but for now enjoy.

First I would like to congratulate everyone who competed at the tournament. Morgan led the way with a gold and silver in bjj and freestyle grappling respectively, while Brett brought home a bronze medal. Our only female competitor Elyssa had a very strong outing in the striking, unfortunately the division was different then she thought it would be and therefore she didn't get to truly show of her power. Rounding out the list of competitors from Raptors was Oliver, Bryce and Reed who all had an amazing showing at the tournament. Be sure to check some pictures from the tournament on facebook.

Now before we get into the obvious fight from UFC 104 lets talk about some of the other fights. For me the best fight of the night was the Cain Velasquez fight. The best part his fight wasn't his wrestling or the TKO, it was his cardio and willingness to outwork his opponent. You can't always be bigger, stronger or more technical than your opponent but you can be in shape and have good cardio. This trait is most common in the lighter divisions (Lightweight, feather/Bantamweight) but to see it in a heavyweight is truly something to appreciate. Guys like Diego Sanchez, BJ Penn, and Clay Guida have made careers out of overwhelming their opponents and for Cain to bring that work ethic to the big boys will make for some interesting matchups. The other fight/technique I need to acknowledge is from Gleison Tibau. The standing back mount to flying armbar transition was a thing of beauty (watch for it at 2:15 of the 2nd round). Also his takedowns weren't that bad either.

Now for Lyoto "The Dragon" Machida vs. Mauricio "Shogun" Rua. Personally I thought Shogun won that fight, he was aggresive, controling and more effective than Machida. Unfortunately the judges didn't see it the same way I (and most) did. For anybody interested in the numbers behind that fight I recommend checking out Fightmetric.com.

Now as far as gameplan goes Shougun's was damn near perfect. Machida likes to wait and counter by moving straight back and then lunging in with a counter puch. What Shogun did really well was not to give Machida a chance to lunge in with a counter, He chased Machida right up against the cage with a high guard incase machide punched. Once Machida hit the cage He was no longer in the right posture to counter back and was instead forced to cicle laterally of the cage. Shogun would then capitalize when Machida could no longer move backwards by kicking him hard to the legs and body. After awhile Machida was visibly bothered by this, having to repeadetly switch stances and being slowed considerably as Shogun landed more and more kicks. The key to this strategy though was a combination of a really good, high guard from Shogun (e.i. hands up) and working the body and legs. Too many fighters head hunt for the knockout instead of attacking the body and legs. If you hurt their body and legs you take away their foundation, and without a good foundation your opponent can't do good technique, inturn making it easier to beat them the longer it goes.

The rematch will be an interesting fight because Machida is a smart fighter and won't be quick to make the same mistake twice, and with him fixing pontentially his only weakness in his otherwise near perfect style will Shogun beable to find a new hole or will he try the same strategy. I personally have a hard time seeing Shogun beating Machida the second time but I didn't expect him do what he did either so we can't count him out. Now that I've gone on a little longer than I wanted to try and remeber to always take something away from a UFC event and always try and learn more. Until next time, train hard.

Wrestling 101 - Cutting Wieght

A lot of people are concerned about there weight, but probably none more so than fighters. As fighters we are under a lot of pressure to be bigger, stronger, and faster than our opponents. We cut weight to be at the top of the weight class. The more you cut the bigger and stronger you will be, theoretically. If done wrong though, all that size and strength won't help you if you're not at 100% on the day of competition. We are going to look at some ways to make the cut easier as well as how to stay at 100% for fight day.

Let me first make something really clear, cutting weight is not the same as losing weight. You are simply removing the water from you're system to help drop a couple of pounds. As soon as you reingest water you put the weight right back on. As I cover the weight cutting process remember that these are the tips that work for me, some people drop the water easy while others have a hard time with it.

The water cutting process generally starts a week out from when you have to weigh in. During that time I will increase my water intake to about 4 - 6 litres of water a day, more if I'm working out hard. Now what this does is trick my body. Most people are dehydrated in their day to day lives. Their bodies retain water out of fear that more water isn't coming for a while. By drinking extra water, or what I like to call super hydrating, our body is forced to get rid of the water instead of retaining it to make room for the more that is coming. Another thing you need to do is cut out salt as it makes you retain water, therefore making it harder to lose it. We keep this up for the whole week.

The night before weigh in I take my last drink of water as well as my last meal. The day of the weigh in is when I start the hard work. Basically you need to sweat. Simple. By super hydrating the week leading up to our bodies will give up the water easy, but we don't replace it. Our bodies won't have enough time to readjust to retaining water therefore it will be easier to dehydrate ourselves and drop more weight. Some people like to give themselves two days to cut weight if they have a lot to lose. Say you had to drop 12 pounds to make your weight class, you could cut 7 pounds the first day and drink back 1 pound of water throughout the day and the next day you drop 6 more, effectively dropping 12 pounds. If you do this make sure to eat dry foods throughout the first day, no fruits, vegetables or anything else with lots of water in it. For any serious weight cutting I recommend picking up a sauna suit.

Now that the weight is dropped many people think they are done, but the most important part to being 100% is how you replenish. Make sure you gradually introduce the water back to your system. Pedialyte is a really good drink to replenish with as it has electrolytes and other stuff you lost during the sweating period. If you drink to quick you will cramp up and feel really bad. By this point you're probably thinking with your stomach instead of your head, but we have to make sure we eat properly at this point. That means go back to your routine leading up to this weigh in. Don't go get greasy nachos right after weigh in as this will be a shock to your system and not make you feel very good. The other really important thing is a good nights rest as you body needs to recover.

Now remember that this is just to cut water weight. To control your weight you need to eat properly. As far how much you should cut, that all depends on you. If you've never cut weight before then I recommend a practice cut to learn what is feasible for you. Now as the tournament is this weekend here is a highlight of Genki Sudo, one of the best/most entertaining grapplers and MMA fighters ever.

Wrestling 101 - Mentally Tough

Last week in Wrestling 101 we talked about the most basic of wrestling and grappling fundamentals, the body follows the head. We looked at a double leg takedown to illustrate our point and this week we're going to build upon that by going over some of the most basic takedown defense, a sprawl.

If the body follows the head and I want to stop my opponent from picking me up then what do I have to do? Push his head down! This should be your highest priority when defending a takedown. Without good posture, i.e. head looking up, then your opponent will have a real hard time lifting you off the ground. Any one who has ever done any squats or deadlifts knows that looking down as you lift results in not being able to lift the weight and potential injury. Why would this principle change just because the weight is changing from a bar to a human being. Now just pushing the head down is not enough, we have to keep it down by kicking our legs back and dropping the weigh of our hips on to the back of his neck and shoulders. This action of a good, heavy sprawl can be very disheartening to your opponent and mentally shut them down in a match. Which brings us to our next point, attitude.

A good offense is the best defense. It's a cliche, but it's a cliche for a reason. To win you have to want it. That doesn't mean trying not to lose but actually going out there attacking trying to win. Vince Lombardi, one of the best coaches of not only football but of any sports put it this way:

"I think winning is the result if mental toughness. I think mental toughness is many things, and it is very difficult to explain what it is. First, I think mental toughness is humility; I think that it takes humility to realize that greatness is really simplicity. Mental toughness is made up too of the spartan qualities of sacrifice and self-denial. Mental toughness is loyalty. You cannot win consistently without it, and as you win each man grows because of it"

Dan Gable used these same principles to not only be one of the best wrestlers in the world but coach one of the best teams ever to compete. To be sucsessfull we need confidence. Confidence in our technique. Confidence in that we get out what we put in. Confidence that the people around us, coaches, teammates, all have our best interests at heart. Without this confidence and mental toughness you'll always be trying not to lose instead of going out there and winning. Here is a clip of Alexander Karelin, one of the most sucsessfull athletes ever

To win you need to be confident. To be confident you need to feel prepared. To feel prepared you need to put the time and energy in. You need to train how you wish to compete, with the same intesity, the same drive, and the same will. To be the best doesn't make you great, to be great you need to be ready to give up everything. You need to be mentally tough.

Wrestling 101 - The Golden Rule

This is Kurt and I'm going to be writing a column about wrestling as well as any other anecdotal, opinionated and otherwise relevant things that pop into my head. Without any more babbling I present Wrestling 101.

Wrestling is one of the oldest martial arts there is, with reference to it as far back as the 12th and 13th century bc. Greco-Roman wrestling was a part of the first modern day Olympics back in 1896 with freestyle wrestling following in 1904. In MMA, wrestlers are know for their ability to control fights as well as their conditioning and their unparalleled work ethic.

If we break wrestling down to its core elements we find that it's about your opponents disrupting your opponents balance while maintaining your own. Balance is determined by two things, stance and posture. We need to think of our stance and posture as our foundation, without a good foundation no amount of moves is going to make you good. With that in mind we are going to look at the most important thing to remember about wrestling, the Golden Rule:

THE BODY FOLLOWS THE HEAD!!

This is the most important thing to remember about wrestling as 90% of our technique is based off of this principle. We are going to look at a double leg take down to illustrate my point. Now in a double leg we first change levels then drive into our opponent, looking where we want to go. It's important that we never look down on our take downs as we compromise our posture as well as increasing our chance of being stuffed or submitted. We are going to look at a clip from 2 time Olympian Barry Davis on how to do a double leg.




Wow, thanks Barry, I couldn't have said it better myself. Now that's a lot of information, especially for someone just starting out with wrestling, but it's important to note the things we've been talking about. Notice the good posture as well as his head position, those are the most important things for beginners to focus on. The other thing he stressed that we haven't touched on yet is the penetrating step. It's important that we step deep with our inside leg (the one that is between our opponents leg) so that we can get right underneath their center of gravity and make the lift easy. That also helps us knock our opponent off balance which brings me back to the start of the article, wrestling is all about disrupting our opponents BALANCE.

Some people think of wrestlers as bullies or even brutish but if I can knock my opponent out of their stance with that first deep step and contact, then they're already one step behind. They are thinking of defending and recovering rather than attacking like they should be. You will often hear wrestlers and coaches refer to this as imposing your will or setting the tone, and that's how you want to start a match. This sport, as well as most other sports, are 80% mental and if I can make my opponent believe that there is no way he can beat me, by setting the tone early, then my life will be easy.

Now we've gone over a lot in this article but it is important to remember that we can't build good technique without a solid foundation. Next week we will be going over some more technique and principles with a single leg and a sprawl, as well as discussing proper work ethic in the gym. Until next time, remember the Golden Rule:

THE BODY FOLLOWS THE HEAD!!

Boxing / Kickbxing tip #3

Build a strong foundation, build a strong house!

At Raptor we drill the shit out of footwork and it pays off in abundance with the way that we fight. Think about it this way, if you are always one or more steps ahead of your opponent he/she will be too busy looking for you to implement strategy. The first drills we work with new students are ladder-type drills that are as exciting as licking tissue paper but, with good footwork built in to your combination you can establish your dominance in the ring right from the start of the fight.
Conversely, if your footwork is lacking, you will never get good distance on your opponent, which translates to not being able to hit him and not having proper position for your own defense.
We do what is called "lateral movements" which are made up of three components or elements that I insist are to be mastered before anyone even attempts to do any sparring, let alone fighting. The three elements are:

1. The footwork - forward, back, left, right.
2. head movement (rocking motion) - the rule and rhyme is "rock the way you walk".
3. The Jab - jab lands when the front foot lands.

The way I explain it to my students is that these three elements need to be on auto-pilot while you are in the ring, the coach should never have to yell at you to keep your hands up or move your feet or head.

We will be putting up some great videos soon that will show these drills and techniques in detail.
The first level of kickboxing (Private) at Raptor will give you a fantastic foundation weather you are a Boxer, kickboxer or M.M.A. fighter and we will try to cover all of these in the video series so keep following!

Coach Toby

90% Mental?......

What does it mean when your coach would say "Winning is %90 mental!" while he was talking about football or soccer or hockey? What the hell does my brain have to do with it, I'me gonna smash people and hit things? Well, I will tell you what my experience has shown me.
Imagine your first fight, you are walking up to the ring or cage and all around you are screaming people, card girls, tough guys, cameras etc. Now you step up onto the floor of the ring and you know that this is it, the time to put up or shut up. Like diving off a diving board, there is no turning back. Now, you look across at the guy you are here to fight and you see that he is big, mean looking and covered in ink! Between the crowd and the violence that is about to happen, your adrenaline is threatening to push your heart through your spine and cause you to vomit on the reff. The bell is sounded and suddenly your feet won't respond, your hands feel like coleslaw, all the training you have been doing is out the window. MAYBE you should have been doing some mental prep!?!?
I think that the mental aspects are more important in the fighting sports than any other. After all, you are all alone up there in front of many people with another trained fighter ready to take your head off!
I spent about a year with a mental coach and I would recommend it to anyone. Areadne Sawyer of Peak Performance Coaching ( http://www.ariadnescoaching.com/index.html ) helped me so much and gave me an entire toolbox of skills to learn new and better mental habits.
If you want to see a good example of a fighter who is very well prepared emotionally and mentally for the sport, look up Chris Horodeki on youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQt0IgXn67A

By for now,
Coach Toby

Boxing / Kickboxing Tip #1

Hi, this will be the first tip in this series and there will be many more to come. I hope these are informative and help with your training.
One of the most important things that I or any other martial arts teacher can impart on students of all levels is, to KEEP YOUR HANDS UP!
Most fighters and fans have heard of the "Button", which is the area of the jaw that, when hit, seems to shut the fighters lights out. While may not be an actual button, it seems to be just as effective for the purpose of finishing a fight early. We see fighters such as Liddel and Wanderlei, two of the toughest s.o.b.s to enter the Octagon, drop that hand and the opponent capitalize with accuracy and timing and "BOOM OUT GO THE LIGHTS!. You hear folks talk about a "glass jaw" but in reality, anyone who gets hit with the correct leverage and the power that any trained fighter would posess is suseptible to this fate. In a self defense situation the same rule goes - we must always protect the pumpkin! I always say to my students that there are 2 ways that I never want them to lose a fight; 1. Never gas out for lack of training and 2. KEEP YOU HANDS UP!
And remember;
Stay loose, like Drunkin' Man Kung-Fu baby!
Coach Toby