tallgeese

I think that is almost universally true.

4/17 Shoot day. Rifle and pistol. 3 mile run legs abs

Happy birthday, bro!

4/16 Drilled arm bar from guard hitting all the specific details. Moved into stacking the arm bar, then counter to the stack. 4, 2 min rounds of closed guard v. pass 45 min free roll

It could go either way. As a general rule, if he wants to do more work from his feet and likes to throw, get him into Judo. If he'd rather work from the ground and do submissions and such, then go for the BJJ. Of course, check out each class before signing up and get the general vibe of the place first. See where he'd fit better based on his personality and the personality of the classes. Good luck, let us know how it goes.

That was an amazing piece. Thanks for finding it and sharing. I've been a big fan of his since he hit the UFC. It's interesting that even Sonnen, one of the biggest mouth's in the league, refused to say anything but praise (that I saw anyway) about him during the run up to their fight.

BJJ should get easier the better you get, as I guess any art should, but if one's BJJ is relying on strength or attributes it's not really BJJ. I'm glad I have a striking background as well, but on the flip side of your observation, it's pretty darn hard to get a committed attacker to stop by striking them in the solar plex during active movement. The same can be said of about any target. Granted, there is the side that likes to have striking if I can't out wrestle a bad guy. It does go both ways. As to the Graice marketing, well, it is what it is. You can't argue with results however they elected to sell it. They beat a lot of people in Vale Tudo and the early UFC's that were single art individuals. I suppose the argument that they weren't stars of their arenas might be valid, but keep in mind- just in the early UFC era alone- you had guys like Pat Smith (well credentialed kickboxer), Keith Hackney (high ranked in Kenpo), and Ron Van Cleef (Go Ju) that were highly thought of in their INDIVIDUAL arts lose to grapplers. It doesn't really prove grappling is superior, but that grappling had long been overlooked by the elite in several fields. One does not see that happen much these days, it's a self correcting problem for professional fighters who want a well rounded game. At the end of the day, what's working for each individual fighter is great. They should keep doing that. But the reality that mma in it's current form reminded us of is that we can't take any range for granted. Cross training is a must. Further, it's showed us that we HAVE to find a way to pressure test these tactics against live attackers. Otherwise we have a purely theoretical basis for our belief that our skills will bring us thru a combative situation.

I agree. But I site the change as people finally getting over their egos and learning they do have weaknesses. So they train to fix the weaknesses and now know how to fight in different conditions. A really tough Rickson Black Belt was just destroyed on TUF. Why? Because he thought BJJ alone would win. That just can't happen anymore. It's an interesting side note you bring up here ps1. After watching that fight, and I agree he was totally destroyed, I don't think it was because he thought BJJ alone would carry him. It seemed to me that after a total lack of serious takedown efforts, it was more like he didn't expect to resort to it. It was either arrogance in other aspects of the game or a push, which I think we've seen in mma, to finish via strike to impress people who will buy pay per views. Maia seems to have suffered in a similar fashion. That said, I certainly agree that we're seeing now high level stuff in other aspects of the game that we didn't see initially, or even after a few years, of the modern advent of mma. This is an exciting thing to me. Martial arts should grow and adapt. It will be interesting to see the kinds of things we're talking about 10 years from now due to the evolutions taking place now.

4/15 Drilled grip control and grip fighting. 25 min free roll.

Solid post!! I apologize if I'm failing to make any solid points. I just hate it when some style of the MA is touted as solid and others weak because of ANY rule laced venue. Quite the contrary, I think you make a lot of good discussion points in your posts. I'm just presenting an alternate view point.

Right, rules have to exist to keep competitors safe. That said, may of the rules you list sensei8 either weren't in effect early in the UFC's or were never in effect for Pride, where stomping downed opponents was not only legal but, apparently by the frequency of it, encouraged. Despite these rules (or lack thereof) grappling arts and training methods that were less than traditional proved to be necessary to press competitive levels forward. As to rules favoring grapplers, I don't think this is the case anymore. The refs are now encouraged to get people up when there is a lull in action. This makes it harder for grapplers to "cook" strikers and wear them down. Not to mention it means that grapplers are constantly getting stood up and put back into their opponents potential strength range. I'm not saying that the tactics outside those rules are ineffective, just that they are not the great equalizer that they are often touted as. For instance in this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mFFsWF3FoLI you can see at about :51 seconds the cop on the bottom attempt to eye gouge the attacker on top and then fish hook him. Two often touted "there are no rules on the street" tactics. In both cases they are ineffective and defeated by the attacker simply turning his head. Again, I'll never say these tactics won't work, but that they are secondary to learning good positional grappling. Also, here are the thoughts of Draculino, a highly respected BJJ or illegal strikes, he makes some valid points: you'll notice during all of this his exceptional positional control that prevents much of the effectiveness of this particular "illegal" attack. So, I guess my point in summary is that- yes, mma makes certain techniques illegal for safety. However, this does not invalidate what we've learned as a result of mma competition. Yes, several karateka have made successful transitions to mma. Machida is the most often touted. It has obviously influenced the way he fights. He's done very well. But again, we look at what we've learned from the competition of mma. He's not tearing it up as a karateka alone. He's also a high level grappler who's trained with some serious black belts. And if you watch footage of him training, he's training like a prize fighter, not your average karate practitioner. This is one of those things that goes back to the attitude you often encounter with BJJers in regard to other arts. There is a real lack of time for anything theoretical in nature that can't be shown, proven to work, on the mat. Kata is about a theoretical as it gets, hence the lack of seriousness given in by a lot of BJJ guys. There is a lot more credence given to knockdown styles and such because you can see that what they are doing works. It's a perception and a mindset and it comes from the fact that there is nothing in BJJ that is theoretical. You can either do it on the mat or you can't. There is no maybe about the functionality of a tool. MMA has inherited this from it's ties to BJJ and Vale Tudo. Renzo Gracie has a great section in his book "Mastering Jiu Jitsu" that discusses this. It's well worth the read. His thesis is that people who train and rely on tools that are theoretical, even if those tactics are highly traumatizing to another person, are behind the 8 ball compared to the martial artist who rely on tactics that might not be AS damaging but CAN be practiced full speed and resistance. Now, progressive minded martial artist can work around this to a degree based on modern equipment. But we'll never entirely overcome this until we can all rip up realistic robot ukes. Part of it is psychological as well. Largely, humans aren't wired to kill and mutilate one another. It's actually harder to do this than one would think. Yes, we all talk a good game, but research shows that when push comes to shove, even in life threatening situations, it's hard for the average human to kill or maim another. Look at the non-firing rates of soldiers research done thru WW II to present. We, as a warrior community led largely in this area by the military, have figured out how to get around this. But it's still an issue. Especially for the civilian martial artist who's NOT training to tear apart a human being realistically. Again, I'm not over-bashing those tactics, just saying that there's a lot to the subject that gets over looked most of the time. Lastly, yes, there is ego on both sides. However, mma has shown us some great lessons on training, cross training, and mindset. We limit ourselves if we don't learn from it and adapt.

Hey, win lose or draw it sounds like it was a great experience. Heck, let's face it, the actual competing percentage of BJJers is probably pretty low, not to mention stepping onto a mat of that level is pretty high speed. Who cares about the outcome, just being part of it was pretty neat. Glad you came away with some things to work on. Nice job.

That stinks, probably literally. I've very rarely run into anyone in BJJ circles who does not wash their gi each time they use it. The couple I have run across usually end up sitting along side the mat during roll time. No one touches those guys.

Then we agree to disagree.

It's hard to classify as we, in my base art, use a lot of different methods of sparring to accomplish training goals. I also tend to spar less heavy, less often now that I'm getting older and would rather just roll on the mats. I'd classify us moderate to heavy contact, with the use of armor and such. An easy moderate without head gear. Leg kicks are almost always on unless we're focusing on hands only. Groin kicks are common with some of the guys if all players have the appropriate attire. The takedown and ground work may or may not be on depending on the night and striking while down again, may or may not be on depending on everyone's agreement and what the goal is. Being a part of a small organization (organization is a strong word, let's use association instead) we don't have a large codified governing body telling us what our official competitive outlet is.

Welcome to KF!

Good point. Spraying down stuff is often overlooked. Especially the inside of one's nylon gym bag. As to the gi thing....really, there are people who don't? Yuck.

4/14 3 mile run...outside!! Yeah, back outside...again. chest shoulders tris abs

It's a start. But look at the training methods used by modern mma fighters and then traditional practitioners of both arts. You'll see a difference both in training and mindset. This is not a cut on either art, or their practitioners. But it's a very real difference. That's all. This has, or can if the artist is open to it, drive a difference in the way martial artist train live.

And so many today think that MMA is a new concept. I think mma as we view it today is more that just putting two arts together. It's about integration of the aspects of each that flow into a single workable format directed towards a specific goal with anything from either art that doesn't help achieve that goal discarded. Sure, guys have been doing multiple arts for years. However; prior to the modern emergence of mma, you didn't see it very much or very well integrated. If you did, you'd have had a lot higher level of competition in early UFC's. To say that mma has been done for years, I feel, really downplays the evolution that it's driven over the past decade or so.

MP, I never need to see you training to do that....ever. 4/13 Training shoot. Positional shooting, out of cars, ect. Moving and engaging.

Sweet! Good luck and let us know how things go!

Congrats! Well earned!

4/12 75 min free roll. Worked a couple of new sweeps against higher level guys, drilled some inverted stuff and worked on taking back. A few rounds of no gi (an odd occurrence for me these days) in prep for a charity no-gi law enforcement tourney here in the Chicagoland area. I miss my grips.

I can totally appreciate that line of reasoning. It so often gets overlooked that we should take into account what we already do when looking at another art to study in. Seeing how the pieces fit and looking at an overall response pattern is high level martial thought in my mind.