SLC MMALearn mixed martial arts techniques

Seeing the MMA FutureFiled Under: Uncategorized

Part of me doesn’t want me to say it, but I just can’t hold it anymore. I can see the future.

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Tags: MMA, musings

Reverse OmoplataFiled Under: Uncategorized

After posting the million different variations of the omoplata, I wanted to give you some deeper instruction on the reverse omoplata, aka the inverted omoplata. Over at Aesopian’s blog, he mentions

As a beginner at the time it struck me, “How many ways can you think about a position? When is mount not just mount? When is guard not guard?” Those questions have become a kind of mind-clearing Zen koan. It opened me up to thinking about a lot of things in new ways and a lot of good has come from it.

What happens when I think of mount as “guard from the top?” I get omoplatas.

He then proceeds to walk you through a tutorial with 3rd degree blackbelt Eduardo de Lima.

This whole detailing of the omoplata - it isn’t just about the submission, it’s about the thought process.  I love the dynamic, nebulous and mind expanding nature of jujitsu. Most submission techniques are usuable in many positions and situations - the limiations are due to your static perception. Anyway, if you’re inclined, expand your mind with the revrese omoplata instruction here.

Tags: jujitsu, omoplata, submissions

Where to see UFC 91 in UtahFiled Under: Local

I know many people have whined, “Where do I go to see the UFC pay-per-view events in Utah?!”.  I know.       I cry with you. I don’t like the idea of shelling out $50 to watch it. Plus, I don’t even have cable. Where in the heck can I go?

I’ve been calling around and found where you can go to a sports bar/ regualr bar and watch the UFC 91 pay per view show tomorrow.  Remember, the following are VERIFIED - Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: pay per view, places, ufc 91

Cute, Fierce JujitsuFiled Under: Uncategorized

ABOVE: The bridge and roll side mount escape

Happy Friday! I’d like you to kick off the weekend (ie: start slacking immediately) and check out go check out Animals Performing Jujitsu Moves over at one of my other project sites.

Normally I’m not much of a “cute” person, but combine it with jujitsu and you’ve got me.

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Tags: jujitsu, tigers

Play Around To Become A Better FighterFiled Under: Instruction

Note: My remarks were sparked by some thoughts given by Paul R Scheele in his incredible book, “PhotoReading“. If you’re into accelerated learning or speed-reading, check it out ASAP.

Also Note: This lion cub is totally submitting the other with the rear naked choke (mata leo choke, ten finger variation).  I’m totally going to make “grrrrrrr” noises next time I get this move.

Also Also Note: Fedor choked out Sylvia in the Affliction Banned event with this choke. You know, FYI.

Summary

Strict practice has it’s merit and place. Try incorporating playfulness to sparring or drills and being creative with your training methods. Keep your ego subdued - compete against opponents, train with friends, and have fun with a lifetime of martial arts.

The Human Animal

Man, as a species, is an unusual animal. We are the only animal that is not born with the innate knowledge of how to survive. When it comes to fighting, we may have the natural emotion and cause to fight, but we don’t intuitively know how to do it. Children have the inborn inclination to wrestle, but do so without technique.

This type of play-fighting is done by most hunting animals (lions, tigers, etc), and is an essential part of activating their abilities to stalk, strike, and kill. For humans it’s no different - playing is a big part of how we acquire skills.

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Tags: Philosophy, training

Better Than CardioFiled Under: Instruction

For a long time now, I’ve harbored the belief that spending an hour on the treadmill is retarded. For MMA’ers, I think there are better things to do with your time. Personally, I love to hate fast as possible, puke-your-guts-out, sprinting.

It’s not that this notion is new, or without it’s detractors and misinformed proponents. An article that bring up the basic idea was put up recently at Men’s Journal, titled Cardio is Bunk. Essentially,

As opposed to aerobics, this type of exercise [anaerobic exercise] involves maximum-effort training, such as sprinting and lifting weights, in which the intensity of the exercise exceeds the body’s ability to supply oxygen to muscles. “Shorter, high-intensity workouts burn off glucose much faster than long runs, so you start burning fat at a much higher rate, your heart beats so hard that it becomes stronger, and you’re pushing yourself to such extremes that anything else you do feels easier.”

.. [I]n terms of sports performance, endurance training is no longer seen as the key to being a better athlete.

Now, I don’t agree with everything said there, but it’s a decent introduction to the idea.

For fighters, developing a bigger gas tank (IE having more fight endurance) is crucial. If you are considering fighting competitively, consider this: How long will you be fighting - total rounds, duration, and rest periods. Are your current workouts modeling the body workload and energy expenditure of a real fight?

If you’d like to ponder over endurance a bit more, I’d suggest reading a few articles at Gym Jones including Endurance V.2 Using Short, High Intensity Circuits and Intervals to Sharpen an Endurance Base and Strength for Endurance How Increasing Strength also Improves Endurance.

Interestingly enought, at the University of Utah, a friend of mine is beginning a study involving hypoxic training, ATP production and lactic acid thresholds. Essentially, try doing a round of shadow boxing/heavy bag hitting breathing through a snorkel and see how that effects you. Hopefully, this study will further develop a body of research to help fighters train better.

Tags: conditioning, mma conditioning, workouts

Exercises To Develop Stronger Clinch ControlFiled Under: Instruction

Between stand-up and ground fighting, there is clinching.  Maybe you’re a judoka looking to improve your throws, or an MMA’er trying to beat strong wrestlers - maybe you just want to be able to disable relatives with a fierce bear hug. These exercises will improve your ability to gain, control, and break clinch positions.

Basically Speaking

Clinch control is about controlling and manipulating balance. Without it, your strikes lose power, throw attempts fail, and your opponent can take you down to the mat with ease. If I had to give a highbrow explanation, I’d say that balanced clinching comes from having a dynamically strong, rooted stances that allow for you to actively manipulate your opponent’s balance. As such, clinch control primarily relates to three strengths: leg power, core stability/sensitivity, and griping/pulling. Perhaps a judo master could expound more - I’ll ask Vladimir Putin about it.

But enough about that, lets get to exercises that develop muscular strength and skill to control the clinching positions.

Tire Flipping

Old-school and awesome. If you’ve never done them, make sure you read about the saftey pointers and proper technique from the guys over at EliteFTS here. They’re not deadlifts, and doing them like a deadlift can injure you. Don’t give up on deads, I think they’re great - just different.

The transfer of power from your legs helps you sprawl with strength, as well as push through a sprawl put on you, among other things.

Car Pushing

Again, old-school. This will help you get rooted and keep a good stance while working for clinches like “over/under control” (you have one under-hook and over-hook at the same time). Also, when you compete it is important to be able to drive your opponent back while clinched up. Once their back is on the ropes/cage, you can use that lack of mobility to your advantage.

If  you have the access, train some drills with football linemen - the ones where they slam into each other and push right after the hike of the ball.

Crush Curls

I learned about this one over at the DragonDoor forums, and think this is a mighty nice exercise.  Normally, I hate bicep curls, partially due to the immature fascination of body builders with the biceps and partially because bicep curls don’t translate really well to most sports and performance. These are a tad different.

They’re great to produce full body tension, which you need to keep your root and stance while struggling in clinches. Think about it - if you have great chest power from bench pressing, but while standing you can’t back up that strength with a rooted core body, you’ll just get pushed over to your back.

This curl can be done with medicine balls, kettlebells, or rocks. Anyway, Chris Smith describes the exact process of doing them in an article on EzineArticles.com,

To perform the kettlebell crush curl, you simply grasp the kettlebell on each side with a palms-facing grip. Squeeze as hard as you can, like you would with a box of valuables while moving. This will serve to keep the kettlebell from falling to the ground. I perform the kettlebell crush curl with the handle on top, this seems to be easier for me.

Starting at the bottom position, your elbows will be fully extended and the kettlebell should be in front of the thigh area. Keep your back straight throughout this exercise. While squeezing the kettlebell, slowly curl the kettlebell up. Pause at the top and lower the kettlebell in a controlled manner, all the while “crushing” the kettlebell.

Also, if you have shoulder or elbow problems, this curl is friendly to your joints.

Pull Ups

Pull ups are challenging - they engage a lot of muscles to do them right. As a general rule, MMA training exercises should be compound, multi-joint movements that incorporate many muscle groups and link them cohesively together, mimicking some specific movement from the sport ( isolation training is a no no!). You want to be able to use your body as a whole, integrated unit instead of a collection of parts.

Anyway… you can do these with either grip - as shown above or by gripping the bar palms facing you. The key to good pull ups is to keep stabilized and don’t cheat kinetically.  Cheating is when you swing your knees to help you pull on the way up, or other such shenanigans.

If you can’t muster one full pull up yet, don’t fret. Over at The Art of Manliness blog, there’s a article on how to do more than one stinking pull up.  If you look at the picture there, you’ll notice a fun variation that I give two thumbs up.

Beating Tires

Primarily, this exercise is used to gain rotational core strength. That core strength will help you pull opponents off balance and keep yourself rooted, not to mention it’ll help punching power.  Fedor Emelianenko and his team, the Red Devils, beats the crap out of tires with sledgehammers - its a big part of their training. Enough said.

Suitcase Lift

The suitcase lift is like a deadlift, but you are only picking weight on one side of your body. It strengthens the core. Just like the photo, squat down like you’re sitting in a chair and drive with your hips on the the way up. Keep your shoulder girdle parallel to the floor - you should stand erect like you don’t have any weight in your hand. The opposite side obliques will be hit hard! Additionally, it can increase your grip strength.

Sand Bags

Oooo…. this is just the tip of the iceberg. You can shoulder carry and practice body slams, put it on the ground and do over head throws (like a back suplex), or just bear hug squeeze for all you’re worth. Front squats, turkish get ups, it doesn’t end. Also, you can use medicine balls.

One I enjoy is the partner drill where you are in sit up position (at the top), back to back, and pass off the medicine ball to the side to your partner. If you’ve got Pavel Tsatsouline’s book, Bullet Proof Abs, his combat twist is awesome too.

For further reading, I’d sugguest Pavel’s Naked Warrior and Randy Coutures Wrestling for Fighting.

Tags: clinch, conditioning

Shameless PetitionFiled Under: Uncategorized

First of all, thank you for reading the blog. It warms my heart when I go to class and a student busts out a move they learned here. I’ve noticed the internet traffic steadily rise, as well. Thank you, you are already awesome in my book.

Second, if you’ve liked any of the posts here at SLCMMA, share them! The easiest way I how is to click on a post title and see the new “Share and Enjoy” link at the bottom, and click on your favorite chosen social network - Digg, FaceBook, StumbleUpon, or Del.icio.us. It would help me out. If you’d like to know about a certain topic, let me know.

Again, thanks for your awesomeness.

Vladimir Putin Teaches JudoFiled Under: Uncategorized

I’m not completely sure what to think about Vladimir Putin, the former president and current prime minister of Russia. True, he totally invaded Georgia, which is bad. But then, he is a 6th Dan in Judo, which is totally bad ass. Apparently, his Harai Goshi - sweeping hip throw- is to be feared.

Anyway, he recently put out a DVD called “Let’s Learn Judo With Vladimir Putin”.

According to National Review, he also fishes shirtless in Siberia, has a pet tiger cub, and is dating a twenty something rhythmic gymnast. I’ve also got this vague notion that he looks like UFC fighter Matt Serra.

Tags: judo

Novemember Aikido SeminarFiled Under: Local, Seminars

2nd Dan instructor Logan Heinrichs demonstrating a throw; Logan will be at both days of training

- picture from www.wagokan.com -

Sensei Masanobu Hayata (my sensei’s sensei) is flying in from Osaka Japan to teach a few classes this weekend. He will be teaching mostly stand-up techniques, attack angles, wristlocks, etc.  It will be awesome training. Hayata Sensei has a very open teaching style, and is very good a what he does. All skill levels are invited, provided they show appropiate respect.

It is sugguested you bring a $25 dollar per session donation for Hayata Sensei, as he pays his own way to fly over from Japan to come here.

For Friday the 7th:

7:30-8:30 PM

Steiner Aquatic Center,

645 South Guardsman Way

Salt Lake City , UT  84108

Training will be in one of the upstairs classrooms (TBA - Just ask lady at the desk what room the aikido seminar is in, she’ll tell you)

For Saturday the 8th:

1:00-5:00 PM

Park City Racquet Club

1200 Little Kate Road

Park City Utah, 84060

Tags: aikido, Seminars