Show me the Money
Over the years I have heard a lot of fighters/trainers talk about sponsorship and prize money and how they deserve it.
In any sport 5% of the people earn 95% of the money, because they deserve it and have earned it. To put it in simple terms, for someone to sponsor a fighter some gloves they will have to sell 30 pairs to make their money back. If the fighter is not popular then why would anyone want to wear the gear that they use? Its not a good investment for any business to sponsor an unpopular fighter. If you are not recognized walking down the street by the general public then you are not a good athlete to sponsor.
One of New Zealand’s top wrestlers was talking to a large clothing manufacturer trying to get sponsorship for some of New Zealand’s best wrestlers. I always thought that this was a losing battle as wrestling is such a small sport in New Zealand. It is such a small sport that you could ask anyone in the street to name any wrestler in the world and it would be very hard to find someone that could actually name an international wrestler let alone a New Zealand wrestler. As no one knows anyone in the sport the gear is not going to be visible so why would they sponsor the team?
The better option that I have seen work a number of times is for the fighter and the company, be it a clothing or gear company, to work together with a little give and take from both sides. The fighter can get the gear at a cheaper rate and then that is the gear that they stick with and stay away from other brands. This can work well for trainers as they can get all the people at their club to get the gear through them, then everyone at their gym will be wearing the gear provided at a cheaper rate. This is great as the members get the gear at a cheaper rate, and the business gets their gear out there.
In short, until you are known by the general public then you will have to work with people rather than just get gear for free. Build a relationship with a business and keep with them, as it will be worth it in the long run.
Gareth Lewis
Head MMA Instructor
Demons are Real
Every fighter that I have trained with has demons, and they come in many different forms, but they all give the fighter the reason to get in the ring and prove themselves.
In the documentary Facing Ail, Henry Cooper says that no good fighters ever come from money. If you take a look through boxing and MMA history this is rather accurate. In boxing the best boxers are usually the immigrants (in America) – in the last generation it was the English, Irish and other Europeans now you are looking the Mexicans and South Americans. In general the immigrants had to make a life for themselves, and build up from the ground level.
One of the best examples of this is in MMA is the legendary Fedor. He grew up in Russia in a poor family and when he fights his mind set is that if he lost then him and his family would go back to being poor. That would be one of the reasons that he went 32 fights without a loss.
However being poor can’t be the main driver for being a good fighter, as there are plenty of poor people that are not good fighters and plenty of people with money who are good fighters. In my experience people who get a lot of knockouts when fighting are the fighters with the biggest demons. It is like they are fighting against something else. They also seem to have more nerves before a fight than others. Most fighters will not admit to this but all fighters are trying to prove something to themselves, in fact competitive people are all trying to prove something. Usually they are trying to prove that they are better than the next person, otherwise why compete, or that, with fighters, that they are tough enough to do it.
The key to the best fighters is that use their demons to fuel them in competition, they then believe that they are willing to go further than and deeper than their opponent. For me I believed that trained harder and more often than my opponents, this gave me the confidence that when the fight went in to the deep water that I would handle it better. What a fighter believes becomes the truth for them.
In short, if you want to get in the ring or the cage then chances are you have demons, so embrace them and use them to make you perform better. If you try to sweep them under the carpet then you are not going to go in at full strength and you will give your opponent an advantage. As Rocky says “turn you fear in to fire” – it will either burn you up or burn up your opponent depending on how you use it.
Gareth Lewis
Head MMA Instructor
But I Might Fail
This year I want to get pinned in wrestling and tapped out in BJJ. For those of you who don’t know me I hate to lose so for me to say this is a big step.
Think about the best matches you have ever had in your life, be it a fight sport or a team sport or any other and I can guarantee you that it will be one of two types of games that come to mind. One where you had the perfect day and everything just fell in to place, the other would be the battle where you and the other person were evenly matched.
If you put it in terms of kick boxing, assuming that you have some skill, then if you sparred against a guy that has had three months experience then you would expect to be able to handle them with no problems in fact you would frustrated if you got caught with a good shot. On the flipside of that would be sparring with Ray Sefo, K1 Legend from NZ - you would be happy to get through sparring with your nose still in the same place and condition as it was before sparring. Out of these two sessions which one would you expect to learn more from, even if you get your arse kicked in one?
With BJJ, if you ever get a chance to roll with a Black Belt, take it - you may get tapped, and you may not get one good position the entire time. You will roll at the best level that you can and you will find out if there are any holes in your game. Compare that to rolling with a new person where you could beat them with one arm and your eyes closed.
Obviously this is the same for MMA - think of all the people that you have sparred. who do you remember and why? Chances are they are either people that are famous (of course), people who pissed you off, and the people who were just above your level and you had to work for everything and any success that you get is well deserved. In this situation something that you take for granted, a single leg down for example, all of a sudden becomes very difficult and if you get one all of a sudden a single leg becomes a big deal.
In competition this is the same. I was talking to a guy about this very thing. He was competing in BJJ and in a semi final he was up against a guy that was a higher rank and had quite the reputation on the mat for being ruthless and had never beaten him on the mat before. Going in to the match he wondered if this would be any different. It turned out that he won via submission, people watching loved this result as no one expected it. Then in the final he was up against a guy that he knew he could beat, which he did do rather easily. Now when he replays this comp in his head what match do you think he remembers the most fondly?
I believe that you would value a bronze medal that you had to fight tooth and nail for over a gold medal that you won with relative ease. Which takes me back to the start - you will get more out of competing against people who can beat you compared to an easy win. Yes you may lose which is fine just as long as you give them hell and walk away with no excuses. So compete against the best around and see what happens, you may just surprise them and more importantly yourself.
Gareth Lewis
Head MMA Instructor
Think it, Plan it, Do it.
It is that time of the year when you think about the year that has just passed and start thinking about the year ahead. Therefore it is time to set some goals for the new year.
When goal setting there are some simple rules to stick to - a goal should be S.M.A.R.T
Specific: Goals need to be specific. Your goal shouldn’t be “to be better at BJJ”, for example, because that is not specific enough to be helpful. A better goal would be “I want to be able to survive in Jim’s guard”, “pass Jim’s guard” “keep position against Jim” etc – these are specific as you know exactly when you get to achieve them or miss them.
Measurable: This means you need to be able to know when you get your goal. “I want to get more take down’s at wrestling” is a difficult goal to measure - how many did you get last year? What have you got as your measuring stick? Obviously this is impossible to measure as you have nothing to measure it against. A better goal is something like “once I get their single leg I want the take down 80%+ of the time” – this will give you a measurable number to work with which to improve on.
Attainable: You must be able to achieve your goal. If you a planning to have your first kickboxing fight in 2012 and your goal by year’s end is have had 25 fights and be a world champion, you are setting yourself up for failure. One fight a month is possible but difficult in New Zealand, ten fights in one year and a National Title is difficult but possible.
Realistic: The goal needs to be available in the world you live in - that means it can happen. I want to fight GSP for the UFC world title in 2012. This would not be realistic for me as I would have to move to America to get in the UFC, then I would have to be good enough assuming those two happen, and then I would have to drop 40kg to fight him. Add this up and it all becomes very unrealistic .
Time-Certain: There needs to be a date by which you will achieve this goal. For example, saying I want $10,000 in my bank is pointless as there is no timeframe, and it gives you a way out if you want to spend money on something that you do not need. I need $10,000 in the bank for May so I can pay for my overseas trip, then there is a pass / fail on it and you know if you have achieved it or not.
Now I am going to contradict what I have just said, the above is goal setting by the book. However, I have a slightly different take on it. When people say “possible” it means possible for other people - if Sir E Hillary had listened to what is possible then he would not have climbed Everest, so don’t be put off by what others can’t achieve.
Make goals for training, for competition, financial and personal life. Make most them that fit the S.M.A.R.T criteria but make at least one in each area that is at least a little bonkers. Go on the theory that if you aim for something silly and you miss it then it is better than aiming conservatively and obtaining it. There are a few quotes – “there is nothing worse that aiming low and achieving it” or “aim for the stars and you might hit the moon”.
Go big and don’t worry about failure, it is usually the fear of failure that holds us back - “what would achieve if you knew you couldn’t fail”. Make 2012 big and aim for success.
Gareth Lewis
Head MMA Instructor
It’s So Simple
There are people out there that simplify sport and make it sound all so very easy, and I find this very frustrating. Here are just some of the things I have heard – all you need in wrestling is a good single and double leg and you could be world champ, you could beat Roger Federer in tennis if you return the ball one more time than he does, all you need for golf is to get the ball in the hole, all you need for BJJ just pass guard and keep top position. These go on and on and as far as I can tell the people that say them are usually not very good at the sport.
Take wrestling for example - the single leg in theory is simple; grab their leg and move around until they fall over, but in practice it is very hard. In a competition to even get the leg is a challenge as your opponent knows what you are up to, then once you get the leg you have to get the correct head position, shoulder and chest pressure in the correct places then move the right way with the right timing while transferring the weight correctly, all within half a second, to get a successful take down. And while all this goes in to the take down, there is just as much going on with the control positions such as the under hook. In principle an under hook is all very easy, but it is rather difficult to get one and keep it against someone who knows what they are doing – keep this is in mind if a under hook is hard to get and keep imagine how hard a takedown is - basically all the stars have to be aligned.
Kickboxing is much the same - punch hard and straight, keep your hands up and leg check and you will be a world champion. If you haven’t felt what a leg check feels like (this is when a person throws a leg kick at you and you block it with your shin causing some nice bone on bone action), find a car with a tow bar and walk in to it about twenty times over a 9 min period and see how it feels, then tell me how easy a leg check is. Keeping your hand up is easy, but the down side is if your hands are against your head for the entire fight you may not get hit but you will not hit them either. Against someone who is good once you throw a punch at them they will use that opening to land a punch on your head. In terms of punching hard and straight that is easy to do until every time you throw you get hit back twice as hard, which makes your punches a little tentative. Overall if you are better than your opponent then all the basics will work, but you need a lot of skill to make these basics work.
BJJ, just pass guard and keep top position – easy. Although I have not had the privilege of rolling with Marcelo Garcia I can on only assume how hard / impossible his guard would be to pass. In theory all you need to do is pin a leg then step over it to get past their guard. When you are against a good BJJ guy then they have ten counters to a leg grab and ten ways out as someone is stepping over their legs. Again they are doing the basics but better than you.
In short, the top guys do just do the basic moves but they do them as close to perfect as possible, they have practiced the moves over and over and know every little point about it and know all the counters. As they know the counters they will do slight adjustments to stop all of your options. Keep in mind that when you see two good people sparring, in any sport, it looks like you could beat them then when you get your chance all of a sudden holes you thought you saw are gone.
Realise that the basics work but it takes years and years to be good enough at them so you can land them on good people.
Gareth Lewis
Head MMA Instructor
You Should’ve Tapped
After watching the UFC in the weekend and seeing what happened to “Big Nog’s” arm, I have had questions from non-MMA people asking who’s fault was it and they have been surprised by my answer.
For those of you who don’t know what happened, Frank Mir did a very nice transition to side control, isolated the arm and locked on the kimura, after some escape attempts by Nogueria his arm could take no more and broke just above the elbow. His shoulder ligaments and tendons might also have sustained some serious damage. In layman’s terms, Frank Mir ripped Nogueria’s arm off. For a slightly more scientific feel imagine this – put your arm out to the side at shoulder height with your palm facing backwards, and bend your elbow to ninety degrees towards the floor. Now without changing the angle of your arm rotate your arm so you palm is going towards the ceiling – it will hurt.
Now under the circumstances the fault is on Nogueria. In competition your opponent will not stop with a sub until the ref stops them. The ref will stop it for one of two reasons – the person has tapped or the person is asleep or a limb is broken. As Nogueria is a very experienced grappler / fighter and the ref was also experienced he was not going to stop the fight for an almost submission. Nogueria backed his escapes and technique to get out, he got it wrong and he tapped about half a second before his arm got destroyed.
Frank Mir had every right to keep the pressure on until the ref stops the fight. There are a number of fights where a person is caught in a submission and taps, the person lets go, and the fight continues as the ref did not see the tap. This is done either by tapping on the side that the ref can’t see or be tapping so lightly that you would need a microscope to see it. Therefore you need to leave the submission on until the ref stops you.
In competition that is fine but what about in training? Find people that you can roll with who will not rip your arm off, which means you can go for an escape from the move without fear of losing that limb then you have to tap if the escape doesn’t go well. Every mat has the guy that does not give you that chance, they go from got your arm to ripping it off in half a second giving you very little chance to tap – they are called dicks. Then there are the guys (usually the same guy ) that escape your sub attempts with everything that they have which causes you to put them on a little harder and quicker. When you do this they then think that they have to go harder and faster and the cycle continues.
If people are putting on submission’s hard and fast there could be a few reasons for this, 1) you are ‘that guy’ on the mat 2) people want to get you as you are respected on the mat and you are a valued trophy to have.
On the mat both people should be aware of when the danger is close and both should avoid it and take responsibility. However when you are rolling why risk it? Most of us have to go to work the next morning! If you get caught in a bad spot tap so you can keep training. In competition then be very aware as you know they other guy will be going for the subs as fast and hard as possible.
TAP……… That way you will learn and not get injured, the day that people can’t tap you is the day you should look for new training partners.
Gareth Lewis
Head MMA Instructor
Thinking is Over Rated
When you are going for the move, if you think about what you are going to do then 99% of the time you will miss it. In the 80’s movie Top Gun there is a quote “If you think, you’re dead” and that is very true in the fight world.
When I started BJJ and had drilled the far side arm bar in training many times, I found that I was still unable to get it in sparring and I couldn’t figure out why. I found I got into the position and went through my mental check list then went for the move and would lose the arm each and every time. As I spent more time I the mat I noticed that the good guys did not have a pause before moves they just went from one to another in a seamless flow, which made me think that they are just going for the moves and trusting their technique. When I started to try this new approach I found that I was still missing the arm bar but I was a step ahead of my opponent (assuming they were at my level) and would have them on the back foot or in a bad position or both. Then as my technique tightened up I started to get the odd arm bar. To this day I notice the good guys are going on reactions. Yes, those reactions take hours and hours to get, but its clear that the good guys are not thinking about the move they are just doing it.
In wrestling the main move that people miss with over thinking is the double leg take down. The reason for this is usually the repercussions if you get it wrong, especially in MMA. When you do a poor shoot in MMA you get sprawled on and then punched, which is demoralising, not to mention the energy you expend when going for a double leg. As the shoot happens so fast if you spend half a second hesitating then you will miss it. There is another movie quote, from Point Break – “Fear causes hesitation, and hesitation will cause your worst fears to come true”. Again, the more you practice the double leg the better you get, your timing becomes better, and so on.
With striking if you punch and worry about the counter then you will get countered. When someone punches you and they are worried about the counter you can feel that there is no venom in it and makes it easier to counter. On the flip side if someone throws with some nasty intentions then you are making sure that your defence is in place before anything else thus making it harder to counter. So when you throw make sure you have your hands up and don’t worry about getting your punching hand back to your head any quicker than is comfortable. The most important part of the punch is when it lands on the target, when you bring it back to the head all it is is the printout – it does not make the punch more effective. When you focus on the retraction of the punch you are taking power away from the punch and giving your opponent too much respect, they have to earn it you don’t just give it.
Over all it takes time to develop the skills so it is all done in the sub-conscious so you can think about a fight plan and so on. But I can guarantee you this – if you are up against a skilled opponent and you take time to think about a move they will have countered and escaped before you have started it therefore making the move redundant.
Stop thinking and start doing – make it happen
Gareth Lewis
Head MMA Trainer
Lockdown MMA
To Gi or not to Gi
A common question that I get from new people is “should I train with a gi or just stick no gi?”. Before I get to my answer something to keep in mind is that I train people for MMA, and we train no gi and use a top game dominant style.
The gi: When training pure BJJ you will most likely find yourself in a gi, which is just part of BJJ (unless you train with Eddie Bravo). As there is more friction each move on both offence and defence is more deliberate. It is generally slower and you have grips that you have to deal with. The grips are the most frustrating part for a person that is not used to the gi as they find that their hands can be tied up. Once you have adjusted for the slower more deliberate moves then you find out that the gi presents an entire new world of submissions, such as gi chokes. This makes it all a bit tricky as you can’t move as freely as you are used to and you have to worry about people slipping their hands into you collar to choke you.
No gi: This is fast, hectic and slippery. There seems to be more transitions with no gi as people can slide out of submission a little easier. The positions are also harder to keep as there is less friction keeping people in place. After a few rounds of rolling and everyone is sweaty the submissions become harder and harder to get as when you get a grip of a limb it becomes very hard to control. As the control is harder you will find that the submissions you go for are a little different, no gi suits quick sneaky submissions as the longer you spend on it the more chance you have to lose control of your sweaty opponent.
So what do I prefer? My personal game suits the no gi game for sure but if I had to choose I would go with the gi any day. The reason behind that is this I believe that a gi is harder and your defence has to better as you have more to worry about, and if your defence is good then you are very hard to beat. On top of this your escapes have to better as there is more friction keeping you in bad places. I strongly believe that the transition from the gi to no-gi is easier and a someone who is good in a gi will be good without a gi however this will not work the other way. Someone who is a no gi grappler will get a frustrated with the slower movement and the grips will cause endless annoyance. If I had 4 sessions a week I would do 3 in a gi and one no-gi. The gi is harder slower and you have more to worry about which means it is a great training tool to improve your BJJ game.
Gareth Lewis
Head MMA Instructor
I Slept In
The reason that the good guys at y0ur gym are the best is very simple – they have trained longer, harder, thought about it more, sacrificed more and made it their mission to be the best they can be.
If you have just read that and thought “yeah but I have a life”, then news flash – they will always be better than you. In all of my 20 plus years in martial arts I have heard all the excuses; I slept in, I went out the night before, I had something on, and the list goes on and on. The people who come up with these excuses, in my experience, have not gone on to be one of the top dogs in the club. The people that go on to the top level seem to train as much as they can and don’t make excuses when they can’t make it.
Everyone has seen the young guy with all the talent in the world give up the sport because Friday night drinks and chasing girls becomes more important. Or the guy with all the athletic ability in the world who goes on to the next thing because they don’t dominate everyone after six months of training. Then an average Joe turns up to most sessions and improves at a steady level without setting the world on fire then before you know it they are giving the good guys some grief in sparring.
In my experience the guys that put in the most time are usually the best. With MMA there is a direct link between what the top guys do and how they progress. It sounds obvious, but if it is so obvious why aren’t more people doing it? So here is the secret – the guys at MMA that are the best at BJJ train BJJ on their night off, the guys that are the best wrestlers wrestle on their night off and the guys who are the best strikers do striking training on their nights off. Then for the big shocker the guy that can keep up with everyone at everything does BJJ, Wrestling and Kickboxing.
Yes, doing all that training is hard, especially if you have family and a job, but the good guys seem to find a way to get to training and fit everything else in. I believe the best way to think of this is the old saying – “if you want something done give to someone that is busy”. Again they do not make excuses they just find a way.
Therefore if you are truly into your training and you want to make gains then you will find a way. You will not be the person that sleeps in for the morning training, goes out the night before training or would rather stay at home instead of training.
Stop making excuses and train.
Gareth Lewis
Head MMA Instructor
Fuel The Machine
You do a lot of sessions to get your skills up then you find it hard to get out of bed in the morning, either through poor recovery or poor nutrition. And for the record, poor nutrition leads to poor recovery. In terms of nutrition is pays to keep it simple as most of us are not dietitians, so here are a few simple guidelines to keep in mind for your diet.
Keep it simple - if you can spell it you can eat it. Look at the ingredients of what you are putting in your mouth and if you do not know what it is then you shouldn’t eat it. There are a lot of chemicals in our food that our bodies are not designed to deal with. If you think for 1000’s of years we have eaten things that come from the earth - both plants and animals. Our bodies have not had to digest such things as Butylated Hydroxyanisole, also known as BHA. If you saw some BHA in a labelled container chances are you would not want to try it for fear of what it would do to us when ingested, but as soon as someone else puts it on some food and packages it we don’t seem to mind. BHA is is a phenol-based food preservative that prevents food from going rancid. It is commonly added to cereals, potato chips, chewing gum and vegetable oils. In short you can spell steak, carrots and so on, so stick to them.
Keep it simple with fluids too. All you need is water on a non training day – you should drink 0.03% of your body weight in water, so if you weigh 100kg you should drink 3 litres a day, and if you are training then your water intake will need to increase. Sip the water throughout the day as the body is not good an dealing with big volumes of water at once. Avoid “sports” drinks and especially stay away from “energy drink” – they are just pure evil.
The other basic rule is eat clean before and after training. Having some junk food is normal, but it comes down to the timing of when you do it. If you are on the way home from training it is best not to stop off and get some takeaways as this is when your body needs the fuel to repair itself from all the hard work. The same applies for before training - if you have a big session the next morning then eat clean the night before. Eating clean is just eating natural foods, which is food that you can spell.
Do not avoid one group of food. There is a nasty rumour going around that carbohydrates are bad and fats are bad - this is not true if you are active. You need both otherwise your performance will suffer. For those of you not sure what a fat, protein or carbohydrate is here is a simple guide – if it has eyes it has protein, which usually has some fat with it (nature designed it that way for a reason). Vegetables fruits and grains do not come from anything with eyes, so they are usually higher in carbohydrate.
For those of you who a bit more scientific here is a more detailed version of preparation and recovery strategies. For those that go on to read there is mention of carbohydrates and protein so here a little guide to know which is which.
At the end of the day anyone can train hard. How you recover and adapt will determine just how hard you can train and therefore how you can get gains in your performance. Here are some strategies that athletes use to maximize results:
The times immediately before and after exercise are vital. Follow these guidelines to ensure that your training has maximum impact.
In the 4 hours before training/competition
• Eat 150-200g carbohydrates (CHO) in the 4hrs pre training – this is a lot of food by the way
Examples:
Cereal bar = 20g CHO
Banana = 20g CHO
Honey sandwich = 50g CHO
To find out food composition of your favourite pre- and post- workout meals, there are all sorts of websites that tell you the nutritional content of foods that you can check.
Within 5 minutes of finishing training or event
• Drink fluids (water)
• Eat carbohydrates and protein
• Warm down with a light jog walk for 5-10 minutes then stretch
Within 10 minutes of finishing training or event
• Keep drinking fluids (water)
• Keep stretching
Then if you are really keen:
• Ice buckets ~ 10C submerge: 3 x (30-60 seconds in / 2 minutes out)
OR
• Contrast showers: 3 x (30-60 seconds cold / 2-3 minutes hot)
• Always finish on cold
Within 60 minutes of finishing training or event
• Keep drinking fluids and you should have drunk 500-1000 ml by now
• Continue to eat and you should have eaten 1-2g CHO per kg of bodyweight and 10-30g of protein by now.
• Glutamine may improve glycogen synthesis. This is probably a useful supplement.
• Ask yourself – what did I learn from this training/game?
Evenings
• Work on stretching and self-massage to stretch out tight muscles
• Massage/self-massage 2-6 hours after trainings can improve recovery
• Ice any injuries (10 minutes ice/10 minutes light stretching movement/10 minutes ice every 2 hours) don’t stop doing this till swelling and pain is gone.
• Relaxation work and meditation, yoga, music, reading.
• Have some fun and change the mood
• Go to sleep no later that 10.30 pm.
• Light pool work can be useful: 10 min spa, hydrate, stretch 10 min, 2-5 min floating
The day after
• A light recovery walk or jog (25-35 minutes) at a low intensity ie. Below 65% of maximum heart rate.
In short, be good before and after training or competition and this will aid with recovery and performance – it is a very simple formula.
Gareth Lewis
Head MMA Instructor