When you are in the heat of competition against a person that is giving you hard time do you start to think that you are going to lose and that this guy is better and there is nothing that you can do? Or are you the person that knows that even though they are being crushed under side control all you need is that split second for you to change positions and take the match?

There is a big difference between arrogance and confidence. Arrogance is belief in skills that you don’t have yet, where is confidence is knowing that you can trust your skills under pressure. In training I have been against guys who are think that they have the skills then once you stuff their first attempt then their confidence is gone and from that moment on you have them.

When you are on the receiving end of someone throwing a big combo, going for a big takedown or the submission more often than not you are close to being hit, taken down or being submitted. Even though the other person is close all they know is that have lost that battle and they lose confidence. If they only knew how close they were then they would get confidence from their attempt. The people who believe in their skills know that there moves are hard to stop so sooner or later they will get that success or use the fact that their opponent is focusing on something else to open up another possibility.

This belief is what wins that scramble, and the people that believe seem to have the luck. This does not mean that they are better they just believe that there moves will come off and are genuinely surprised when they don’t. If you hesitate on a takedown or submission then that moment has gone and you will miss it 99% of the time, when you believe there is no hesitation just opportunity to win. It becomes difficult that when you are against a top opponent who makes you work for the smallest improvement, but you must take that opportunity when it presents itself as it may be the only one you get.

To get anywhere in any combat sport you have believe that you can beat any of your potential opponents and anyone else unlucky enough to cross your path. Even if you are new to your sport you must be thinking it is only a matter of time before you are beating the top guys that you train with. Believe in your skills and that there is a way to beat everyone and it is only a matter of keeping to your strengths and avoiding the other areas.

Gareth Lewis

Head MMA Instructor 

http://www.mixedmartialarts.co.nz/

So you know what it’s called, so what can you do about it? Obviously the first part is note that you have actually reached the plateau, from there things need to change.

Yourself: The first and easiest thing to change is you. Generally you stall when you are working the same skill set over and over again making you a predictable opponent. When you are predictable you are easier to stop. The easiest away around this is work on new skills. This may mean that you will not be as effective as you are usually but will pay off in the long run. If you are wrestling and you are great with the single leg then work your take downs from the clinch. In BJJ if you are a dominant top player, aka a munter, then work the world of guard. In kickboxing if you have good punches then start using your legs to set those hands up.

Training Partners: Everyone has that person at training that they like to partner up with, you know their moves inside and out and you get along well. They are holding you back - the minute that you know what the other person is up to you need to train with someone else. Otherwise you only work the areas and defences to the moves that your training usually does, also when you are good friends you run the risk of talking a bit more than you should and wasting some valuable training time.

Environment: So you are the biggest baddest striker at your MMA club, if you stay in  your environment you are obviously going to plateau with no one to push you. Instead of going through the motions at your gym go to your local boxing gym and jump in the ring. There you will be against guys that don’t need to worry about leg kicks, head kicks or takedowns so their foot work and movement is a lot different. As they move different it will give you a complete new puzzle to solve and at the very least light a little spark with your striking again.

Instructor: At your club your instructors and the other members know if you are good or not and you have made your reputation. When you go to another gym who don’t know you from a bar of soap all they see is someone that has done some training and will look at you with a different set of eyes and give you different things to think about. You may be the man at your gym but at another they see your skill and give you a new perspective on a technique or better yet a new technique. Best case scenario is that they strip you right back to basics and work the skills you haven’t even thought about for years as you had “passed that stage”.

The bottom line is that if you don’t change what you are doing then your results will stay the same. I am not saying leave your club or stop training with your training partners, but for one session, one week what ever you can do just change something to get that spark back and makes you think “what the hell am I doing”. You know exactly what I mean by this – remember the first three months of training all you thought about was how to get better, how to stop the takedowns, how to tap someone out and how to stop getting hit. Get back to that zone and get through that plateau.  

Gareth Lewis

Head MMA Instructor 

http://www.mixedmartialarts.co.nz/

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 

http://www.mixedmartialarts.co.nz/

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 

http://www.mixedmartialarts.co.nz/

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 

http://www.mixedmartialarts.co.nz/

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 

http://www.mixedmartialarts.co.nz/

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 

http://www.mixedmartialarts.co.nz/

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 

http://www.mixedmartialarts.co.nz/

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

http://www.mixedmartialarts.co.nz/

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 

http://www.mixedmartialarts.co.nz/