Escaping the half guard

Last night in MMA we went over escaping the half guard, pretty boring night with a lot of new guys and only a couple of guys who have been going there for awhile. So when we rolled the news guys rolled together and I rolled with one of the guys who had been coming there for weeks. We rolled with the same guy for about 15 minutes. I caught him in two guillotines and he got me in something that i've never seen before but it hurt. It was overall a pretty normal night. Friday night is the two hour MMA class thats the fun one. I'll try to find a video of the half guard escape we used later.

Practicing alone ?

There are a lot of times that I'm at home and want to work on my BJJ or MMA technique, but have noone to roll with. I wanted to work on my style but wasn't sure how to go about this, so I've been searching the web for tricks that other people do to keep sharp even when they aren't training. Here is what I've come up with.

***** Conditioning, one of the most important things to consider in MMA is your condition. It doesn't matter how well you know BJJ if you aren't in shape you'll be winded by someone who probably isn't even as good as you. Work out, cardio is a must, jump roping helps alot with that as well. You know your own strong and weak points if you need to work on abs then work on abs or upper body strength. A healthy diet can also help you in this department.

***** Watching fights can really help you improve your skill, find fights that have a lot of great BJJ involved and watch how the fighters try to apply moves and how the other fighter works escapes. Keep these moves in your head and try to apply them next time you are at class.

***** Consider getting a training dummy, one with arms and legs that you can work on submissions with. Its not perfect but any repetion will help. I've added a some training dummys to my MMA Astore on Amazon. Check them out HERE

***** Run moves in your head all day long, just by thinking about moves you like and how to pull them off can help. Yesterday I was so focused on the triangle choke that when I got to class I was determined to pull it off at least once, I got it 3 times just because I had it in my head.

***** Watching training DVDS or videos, I got the Serra BJJ dvds and I must say that after watching them I felt that I had a much better understanding of the physics of the moves and rather just watching someone do the moves these dvds explain why you are doing each step and shows you different things you can do from each step. Its really been nice.

Hopefully I'll be able to add more tips later on, it would be great if readers would leave comments on how they train out of the gym. Enjoy

Monday Nights Class

Last night I attended Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu for an hour, we worked on escapting the mount. Basically pull one of your opponents arms toward you to throw them off balance and then throw your hips and and roll towards the arm you have pinned down. It puts them off balance and actually works pretty well. I didn't get a chance to use it in my Jiu-Jitsu class because everyone was expecting it, but after BJJ I stayed for MMA and was able to pull it off a few times while rolling. In my MMA class we started out with a 30 minute really intense workout, I was already dead tired from rolling in BJJ. In MMA we worked an arm bar from behind. Seatbelt your opponent and with the opposite elbow use it to push their head down as you are rolling your leg over their head for the arm bar. Works pretty nice but I've not come across a fight where I'll just be sitting behind the opponent like that. Anyway great class!! Something else I'm gonna start adding to this blog is Youtube video clips of all the moves I'm talking about, I've been browsing Youtube and pretty much every move you could think of there is a video for. So when I get home today from work I'll start working on that.

**UPDATE**
Youtube Videos of the moves I mentioned
- Arm bar from back control
- Escaping the Mount with bridge and roll

Getting back in shape

Letting yourself get out of shape is super easy, especially when you are in a unit that tells you to do your own pt. A select few might do something but most don't do anything, I am one of the guys who don't do anything. A few weeks ago I had to take a pt test, I passed but barely and I'm going to take another one in next week. This week I'm going to be running everyday and going to class everyday. I'm trying to not only get ready for the pt test but get ready for the Fort Knox 3rd Annual Combatives tournament. I'm gonna be hitting up as many Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu classes as I possibly can. It'll be fun. I'm trying to get my neighbor to join the tournament with me, it will be fun for him and will give me a sparring partner for when I'm not in class. I don't expect to hop in the tournament and win against guys that have been doing it for years, but I love to fight and if I don't at least try to win I'll hate myself. Check back later as I'll be talking more about techniques. If anyone has any BJJ tricks they like to use please comment them here. I would love to hear back from you guys.

Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu

Went to a BJJ class last night, hour long white belt class. We started with some light cardio then went into some moves from the side guard, including a nice arm bar. BJJ is a must when thinking about MMA, a lot of people in my MMA class take Muay Thai and boxing which is great but when they get on the ground they are clueless. I really think anyone interested in MMA should really be training BJJ and Chuck Liddell will tell you that himself, (Jeremy Horn). There is an Army Combatives Tournament coming up here at Fort Knox in a couple weeks, I'm defiantly going to be signing up, the first rounds are all on the ground submission and the finals are in a cage MMA rules. Its gonna be great to watch and even better to get to participate in this awesome event. Pictures will be posted.

One a side note, would also like to add that I finally purchased a Gi last night, and let me tell you it.....really made things worse. Its really hot, and does not breathe well. I burned up from the light cardio and was really sucking wind after rolling with a couple guys. Hopefully after a couple washes its not as bad.

Serra Jitsu

I've been browsing around the web trying to find some good training dvds that I can work on from home, I love BJJ and want to learn as much as I can even outside of class. The best dvds I have come across so far are from Matt Serra. His dvds break everything down and make it simple, these videos rock and you should really check them out to improve your ground game.
http://www.serrajitsu.com/

Finally on schedule

Finally got my schedule all worked out, having a premature baby really slowed me down in learning martial arts. Baby is home now !!! Anyway starting tomorrow I'll be going to class a lot more, hopefully 5-7 days a week. Tomorrow is another 2 hour MMA class, should be fun. I'll be posting on how that goes after I get home from class. I hope everyone has a great weekend.