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

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.

My Training Center

I train at a place in Louisville Kentucky called Derby City Martial Arts. Awesome place to train at, great enviroment. They currently offer Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, Boxing, MMA, Wrestling, and Muay Thai. They are open seven days a week so its easy to cross-train on different things at the same time. Anyone in the Louisville area or anyone from Fort Knox, I really recommend training here.
Derby City MMA Website