Concepts

Lessons Learned In Revenge

When I first started, Jiu Jitsu professional BJJ competitions were a dream. Honestly, I never expected them to become a reality, let alone be invited to fight in them.

So, when I was approached by the guys at the Tuff Invitational I jumped at the chance to compete in a professional Sub-Only competition. Plus I would get to settle a score with an old rival, Paul Bridges, after nearly nine years.

The Arm Bar

Paul is one of the pioneers of UK BJJ, and I had the pleasure (or misfortune) to fight him under MMA rules back in 2006 on a UKMMA show.

This was really the early days of the UK MMA scene, and the competitors were nowhere nearly as well rounded as they are today.

Side note: Paul and I’s fight took place in one of the first cages in the UK. If you watch the video closely you’ll see there is a 3-inch gap between the cage and canvas, and the canvas was actually canvas, it hurt like hell when you grappled on it and left you with severe friction burns. Fun times.

At the time, I was primarily a Kickboxer, although I had done a fair amount of grappling and wasn’t afraid of the ground or to wrestle.

Paul, on the other hand, was already a purple belt and one of the top guys on the UK BJJ scene having won most of the comps available at that time.

It was a classic striker vs. grappler match up, that unfortunately for me, went the same painful way striker vs. grappler matchups go.

Check out the fight below:

This fight and Paul’s beautiful armbar are the main reason’s I got so heavily involved in Jiu Jitsu. I realised if I wanted a future in MMA I’d need to develop my BJJ skills to avoid situations like this happening again.

However, along the way I developed a love for Jiu Jitsu that overtook my desire to compete in MMA and be punched int the face. The rest, as they say, is history.

Unfortunately, I never had the opportunity to compete against Paul again. He was always ahead of me in belt rank, and by the time I’d caught up he was focusing on his academy.

I thought I’d never get to test myself against him again.

So, when the guys at the Tuff Invitational asked me who I’d like to fight, Paul was the first person I thought of, and thankfully he agreed.

The Rematch

My preparation for the match against Paul was a little strange. I’d just competed and won the No Gi Worlds for the second time and was in good shape. But I had a distinct lack of high-level training partners and it was still a 6-weeks out from the event so needed to stay in shape.

So, I did what I could and I found a few great people to train with around Devon (which meant a lot of travelling but hey-ho). And when I couldn’t roll, I supplemented with more strength and conditioning sessions.

By the time the fight came around, I was in the best shape I could be in and I had a solid game plan.

That’s an important lesson, many people miss. When you’ve done everything you can in preparation for a fight, you will feel more confident. This is why training camps are essential for creating many people’s positive mindsets.

So, how did the fight go? Well here’s a complete breakdown of the match

The Lessons

Personally, there’s tonne of things I took away from this event, including: not rolling for 40-minutes before a match, fighting on a platform feels like a deathmatch, and several other things.

And there are also a couple of important lessons you can take away from this it too. Here’s four of the most important:

1) Don’t keep driving forwards if you head gets caught during a takedown attempt. Instead, shuck your head out by turning towards your head towards the body. Here’s Braulio Estima demonstrating the technique:

2) Don’t wait when you’re passing guard. Instead, immediately go on the offensive and start to pass. This forces your opponent to defend your pass not whatever you did to get there.

3) Put yourself in a position where your opponent is forced to defend multiple things. Your opponent can only really defend one thing at a time, so if you have two attacking options, they will have to give you one.

This is the reason I was able to submit Paul. I forced him to defend the armbar, Sucuri, and his neck.

You may never have seen this submission before, it’s a little unusual but the Sucuri is incredibly painful. You can learn The Sucuri HERE.

4. Do your best to prepare for a match. Even if you don’t have a lot of time, or training partners, or whatever, the knowledge you’ve done everything you can to prepare for an event is incredibly beneficial to your mindset when competing.

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The most powerful submission in the world!

In my humble opinion, there is one submission position above all others that is the most powerful. I know that’s a bold statement, but it’s true.

When you slap this position on your opponent, you have a plethora of submission options to choose from, but it’s insanely difficult to escape. Even better, this submission position works just as well in the Gi, No Gi, or MMA!

So what’s this wonderful position I’m talking about? Check out the video below to learn it now…

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The Submission Transition Game

One of the first instructionals I got was Erik Paulson’s Game Development. This short instructional covers 8 ways of training to develop your grappling.

One of those ‘games’ was attacking by transitioning from submission to submission. The idea being if you master this you’ll create an inescapable web of destruction for your opponent.

Throughout my Jiu Jitsu career, I’ve regularly practiced this game (and the other 7) when sparring, and it’s greatly helped my understanding of submission and how to connect them.

Along with improving my understanding of submissions, there is another benefit to developing this skill.

If your opponent refuses to tap you can transition to another submission without causing injury.

This is incredibly important in training, as you get to develop your technique safely even if your opponent is being an idiot or doesn’t realise the danger. To give you an example of how this looks, check out this short video.

In the video, you’ll see I catch my opponent in a triangle, he defends and I transition to an arm bar.

That arm bar is on, but as my opponent doesn’t tap, which leaves me with two options: push harder and risk injury or transition to a tighter submission.

I chose option two and switch to a K-Arm Bar. At that moment my opponent knows there is no escape and taps.

This is a great example of training smart and training safely. Give this training method a try next time your sparring and let me know how you get on.

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Losing Like A Champion

Recently, I was fortunate enough to spend five weeks living, training, and competing in California.

During those weeks I learned about success and failure. I went from wining a World Championship without having a single point scored against me to losing my first fight in the next competition. A competition I should have won.

What happened? That’s an excellent question and something I’ve asked myself a lot since returning to the UK.

But that’s not the point of this article, although I will be writing about it soon.

This article is about how I learned to lose like a champion and went from consistently losing major competitions to becoming a two-time world champion. I have learned far more about about myself and my skills from losing than I ever have from wining.

Don’t get me wrong– winning is great. I love having my hand raised at the end of a match and the feeling of standing in the middle on the podium. My victories in competition are some of my proudest achievements. But in terms of development, winning doesn’t teach the same lessons as losing. Winning simply means I did everything right; losing means something different.

Of course, if I made mistakes along the way to victory I learn from them, but I find losing a much more educational experience.

“I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” – Thomas A. Edison

Many people view losing as failure. And I can see why, of course. It’s hard not to view losing and the associated feelings as failing. I choose to take Thomas Edison’s view on failure. Each and every failure simply gets me one step closer to your goal. Edison famously took over 10’000 attempts before he succeed in creating the light bulb. Imagine how different the world would be if he’d stopped at 9’999.

So how do you lose like a champion and achieve outstanding results through failure?

I’m sure there are a number of ways to reach your goal and overcome failures. Personally, I follow a four rules that have allowed me to come back stronger after every loss; they have always helped me to move one step closer to my goals after suffering the disappointment of defeat. Here they are.

Rule #1: Be Gracious In Defeat.

“Strive to be humble in victory and gracious in defeat.” – Boots Williams

Losing is a unfortunate reality of competition and life. We would all like to go through our entire competition career undefeated. However, very few competitors ever achieve this.

So when the unfortunate day arrives and you lose your first competition, you are faced with two options.

One is to shout, scream, curse the referee, and throw a fit. All of these things will only make you look foolish and damage your reputation.

Instead, choose to be gracious in defeat.

Congratulate your opponent, and walk out with your head held high. Simply by stepping in to the arena of combat, you have achieved something most people will never even dream of accomplishing.

Of course it’s emotionally hard, but that is a good thing. It means you care about your performance and the outcome of all your hard work.

Rule #2: Analyze Your Performance

“My past has not defined me, destroyed me, deterred me, or defeated me; it has only strengthened me.” – Steve Maraboli

Defeat can happen for any number of different reasons and most of them had little to do with my technical performance. I have lost competitions because I over-trained, under-trained, ate poorly, didn’t rest properly, lost my focus, and for many other reasons.

It’s important to analyze your whole competition process not just your matches. The problem could be in your training, your lifestyle, your diet, or a host of other areas. By reviewing your competition preparation as a whole, it will allow you to learn from your mistakes and avoid them in the future.

Rule #3: Get Back On The Horse

“Defeat doesn’t finish a man, quit does. A man is not finished when he’s defeated. He’s finished when he quits”. – Richard Nixon

The only time you are truly defeated is when you quit.

Use a competition loss to motivate you to improve your performance. Providing you are fit and healthy, try to get back in to competition as fast as possible.

The longer you take off between competitions, the more you will begin to question your abilities. This can be devastating for a competitor’s mental attitude.

Rule #4: Take Action

“When defeat comes, accept it as a signal that your plans are not sound, rebuild those plans, and set sail once more toward your coveted goal.” – Napoleon Hill

It is all well and good accepting a competition loss, analyzing your performance, and setting new goals, but if you don’t make changes then the result will be the same.

Take action and implement any necessary changes to your training or life. Evaluate your performance, set new goals, make a plan, and take action.

“No man is really defeated unless he is discouraged.” – Bruce Lee

In my experience, competition loss can be devastating. Without each and every loss I would not be where I am today.

Next time you suffer a loss, don’t let that loss discourage you. Instead, embrace it, learn from it and make the necessary adjustments that will lead you to your goal. Understanding the reasons why you lost and the ways to mitigate those issues in the future is part of the learning process.

And remember the path to achieving success never easy, but don’t failures discourage you. They are simply learning experiences.

Crab Ride Drills

Jiu Jitsu is ever-evolving (as it should be), and if you don’t keep up with the advancements in the game, you will get left behind.

Whether you intend on using positions like the Worm Guard, Berimbolo or Crab Ride it’s important you understand them. Like any position, once you understand the mechanics, you can choose to use it yourself or defend against it.

One position that is becoming very popular with lighter weight Jiu Jitsu players is the Crab Ride.

It’s a great position to both set up the guard pass or attack the back. And if you don’t know this position then you’re going to be left with a hole in your game that can easily be exploited.

Thankfully, there are a few easy drills you can do to help you understand the position. Check out the video below that covers some of the drills you should practice to learn the Crab Ride.

As with any new position, there are only really two ways to train to get better at it. You can spar or drill.

Sparring a new position is fairly self-explanatory, basically, you invert and see what happens. Drilling a new position can be a little more complicated which is where resources like Performance Drilling can be incredibly useful.

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