Ok, well first let me just say, it's been about 11 months sense I last posted on here. Some of that was due to changes in my training location, training partners, and even attitude toward training. Politics and people aside I needed to get back to blogging about training, as much as it helped me, nothing should get in the way of advancement. I wanted to take a brief time to talk to you all about something that I am seeing in some of the new students I am training with. A lot of the white belts, anywhere from 1 week to 1 year for most of these guys are trying SO hard to win, they are losing dramatically. The art of losing and learning is more important in training than most people understand. This can be a difficult concept for a lot of people, and I don't mean not trying, or training poorly. I mean allowing yourself to try new things, experiment with your game, take chances. When you get so caught up in NOT tapping to anyone you severely limit yourself. You have to be ok with getting tapped. When I roll now, I take chances; I put myself in bad position, to force creativity on my part. Hopefully I will be able to come up with an answer and escape or avoid the submission or sweep, but if not, I have still learned something that is taking me on the way to a stronger game. This is a short blog, but just one to say, when you train, don't worry about winning or losing, worry about learning. Take some chances, pay attention to your details, your technique and you will go much further. We will be post MUCH more often now that things are back in swing. Can't wait to talk to you all soon.
With 2008 already here I have hit a point in my grappling quest where things are starting to connect for me with Gracie Jiu Jitsu.It is a really strange thing for me since I am lazy about training but my mind is always on Jiu Jitsu.This year for me is about going back to learning the basic’s! So let me take you back to the last few years in my Jiu Jitsu, one time I was caught up with getting better that I became so obsess with learning as many techniques, and fancy tricks that my jiu Jitsu actually regressed. I got desperate and started to purchase ever book, tape, and DVD out on the market, still wasn’t growing the way I felt.Then I hit the stage where I figure well maybe it’s my training, the school, teachers, etc.Maybe I need to cross train so I thought about judo, sambo, then I thought about going somewhere else to train, thought about quitting, I mean I can go on and on.With Stupidity!
So one day at school my instructor Asher Wilmer who is an amazing instructor and sometimes I swear that he has ESP because he will tell me a story that will connect to my situation.Anyway, he shared the times he trained with Rickson or saw him training with high level BJJ guys and that everything he was doing on the mat was all the basic techniques nothing flashy no X-Guard, Jello Guard, Rubber Guard, etc, etc. just basic stuff and submitted them at will.This was reconfirmed again when my instructor decide to show me again with a video (thank God for youtube) of Rickson’s son Kron who has a master the basic’s and submitted a bunch of people at the Worlds.I mean submitted guys with basic chokes from the mount!! Anyway, with that seed my instructor left in me I have recently started rebuilding my jiu Jitsu foundation again.So in closing, when you find that you are frustrated with your training. Maybe get back to the basic’s and focus on make your foundation stronger.
Good Friday Morning, as some of you know, and some of you don't I recently changed my training to include kettlebell workouts. I really can't say enough about this, I noticeably feel a difference in my practical strength, not only that but I can notice a difference in my physic. I wanted to post a good article by a friend of mine and the inspiration to my kettlebell training Mike Mahler. He gives you a good break down of the basic core of balanced training. I hope you enjoy -------------------------------------------------------------
The Five Pillars Of kettlebell training
By Mike Mahler
Many trainees often forget that kettlebells are weights and the rules of effective weight training apply to kettlebell training. Similar to traditional weight training, effective kettlebell training requires a balanced approach and an emphasis on the basic compound drill that provide the most bang for the buck. For most trainees, following a regimen with a strong emphasis on a few basic exercises is the way to go. However, putting all of your efforts into one or two exercises long-term is not the way to go. There are five areas that are worth focusing on for balanced development. Lets get going.
The Five Pillars:
Press
Pull
Squat
Lower body pull
Core
Whatever form of weight training you engage in, you want the five above areas covered. Now lets cover each area with kettlebells as the focus:
Press:
KB Military Press or KB Floor Press. This includes all of the variations such as the Sots Press, Double Clean and Press, Alternating Floor press, See-saw Press.
Pull:
Renegade Row, Alternating Bent-over Row, Double Bent-over Row, One-arm Row, Pull-ups with a kettlebell
Squat:
Double Front Squat, Hack Squat, overhead squat, one-legged squat
Covering the above five areas ensures that you build a strong and balanced physique. Many people tend to focus on what they enjoy and neglect what they do not care for. For example, people that like to press tend to spend a great deal of time on Military Presses and not enough time on pulling motions such as rows. When I first started training with kettlebells, I made the mistake of doing too much pressing work and pretty much no pulling work. Sure enough imbalances starting popping up followed by shoulder pain. Once I balanced the training with pulling motions, my shoulders felt better and more stable and my strength went up dramatically. If you feel that covering five areas is too complicated for you, then do not bother getting off the couch. Better yet, do not go out the door or drive on the road. You are a danger to anyone you come across.
Lets cover a few balanced kettlebell programs for different levels:
Beginner:
Here is a good program for a trainee that only has one kettlebell:
Monday-Wednesday-Friday
One-arm Clean and Military Press 2x5 l,r (two sets of five left and right)
One-arm Bent-over Row 2x6 l,r
One-arm Windmill 1x3 l,r
One-arm Front Squat 2x6 l,r
One-arm Swing 2x10 l,r
Take one to two minute breaks in between each exercise and work on technique.
Intermediate:
Monday-Wednesday-Friday
Double Clean and Military Press 2x6
Double Bent-over Row 2x6
Turkish Get-up 2x3 l,r
Double Front Squat 2x8
Double Swing 2x6
Take 90 second breaks in between each set.
Advanced:
Monday-Wednesday-Friday
Sot Press 2x5 l,r
Alternating Renegade Row 2x5 l,r
Double Windmill 2x5 l,r
Double Front Squat 2x6 (2 second pause at the bottom)
Double Snatch 2x6
Take 90 second breaks in between each set.
The possibility of combinations, volume, intensity, and workouts splits is endless. All of this really depends on what your skill level is, your conditioning level is, and what your goals are. Whatever you do, make sure you cover the basics. Imbalanced programs are fine for more advanced trainees. If you are someone that has a high level of pushing strength and a low level of pulling strength, you can place pressing on maintenance mode and focus on pulling. The same can be applied to any imbalance. Regardless, you are far less likely to create imbalances if you focus on a balanced approach to training.
I just want to announce today my good friend and training partner Dion has received two more stripes making him a 4 stripe blue belt. He has been training a long time, and started when Carlson Gracie was teaching in Chicago, then later moving to Virginia and training with Asher Willner and New Breed. Dion is an extremely talented and humble guy who has been an inspiration to myself and many many more at the gym. He constantly seeks not only to improve himself but everyone he trains with. He shows everything he knows, holds nothing back and has the true desire to be the best. Dion, your promotion is well deserved and we're all proud of you! Keep rolling, and I can't wait to see you on the mat to help you break in those new stripes! -Sean
I think this is a great match, it's a couple years old but I really can't get enough of it. Hope you all enjoy, and for those of you who have seen it before, watch it again, it's worth it.
First of all let me just say happy new years to everyone. I hope you all had a safe and fun holiday season and got a chance to take a little break from work. I have been a little slow in blogging recently, I've been out of town, visiting family and friends but the beginning of 2008 will get me back on track and we should have some good blogs coming out soon. So for now, just hang loose, train hard, don't get injured and have a great January. I'll be posting hopefully by the end of the week again. Also I have had some requests from people who want to contribute to this blog, I'd love anyone to share their thoughts, and if you are interested in blogging, or submitting a blog to me, just email me at sean@gorillagrapplinggear.com and I will try and get you posted. Thanks!
As a very open gym rat, I spend a great deal of time at the school where I train and teach. I am normally there 5 days a week, sometimes 6 for a couple of hours each day. There are some huge benefits to this for me and my training, there are also some large downsides. A few days ago, I was grappling for about an hour a 5 p.m., had to stop at about 6:30 to teach a class, took a break for a bit and then was grappling and training again about from 8-10 p.m. Not too bad a solid 3 and a half hours of training! That night laying in bed I was reviewing what I had worked on during those training sessions, where I had improved what techniques worked and so forth. Then something stuck me, I was doing way too much. I say this because I was working on a new way to break and pass guard, I was thinking about leg lock setups, I was also thinking about a couple half guard sweeps. While each and every one of these was important to me not one of them was much better. That's when I decided I needed to change. I am in the gym so much that I have a lot of time to roll, and like to play around with a lot of different things while I am there. This, while at first seemed like a great thing turned out to be a hindrance to my personal growth. I needed a plan, a set of goals, I needed to train differently. So I took a bit of time and tried to asses where I was as a grappler, where am I lacking the most. For me, although I love leg locks, they are not a high percentage submission for me. So I decided it was time to focus. For the next couple of months my focus is only going to be on leg locks. Now that I have a goal, I am able to give them the attention I really need, I can focus on the proper technique, how to set them up, how to prevent an escape and all the other details that I was too busy to focus on, I finally can. This not only changed my physical game, but my mental game as well. Now that I had a focus, I was really paying close attention to those details more and more. I was thinking about leg locks constantly, analyzing and visualizing and a couple more "izing"'s. My decision to start setting goals has pushed me further into the details of jiu-jitsu than before. I really encourage you to do the same thing. Where are you weak, TRAIN that thing, DRILL it, practice it, make sure to do it when you roll. Depending on your level and experience you will be able to do this to different depths. If you are experienced take (lets say you need work on collar chokes)that submission and OWN it for a few months. Only use collar chokes to finish when you are rolling, focus on getting into the position you need, focus on fakes and setting it up. Look at the details to finish it. IF you start to feel really confident, tell everyone you roll with you are only going for collar chokes for the next couple of months. This will make it even harder for you, you will find that you are pushing your own game much further and more detailed than you expected. Remember set goals, focus, don't over train or try and multi task too much. You don't need to be great at everything right away, that will come with experience and lots and lots of mat time. Get out there and roll. Thanks for reading, and remember the submission is in the details
