Years ago, in another life, I did a weekend on how to deal with knives and bladed weapons. We were told to wear white tee shirts and white Gi bottoms. Then one of us was given a red marker, and told to attack a partner. I dealt with my attacker fairly handy, finishing him with an armbar after about 30 seconds. I was pretty chuffed with myself, sure that I was among the best there, and saw the others struggling and dancing around their opponent.
The instructor called time and stood me in the middle, then walked around me pointing at the dozens of red marks on my arms, legs, torso, and even head. “Artery. Tendon. Eye. Guts. Artery…” He went on. Lesson learned the easy way, even if it was a little embarrassing.
My martial arts career went off in a different direction after that, and I began to care more about sports and athletics than the challenges of street fighting. But the lesson stuck.
I’m telling you this because right now we have the first MMA session at Kyuzo in about 6 years currently on the mat here. Nate is looking after ten 12-16 year olds who are working on their striking footwork right now. It’s our Teen MMA Summer Camp that’s on for this week only.
We were one of Ireland’s original MMA clubs. In fact, we were training MMA before we had a Jiu Jitsu programme. Kyuzo began life as a Taekwondo club, and our original grappling session was actually titled a Vale Tudo session (literally, anything goes in Portuguese).
It wasn’t so much an MMA session as we’d know it today, but it was more a “what would happen if there were no rules?” session. We could wrestle, strike, and grapple. Our skills were pretty low, but it was more of a laboratory. We’d experiment with moves and with things we’d seen fighters do. I suppose it was a bit like that knife defence workshop. We were seeing what we could trust.
It wasn’t until much later that we had a formal Jiu Jitsu session as we’d know it today. And it took a long time before our MMA session became a real session focused on the sport of MMA.
MMA and Jiu Jitsu have historic links- the Gracie family made Jiu Jitsu famous through beating the toughest guys in the world with armlocks and chokes in the original UFCs. But now they have totally separated into two distinct sports. There’s so much in Jiu Jitsu that an MMA fighter doesn’t need, and so much in MMA that a good Jiu Jitsu fighter doesn’t need.
So here’s my recommendation- Get out of your comfort zone once in a while.
If you are a grappler- Judo, Jiu Jitsu, Wrestling, take one training session every 6 months and get someone who knows how to strike to put gloves on. Track how often you get hit before you get your submission or pin. Now try to think about how many of those strikes could have been a knockout punch, or devastating enough to stop you from doing your grappling.
If you are a striker- Boxer, Kickboxer, Taekwondoka etc, do the opposite. Have someone who knows what they’re doing try to take you down and see how many shots you land. Then chart how many of those would or could have stopped your opponent.
These are great drills to keep your training based in reality. You don’t have to be or want to be an MMA fighter to do them. You’re just pressure testing your martial arts for the real world.
You will be very, very surprised at how exhausting and disorienting this simple drill will be. Even I struggle when strikes are added to Jiu Jitsu, and I spent years training on the ground with strikes.
Try it, and tell me how you get on!
See you on the mat,
Barry
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