Why we need to get our butts kicked...

The Indonesian Submission Championship 2010 has been completed, and the event was a huge success – the record number of participants, more clubs and countries represented in the competition, and the dominance of Synergy BJJ on ISC were pretty much broken at that tournament. To put it bluntly, we got our asses kicked. Before this year’s ISC, I think many of us were complacent at the start of the tournament. How many of us come for open mat sessions and exchange techniques? How many were preparing specific gameplans and train with other schools, some out of pure laziness and/or complacency, others due to fear of others acknowledging their gameplan and prepare a specific counter for the game plan. Personally, I see that lots of us are losing that fire that we had even a year ago, and we’ve paid the price.

Is it all that bad? Definitely not! Complacency is the enemy of progress, and the cure for that is getting our asses kicked. Without it, we’ll drive into a comfort zone, feeling that we’re on top of the world. Even champions like Georges St. Pierre need some ass-kicking to keep him from slowing down (ie: the first fight against Matt Serra where he lost the belt). Like all champions, GSP didn’t spiral downward into depression, but instead, he came back, better and stronger than ever, get his belt back, and pretty much cleaned out the division of potential challengers after 5 successful title defenses.

The key is how we response to get our asses kicked. We can either go into a downward spiral, or we can took the lessons from it, learn from them, and come back stronger than ever. So, where does this ass kicking put us Synergy guys into? Being what we are, we got that fire back! We want to regain our dominance in our own event. Hell! Some of the guys wanted to go overseas and compete overseas, and some will travel to Bali more often and plan weekend bootcamps with Niko – an idea which previously labeled as not cost-efficient last year.

So, let me ask you this again? Is it all that bad in getting our asses kicked? Definitely not! We need them to remind us to keep improving, and get us out of the comfort zone. The question is, are we able to keep that spirit of improving and not moving back into the comfort zone? Only time will tell, and I do strongly hope we don’t sit back and spiral downward into the comfort zone again.

The arts of MMA

I had a student once asked me why many BJJ guys took muay thai classes for their standup skills. To answer that question, I believe this article from Kenny Florian's website answers the question perfectly:

http://kennyflorian.com/the-arts-of-mma/


Enjoy!

Striking - an essential part of BJJ

After all the pre-fight trash talking from James “Lights Out” Toney’s and match against the old man Randy Couture, we’ve seen how Toney lived up his nickname during his fight on UFC 118, by getting close to “lights out” himself via Randy’s side choke in 3:19 into round 1 after taken down to the ground in less than 20 seconds. Trash talking James Toney aside, we’ve seen how striking is practically useless without the element of ground fighting in the world of MMA, which I believe to be the closest to the real world situation.

Now, let’s turn the tables around – how effective is BJJ without learning the striking element? True, most fights end up on the ground, but how many fights start on the ground? Close to none, I say (for exceptions, click here). Most fights will start when one of the parties start throwing strike(s), be it be headbutts, haymakers, elbows, while the clinch, takedown, and ground fighting happens after the initial strike.

Having said that, we need to know how to avoid and/or counter these strikes, and in order to properly do so, we need to learn how to strike properly and learn how strikers think. Without them, grappling art will be watered down into another sport and become useless in real life situations where we can face limitless possibilities.

The aspect of incorporating striking into grappling arts is the pressure that a grappler will face when facing a striker. The same as pure strikers will feel like fish out of the water once taken down to the ground, pure grapplers are not accustomed in taking hits and get disoriented easily when hit, forget the techniques, and open themselves up for a combo. I remember my first MMA fight in MMA Showdown 1 (click here for videos), and I remember getting so disoriented with Ivan’s punches raining down on me while I tried so hard trying to get him to the ground despite doing 6 years of BJJ at the time of the fight. I even got disoriented so much that I can’t even do technical standup properly.

However, implying striking into grappling does not necessarily mean transitioning from a grappler into other type of fighters. It simply adds another dimension of practicality into your grappling game. A prime example is Demian Maia on his fight on UFC 118 against Mario Miranda. He uses his striking to setup takedown and submissions instead of becoming another Anderson Silva and trying to look for a KO punch on Mario Miranda.

To conclude – striking is an essential part of as it introduces you into other aspects of self defense which are not met by simply grappling on competition mats, and these aspects are crucial in keeping BJJ effective where it really counts.

Why you should NOT afraid to compete

I stumbled across this interesting chart from Jacky Riawan’s facebook page:


Provided that you keep your mind open about why you lose, this chart is very true from my experience. When you win, your gameplans, your techniques, etc. tend to go your way, and there are lesser things to learn from it. On the other hand, when you lose, it’s easy to point out what went wrong, especially when you lose badly, since you tend to have your opponent point those weaknesses to you, and these tend to be the weaknesses that you don’t realize during training.

Take my game against Roy Hermawan last year in ISC:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4yaKeLvjI9M


I’m too notorious on pulling guard on people, and I believe Roy knows this. Now, what I notice is that Roy prevents me from taking any of the guard positions, holding me in an “inbetween” positions – one leg in butterfly, one leg above his hips. From this position, he prevents me from getting him into my playing field and set me up on one submission that I have not focused on – heel hooks.

Now this simple loss opens up my weaknesses within less than 2 minutes, and as much as I hate to lose, I left the competition with lots of insights to improve my game. So, think positively! Join tournaments and open mats! Whenever you’re afraid to compete for being afraid to lose in front of public, think of losing as having someone point out the weaknesses to your game and give you directions on where to improve – meaning that the more competition you join, the more opportunity to have your weakness pointed out to work on and improve.

So, get out there and start competing in tournaments!

Whatever works!

Following my chat with Niko and his blog post, he emphasised the importance of the basic principle that it has to count where it should be - to defend yourself. Coming from this, I do think that to achieve that goal, you need to do whatever works best for you on that very moment, meaning that:
1.) What works well for one person might not be as effective when applied by others.
2.) The same principle can be seen from different angles.

Rather than spending so much time on making a writeup, I find that Frank Mir said it very well on this video. ENJOY!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_46WInJ1LE

Injuries - take it positively :)

A few weeks ago, I sprained the muscle under my floating ribs during a morning sparring session with a heavyweight. Many would advice to take some time off until it’s completely healed, and while that happens your game deteriorates. I tend to take this rather differently and start training light when they are healed sufficiently, not necessarily a complete recovery, for a number of reasons.

First of all is that I find that injuries tend to heal longer when you put it into a complete rest. However, putting excessive pressure on the injured area may prove to hinder your healing process, so you have to be really sensible when doing this.

Secondly, being sensible meaning that you have to avoid certain positions while injured, I simply train early and avoid the injured area, which most of the time are the areas which I have not been worked on for awhile. Take for example, when I injured my foot right before Java Submission 07, I was working my top game. After fiddling on different gameplans, I find that the most effective way to play with an injured foot was to pull guard, which then later further improved my bottom game. Now, the opposite happened when I injured my torso. Any pressure from being on the bottom would force me to tap out, therefore, I was forced to work on my top game and avoid getting to bottom position at all costs.

Of course, I need to underline the importance of being “sensible”, which includes:
Telling your training partners to be considerate on your injuries if you decide to do so;
Be extra careful with spinal injuries. I personally avoid training hard with those injuries;
And again, TAP EARLY! You’re injured already, if it gets re-injured, it will put you out of commission for even longer.

So, as a closing note, remember what Niko Han told me: “BJJ is like surfing - you take whatever mother nature (ie: situation) given to you and use them.” The situation can also be interpreted as the injuries and any limitation that your body has, but as a BJJ practitioner, most of the time, there are ways to play around them and help you improve.

The Gracie Way - by Niko han

Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu imitates nature, by imitating animal’s movements when they fight, rather than imitating how they act, which many of the traditional eastern martial arts tend to do. BJJ always tries to find the most effective and efficient way to defeat the larger and more powerful attack, always using the path of least resistance.

What typically happens with most of the bigger and stronger guys, because they are stronger than all the other students, they end up out powering their training partners and therefore never learn how to utilize correct technique. This is the reason why these students have to be forced and force themselves to use technique over power in order to learn the Gentle Art.

The most effective way to make sure a student utilizes correct technique is to wear the gi. The reason for this is because the gi does not allow you to power out of positions and submissions, therefore the student is forced to use technique over power. It’s the only way to learn BJJ the correct way.

When it comes to making space, you need to bridge into the area that you are trying to create the space before you shrimp, whether its escaping or defending a position or submission, then immediately push off your opponent in order to shrimp and escape your hips out, while you are defending submissions and maintaining position. By bridging and shrimping your hips, bouncing them back and forth, you will be able to create enough space to escape to a neutral position, such as the closed guard or back up to your feet, or sweep, submit or stand back up, always trying to utilize the opponent's energy to your advantage.

Bram's note: Special thanks to Niko Han for allowing me to post this on my blog.

Checking Ego by the Door - Part Deux

Two things that I noticed among good BJJ practicioners around me that develop fast. First, they are looking for, admit, and work on their weaknesses. Stefer, even after dominating me, often asked me on what should be improved on his game. Secondly, they are not afraid to lose.

What are the similarities between these two traits? That's right. Both of them show that they are checking their egos by the door.

The question is, how crucial is this attitude toward one's progress on one's game? The answer is paramount.

Working on your weakness meaning that you are prepared to lose in order to work on your weakness - a step back to sprint forward. These fellas have the courage to get out of their comfort zone of using your most effective techniques and strategy, as opposed to settling down on winning against weaker opponents.

In fact, working on your weakness creates more progress to your overall game. Imagine someone with a lousy takedown. Anyone who fought this guy would've guessed that he will pull guard to take the opponent down, making his game very predictable. Now, by simply working on 2 takedowns will make his game significantly by tripling his option, thus making his game less predictable. On the other hand polishing on strong points may have less advantages over the same amount of period - people will know you'll after those positions and will try not to get to your setups, thus eliminating element of surprises, as well as lesser increment to your overall game.

So, check your ego by the door during training. forget about winning the sparring sessions, as the objective is "training" not "winning". You don't want to win small skirmishes - you want to win where it counts - on the streets and on the tournaments.

Priorities in BJJ

I chatted with Niko Han last week, and he reminded me one of the main principles of BJJ:

Priority#1 is to defend submissions.
Priority#2 is to escape bad positions.
Priority#3 is to maintain positions.
Priority#4 is to improve position in order to get a submission. You can go for priority#4, as long as priority#1-3 are always in-check

Why are these so important? Let me elaborate more:
1.) Attempting to escape bad position without defending submission will lead you to a submission. In fact, such reactions are used by BJJ practicioners as a setup for a submission.
2.) Further down you are on the hierarchy of positions (See: http://bjjvoice.blogspot.com/2009/01/hierarchy-of-positions.html), the more you have to defend as your opponent have more options to attack, so you'll need to escape bad position in order to minimise their offensive options.
3.) If you can't maintain position, you'll get swept back to bad positions, thus unable to attempt any offensive to your opponent.
4.) Again - the higher you are on the hierarchy of positions, the lesser options your opponent have for escape, and the more options you have to submit your opponent. Note that maintaining position has higher priority compared to submission, as submission attempts often provide room for escapes / reversals. Therefore, unless you're so sure that the submission is sunk deep, abort the submission and defend your position.

Big Congrats!

First of all, the long overdue entry:

BIG Congrats to Taji for winning second place on the team championship on the Police Force Judo Competition, armbarring 3 opponents along the way.

And for that, he got his long overdue 3 stripes. :) Congratulations to Taji.

But others are not left out.

Congrats to Louisa Rahardjo, Agung Wicaksono, and Madia Gunawan. Louisa is awarded 2 stripes, while Agung, and Madia is awarded 3 stripes on their white belts. Congratulations!

Agung sez.... Supersize Me

Madia and Louisa


The last but not the least, the good ol' traditional belting ceremony!

Rest Assured all graded members are belted equally, not only Taji

To all: A BIG CONGRATULATIONS!

Rules of Engagement on the Street

Rules of engagement on the street

We all learn martial arts for many reasons, but for many, it began as a method of self-defense, to protect themselves as well as their loved one, and I believe that during the course of our martial arts journey, there we encounter a number of unfortunate circumstances where we use what we have learnt, which is more commonly known as “street applications” or “self defense”.

While the street is perceived as a place with “no rules”, you must keep in mind that that is not the fact – there are rules of engagement you should follow to avoid trouble with the law, which in Indonesia carries a maximum sentence of 5 years (article 351 of KUHP). So, generally speaking, what do we need to do to avoid prosecutions on “street situations”?

1.) Establish effort to avoid confrontation and/or diffuse situation
One of my instructors said that people in the rights minds would not come into confrontation. Unfortunately, life is full of ups and downs, and we may be provoked into not being in the right state of mind, and these are the times where we tend to engage in these unnecessary confrontations.

Now, keeping our minds in the right state is a difficult task by itself, not to mention when provoked, but unfortunately provocation does not validate a violent reaction under the law, as it does not constitute effort to diffuse the situation, and the true challenge of all is to stay calm and diffuse the situation even when provoked. More often than not, the confrontation ends at this stage unless both sides have no intention to diffuse the situation.

2.) Do not pose verbal threat
Now, comes a stage where it cannot be diffused, and you may spontaneously pose a verbal threat. From practical point of view, a verbal threat will only worsens the situation and provoke your opponent. From a legal standpoint, blurting a verbal threat, although unintentional, will weaken your position in the court of law, as it shows that you are no longer trying to diffuse the situation but ready to inflict damage to your opponent.

3.) Respond in accordance with “generally accepted” perceived threat
Now, this may be rather complicated. The more you know about self defense, the more you know about the angles which you are threatened, at more ranges of distance. On the other hand, the generally accepted notion is that skilled martial artist practice restrain (which is partly true) toward all threats, as if martial artists are all the kung-fu masters from the comic books, able to detect killer instincts from a mile away. Therefore, keep this notion of perceived threat to the general public’s perception to avoid problem with the law.

4.) Avoid Women at all costs
Related to no.3, women are perceived to pose close to zero threat, especially in eastern cultures. Take for example – a female friend of mine, about 165 cm and 55-ish kg, provoked by a bajaj (pedicab) driver, engaged into a confrontation and gave a front kick straight at his solar plexus and threw him back. Nobody had problems with that. However, it will be a totally different case if I counter a bitch-slap with a simple wristlock. So, avoid them, swallow their bickering, and don’t get provoked. You WILL get into trouble if you do. Some women from my experience in fact provokes such situation, risks getting a light bruise in order to have court and/or mob’s sympathy. In addition, always remember that you’ll always have a chance of encountering a pregnant woman, and the earlier stages (which you can barely see) tend to pose the higher risk for the mother.

5.) Do not enter into “hunter and prey” mindset
Once you’re engaged in confrontations, more often than not you will enter into “hunter and prey” mentality, where your mind is focused on hunting your opponent, whoever that may be. When this happens, people tend to switch their mindset from “to survive” to “maiming the opponent”. Once you enter into this state of mind, it will definitely weakens your position in defending your case, as you are prone to respond in excess of the perceived threat.

6.) Do not get into trouble with the security
Simple rule of thumb – security, no matter how stupid or provoking they are (often happen), are always favoured by the law at the first glance. Yes, they might be stupid, they might be provocative, they might be a bunch of meatheads looking for excuse to make their day, but just let them go. Even if you think you’re right and you’re only acting on self defense (think about Overeem brothers’ nightclub incident), you’ll have more than double the trouble just trying to prove they’re being wronged.

7.) When you’re in trouble, avoid disclosing your martial arts training
Coming back to number 3, general public believes that training allows you to have restrain, and you will definitely weaken your position if you know this. I’m not saying to lie, but we have zillions of styles out there, from mainstream “kung-fu” to a relatively unknown one like “Jo Son Do” in UFC 3. Hell, even boxing and wrestling are quite grey when defined as “martial arts”, and people need to be specific when asking.

At this point, you may realize that acting in accordance with the law while in conflict situation can be a very difficult situation to handle, therefore it is cheaper to pay your insurance and take insults as opposed to dealing with law. In addition, always remember that “self defense” means survival – getting out in one piece, not making sure the other person does not get out in one piece; and the more you dwell into a conflict, the lesser your chances are of getting out in one piece.
Finally, always remember that in Indonesia, mob rules. Check out this confession from Urijah Faber, who is one of the top MMA Bantamweights in the world. Even he can get into trouble with the Mob. :)