Back to Competition!

Hey everyone, hope you guys are doing great! The year is really starting to kick off for myself. This weekend I will be heading to Texas to compete at the Houston International Open tournament, held by the ibjjf. I will be taking a stacked team of 25 guys with me and I'm very excited to put on a strong performance. I am so happy to have so many of my guys competing alongside with me, it gives me a lot of strength and motivation. I will give you guys the details of the tournament when I get back.

Yesterday I did an interview with Scott Wallace for scottonthenet.com. We talked about a lot of things regarding this year and my preparations for competition, be sure to check it out here. Thanks Scott!

Also, I thought I would do something fun for you guys. You all know that I compete very regularly, but most of you probably have only seen me compete as a black or brown belt. Well, since we are starting a new decade this year, I thought I would show you guys a video of one of my Pan Am matches from 10 years ago. I have competed at every Pan Ams since 1999, making this year my 12th Pan American competition in a row. In 1999 I was 15 years old and I competed in the juvenile division. I lost my first match, but I learned a lot. In 2000, I came back very hungry and I won the gold medal in the blue belt juvenile division. It was my first gold medal at a confederation tournament and it was a day I will never forget. I was so happy! With this years Pan Ams coming up right around the corner, I thought I would give you guys a glimpse of what my jiu-jitsu looked like 10 years ago at the 2000 Pan Ams, when I was 16 years old. Here is video of my semi-final match

You can see some things in the video that I still like to do, especially the Kimura. You can see that I made a ton of mistakes too, but that is normal for blue belts. The goal is to just keep improving one day at a time and give it everything you got and you never know what the future holds for you!

My Favorite Supplement!

Around this time of the year, my training regimen starts to get very intense and of course my body feels it. Fortunately for me, I have an awesome supplement sponsor (Nutrient Technology) that produces an amazing, post workout recovery shake along with some other great products. Anywhere I go you will see me with this shake in my hand after a training session. It contains the perfect blend of protein, carbohydrates, amino acids, vitamins, and glucosamine your body needs after an intense training session. On top of all that, it tastes really good! A couple of weeks ago when I was in San Diego, I forgot to pack my shakes and I was missing them so bad, that I had my fiance send me some from home. Sorry for sounding like a commercial, but I've had a few people ask me about what supplements I like to take lately and I thought I would share with all of you. You can get more information or make an order by clicking the link above.

San Diego Training

Hey guys, hope you all are doing well. I'm here in San Diego right now doing some training and getting the calendar set for the year. I'm training some Jiu-Jitsu and MMA with Saulo & Xande and the crew at the University of Jiu-Jitsu and the Arena, having a great time. Xande should be fighting within the next couple of months, although nothing is official yet, his training is picking up and he has a lot of great people to work with out here. I'm very excited for another year of BJJ tournaments and I plan on making my MMA debut sometime during the second half of the year. I'm still adjusting to the speed and aggressiveness of MMA, but I'm really liking it and I think I can take some things from MMA to help my jiu-jitsu game. Xande and I have trained with each other for years now, but we are just now starting to throw punches at each other. It is still a little weird, but we are having fun. Here is a pic of our training last Friday.

Talk to you soon.

There is no winning in training!

Today I want to talk a little bit about what kind of mindset you should have with your training. The main idea that I want to stress is "There is no winning or losing in training." Too many times I see people hold themselves back technically, because of their inability to let go of the idea that they have to tap their training partner out every time they train. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that you shouldn't try to catch your partner in a submission, that is the essence of jiu-jitsu, what I'm saying is, don't make that all that you are trying to accomplish. If that is the only thing on your mind when you are training, then you are probably not trying new things or opening your game up with certain people, because you don't want to give them the opportunity to do well with you. That sort of mindset could even cause you not to train with some people to begin with because you are too concerned with whether or not you will be able to tap them or you don't want to get tapped out by them.

Forget about all of those things and remember the mat is your laboratory and your training partners are your biggest assets. Remember that tapping is a part of learning and even the best black belts in the world were white belts once. Learn to appreciate having training partners that can tap you out and help make you better. Ask questions and try to understand what they are catching you with or what areas you need to improve on. There is probably someone at your school that is around the same rank, that you go back and forth with and have really good battles with. Never run away from this person or get frustrated when it is their day and not yours. That person in some ways is the most valuable person you have, because they provide the mental challenge you need in your training.

Another point I would like to make is to be sure you are opening your game up and working on different aspects. I'm not really talking about changing your game, I'm not asking you to play spider guard even though you are a half guard person. What I mean is to play different with different people. For instance, if you have a very good guard and you can sweep everybody and transition straight into a pass, then there are some things you might not be developing. Start inside of someone else's guard and work your passing more. Go outside of your comfort zone sometimes and play into other people's strengths or focus on your weak areas. If you are training with a really good closed guard person, let them close the guard on you sometimes, or if someone has really good passing, try to play open guard on them, etc... This is particularly important whenever you are one of the highest ranking people on the mat. In those scenarios it is pretty easy to hold yourself back and you have to be extra sure you are training properly to insure improvement.

There are many more things I could add when it comes to getting the most out of your training. I have lived in Oklahoma since I started training jiu-jitsu and I never had a resident black belt here to teach me and make sure I was training properly, so I feel that I have a lot of knowledge on this subject. In the future I plan on talking more about this and sharing with you other training strategies that can help tremendously with competition and improving your game.

My Work-Out Routine

I'm starting to get back into my routine of conditioning, weights, and hard training and I've had a lot of people ask me about my work-out routines, so I wanted to share with everyone what my week has been like so far. First thing I want to mention, is that my work outs and routines can change week by week depending on my schedule, how my body feels, or what sounds fun. I love to mix up my work outs a lot to keep my body guessing and to get bigger gains. As you all know I compete in BJJ & Submission Wrestling, and I will be making my MMA debut later this year. There are a lot of elements within these sports to train, so that is why my training can vary week by week.

Generally, Monday - Thursday I train very hard, usually getting two work-outs in per day. Friday is a light day focusing on technique, Saturday is very hard, and Sunday is an off-day. This past Monday, I did conditioning in the afternoon and trained BJJ at night. My conditioning routine consisted of 10 stations with 50 seconds at each station. I did two rounds with a two minute rest in between. The stations were rope flutter, medicine ball throw, gi pull-ups, jump rope, bur pees with 45 lb plate, heavy bag tosses, kettle bell swings, penetration shots, sprawls, and crunches. So I did about 20 minutes of work and then I finished off with about 5-10 minutes of core work.

Tuesday, I lifted weights in the afternoon and trained BJJ at night. I don't really have a specific weight lifting routine. I like to work total body and I don't lift more than twice in one week. My favorite exercises are cleans, squats, flat bench with dumbbells, upright bench with dumbbells, weighted pull-ups, and rows. I will never go to the gym and not do these exercises. Usually I will do one light set as a warm up and then 4 hard sets in a pyramid form (increasing weight and decreasing reps.) I will do other things at the gym too, like shoulders, forearms, and abs, but I work those areas more on a supplemental basis.

Wednesday was pretty much exactly like Monday. I did conditioning in the afternoon and trained BJJ at night. My BJJ training will consist of a lot of rounds of sparring, drilling techniques and takedowns, specific training, and grip fighting. It can be hard for me to get rounds of training with high level BJJ competitors here in Oklahoma, but I do have a lot of very tough students, and the nice thing is, I get to customize my training and use them however I like. I take full advantage of this.

Today is Thursday and because it is still early in the year and I'm not back in full competition shape yet, I took it easy during the day to let my body get some rest. I am about to head to the academy and do a lot of wrestling and no-gi training tonight. Tomorrow, I am going to train some Muay Thai and do some light BJJ technique training afterwards. Saturday, I will do more competition style BJJ training and hit it pretty hard.

Like I said, my work-outs can change a lot. As I get in better shape, I will keep making my work-outs a little harder. I will focus on different things at different times. For the BJJ tournaments, I might focus a lot on Judo training and strengthening my grips. For the no-gi tournaments, I will train a lot of wrestling. I might do kettle bells instead of weights one week, or do a completely different conditioning routine one week to the next, it never gets old to me. We have a row machine at my academy that I like to use a lot too. Sometimes I will use the row machine or other conditioning routines to tire me out right before I start training. Basically, I try to do whatever it takes turn myself into a machine.

Here is a little tip on recovery. Almost every night, I will spend a good 30 minutes to an hour stretching and working out sore areas. I have a foam roller that I will use for my back, hips, and legs, and a tennis ball that I will use for my hips and knots in my back and shoulders. This is a great way to wake up the next day and have a little more energy to put into your work-outs. I think flexibility is extremely important and often times overlooked. Don't skip out on stretching every night!

Competition

Competing is a great way to help speed up your BJJ learning process and also learn a lot about yourself. Some of you may be very driven competitors who have big competition goals to accomplish this year. Some of you may be BJJ hobbyist who compete for fun on occasion. Some of you may have never competed before and plan to this year or some of you may not have any plans of competing at all. I want to take this opportunity to tell you why I feel competition is important and how it can benefit you.

First, when you make the decision to compete at a tournament, this will most likely have a positive effect in your training immediately. You will probably come to class more often and train a little harder to prepare for the competition. Also, you will be forced to evaluate your game and work on fixing some holes, something that many don't do often enough. All in all, you will be much more focused and driven during your training which will definitely lead to bigger gains.

Once the competition is over, win or lose, you should have more evidence on where you can improve, whether it is technically, mentally, physically, or all three combined. The next step is to get back to training and start working on those weak areas. You should always try to ask your instructor or other higher ranking students who watched you compete "What could I have done better?" Some people who don't compete may train regularly and never really work on their weak areas, because they are better than everyone else they train with or because of an ego issue. This could mean they are the best in the academy or they have a good way about only training with lower ranking students and smashing them, either way they are holding themselves back by not identifying where they are weak and working on it.

Lastly, competition is a mental challenge. You really learn a lot about yourself when your out there and everyone is watching you. Because of the many different things that can happen during a match, you can learn how you deal with a lot of different scenarios such as:

1) How you handle pressure and nerves?

2) Can you come back from a deficit?

3) How you deal with failure?

4) Do you lose your concentration?

5) How much do you believe in yourself?

6) Can you become arrogant?

These are just a few of the things you could learn about yourself. You may not like what you find out, but you can always improve. Just like training your BJJ technique, you should be training your mind as well. Each time you compete, you should be getting mentally stronger along with improving technically. I think that the more you know about yourself, the better person you can become. Competing can help you deal with many of life's challenges with much more ease and comfort, such as a stressful job, a physical altercation, or accomplishing a life goal. I can tell you from personal experience that competing has taught me a lot about myself and I wouldn't be where I am today if I didn't have that deep down urge to go out there and test myself!

Check it out!

I did an interview this week with Grappling Radio about my team's success at the Grapplers Quest. Feel free to check it out here.