MMA (Mixed Martial Arts) is almost like chess, with the ring or mat your chessboard and your repertoire of moves being the chess pieces.
Each move or hold has its advantages and disadvantages. The important part is to stay in control as one mistake might be the end of your match.
It is also extremely important to have a solid base when fighting an opponent. Know when to take the upper hand and be decisive. Never give your opponent the chance to escape a hold as that tight grip may just be used against you.
To sum it up, you have to think and stay alert. There is a counter for each move and sometimes four or more attacking holds in some positions. The more you know the better your chance of survival. I barely survived my first grappling session as I got schooled by my more experienced opponents.
That’s how I have experienced it thus far, after BJJ (Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu) training on the first day.
Determination to succeed and will to power on was my motto for day two. That’s how I changed my mindset after a rather exhausting first day. I was ready for second day.
Today myself and Lourens started with strength training in the gym. It was a much slower pace with technique and form being of utmost priority.
According to Lourens the main goal of strength training is to be confident and to know your limits.
“It should never be a competition to see if you can lift more than another guy. It’s all about what is best for you and challenging yourself without hurting yourself,” he said.
I used that advice and stuck it out with Lourens (I had a lot less weight as I could easily pick up an injury with incorrect form) and did a number of dead lifts, pull-ups and bench presses.
Evening training at Rio Grappling is always a fascinating experience among the mats, gloves and punching bags. You know that you are on a training ground. No pain no gain, is what comes to mind.
We start off with some stretching to get the limbs loose as well as dabbling in some general MMA talk. After that it was down to business. We started with star jumps, push-ups, squats and other related exercises to work up a sweat.
Next, we focus on some bag work. The main idea is to get a sparring partner to hold the punching bag while you execute a number of combinations on the bag. This included jabs, hooks, straight punches as well as kicks en knee-shots.
It is important to wear gloves when practicing punches as it protects your knuckles from chaffing. You do not want your knuckles looking like it had an encounter with a steel brush. Ouch!
I suspect that my arms are going to be extremely stiff after tonight. I am not used to throwing punches and hitting punching bags, but rather hitting some serious newspaper deadlines.
Today I also learned one important lesson. Never underestimate the physical exhaustion that a burpee can bring about.
But for now I have ran out of breath and words.
