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This Sunday, March 14^th, I’ll  be teaching a Submission Wrestling (no-gi) workshop at Joslin’s MMA. I’m excited about this one as it will focus on “Sneaky Attacks”.

Come on out to learn some of my most sneaky submissions and techniques including 3 ways to tap your opponent out in less than 3 seconds! Always fun to do I must say.

The workshop is being held at Joslin’s MMA (436 Concessions Street, Hamilton) from 1pm-3pm on Sunday, March 14, 2010. Come a little early, warm-up on your own and we’ll jump right into 2 solid hours of technical practice.

Perfect for students of all levels, this workshop will leave your training partners shocked and surprised next time you roll with them.

It’s going to be a fun one to teach!

To sign up or for info on this and many other of my workshops CLICK HERE

See you on the mats!

Today was my first day back teaching self defense/martial arts at the high schools in Hamilton, Ontario. It’s always great fun to work with the students and they seem to enjoy changing up their regular routine for a few days.

I started the high school self defense program almost 14 years ago after one of my teachers asked me, a few years after graduating, to come back and teach martial arts to a few of his classes. Over time the program has evolved a lot and now I’m pretty busy running it all.

I have a few hours off now before teaching an MMA class at Joslin’s MMA tonight…

A large group of students came out to the X-Guard workshop I taught yesterday afternoon. I’m looking forward to hear how the techniques worked out for them in their rolling this week. It’s always nice to get a few hours of drilling techniques and then putting it to use in sparring as soon as possible.

I ended up covering nearly everything I had hoped to at the workshop.

1. Basic X-guard entry and control
2. Two sweeps from the x-guard
3. Two x-guard entries from standing
5. Two x-guard entries from the guard
5. One mount escape into the x-guard
6. One back escape into the x-guard
7. One way to pass the x-guard

Next workshop will be taking place this coming Sunday. I’ll be focusing on one of my favourite aspects of striking, head movement. Learn how to slip and evade punches and fire back with some devastating combinations.

For more info on the head movement workshop or other upcoming workshops CLICK HERE.

We had a great Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu class today, well actually 2 classes, one beginner and one advanced.

In the morning I had the beginners work on some mount escapes and taught them how to avoid and defend the “cheap shot” type of punch that commonly happens in the street, at school, at the bar and many other places.

For the advanced class we focused on back control and how to properly choke your opponent when they are in a spot from which  they can easily defend the common collar chokes.

After the technique drilling we rolled for five 8 minute rounds alternating partners for each.

Man, I’ve been having so much fun rolling with the gi as much as I am. I really don’t think no-gi grappling compares to training with the gi. In no-gi training I find myself always doing the same set of movements and although they work well for me, it feels way too repetitive from time to time.

Gi grappling, on the other hand allows me to play so many different styles of jiu-jitsu; I use the spider guard, the x-guard, butterfly guard and several other styles of guard on the bottom and when it comes to passing the guard and submitting my opponent the options are almost endless.

A lot of fans watch the sport of  MMA fighting, where fighters do not wear the gi and come to the conclusion that wearing one is not an important part of training. I strongly disagree! It’s been my experience in Gi competitions and in training while wearing that traditional Japanese garment over many years that has honed my ground fighting skill set.

Also, an extremely high percentage of the ground fighters that have been successful in both MMA and submission wrestling –where fighters only wear short and a tshirt/rashguard– come from a traditional grappling background having done most of their training with their gis on.

Up next…An X-guard workshop tomorrow afternoon…with the gi.

I will be running a March Break Camp at Joslin’s MMA in Hamilton for children ages 6-14. Martial arts training, games, contests, bowling and movie trips and much more…

For more info CLICK HERE.

Early Friday morning I’m heading out to St John’s, Newfoundland to teach a 2 day seminar at Bushido MMA. Great people, great training facility and great city…I’m looking forward to it all.

I’ll try to post some updates and maybe even some pictures and video of my time there.

Have a great weekend everyone!

I just posted the 5th video in the MMA Guard pass series. I had a lot of fun filming them and I hope the videos helped you out in your training.

I was at a BJJ tournament in Toronto today and one of my friends in the BJJ community came up and told me that the movements in the video series were really helping him in his training. I thought that was pretty cool and it definitely motivated me to continue to put up new content.

Anyways, here’s the goods! ==> Guard Pass #5

Many people have emailed me asking where they can find a copy of my UFC Fight Night matchup vs. Josh Koscheck. It’s a very tough fight to find on the internet and the UFC doesn’t have it available for purchase on the on-demand page.

I just found out that the match is being broadcast on Spike TV again.

For any of those that were looking to see it again or for the first time, I believe the card is being shown at 7pm on Friday, January 29th (tomorrow). It may however been on tonight (Thurs) too as the UFC has it listed as such on their site. The main event match-up on that card was Diego Sanchez vs. Joe Riggs. Koscheck and I fought in the fight just before that one.

Enjoy!

We had a great training session last night in MMA class. Working mostly on the double leg take down and a few different setups for it, everyone did very well. After class a few of us spent a little extra time focusing on other take downs and submission wrestling.

First up tonight is beginner Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu followed by an advanced BJJ session –where I’m going to teach a few submission from the guard overhook position– and then a kickboxing class to close the night.

I’ll be putting out a new MMA instructional product soon and would love to hear your ideas as to what type of stuff interests you.

Time to head to the gym!

Happy New Year!

I want to wish everyone good health and much success in 2010.

Thanks to everyone for your support and frequent visits to my blog and thanks to all the members of the Fight Crew. It’s all of you who motivate me to write more, create  more videos, and continue to share MMA related content here on the blog. I’m really excited about the fun stuff I’ve got setup for 2010.

Train hard, train smart, and most importantly have fun!