Stockpile Your Weapons

For every MMA fighter, improving your all-around game is crucial to your success and longevity in the sport.

You should always work on improving your striking by adding as many new weapons as possible. And, by new weapons, I mean new combinations and new set-ups and adding KO power to as many strikes as possible.

You should always work on improving your wrestling by adding as many new weapons as possible. And, by new weapons, I mean new combinations and new set-ups and adding takedown power to as many takedowns as possible.

You should always work on improving your jiu-jitsu by adding as many new weapons as possible. And, by new weapons, I mean passes, sweeps, and submissions.

Adding new weapons to any of these three aspects of fighting is achieved exactly the same way—practice, practice, practice… drill, drill, drill. Repeating the techniques thousands of times leads directly to mastery, and if you want to be a successful fi ghter, you need to master as many techniques as possible. One-dimensional fighters never last. I don’t want to name any names, but you know who I’m talking about. Three-dimensional fi ghters are slowly becoming the norm, so you want to go beyond that—drill like a mad man, stockpile as many weapons as possible, and become the fourdimensional fighter of the future.

When it comes to jiu-jitsu, stockpiling weapons is simple. Study all the top no-gi jiu-jitsu submission masters and steal all their best material, including: Marcelo Garcia’s guillotine choke and rear naked choke; Andre Galvoa’s rolling kimura; Minotauro’s anaconda choke; Paul Sass’ triangle; Renzo Gracie’s arm-in-guillotine; Jean Jacques Machado’s sweeps; Rousimar Palhares’ heel hooks; Vinny Maghalhaes’ entire guard; George Sotiropoulos’ kimura; “The Korean Zombie” Jung Chan-Sung’s twister; Royler Gracie’s ankle lock; Shinya Aoki’s Japanese neck tie and rear neck cranks; Jeff Monson’s north-south choke; and Ronda Rousey’s armbar—and that’s just to name a few.

If you don’t have these techniques in your game, get on it, and start putting in the extra reps. Each weapon should only take about six months to master if—and only IF—you put in at least one hour a week of solid drilling.

Very few MMA fighters are putting in the time necessary to be successful in all facets of the MMA game. For jiu-jitsu training, many MMA fi ghters just put on MMA gloves and roll with light punches. Very few fi ghters are actively and consciously stockpiling weapons at this moment, believing that there is simply no extra time to add an hour per week for drilling new submissions. However, get the edge while you still can, and MAKE THE TIME. You can become known as a submission wizard in the MMA world by mastering and stockpiling as many weapons as possible.

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