Home» Posts tagged "MMA"

Stay Thirsty My Friends – Jiu-jitsu training post black belt

Posted on June 16, 2014 by fighter in BJJ

At the end of this year I’ll celebrate my 15^th year in Brazilian Jiu-jitsu and my 4^th year as a black belt. One of the most satisfying things I’ve experienced over the past few years has been watching my longtime friends and training partners earn their black belts. The journey to faixa preta is arduous and many are lost along the way, seeing a friend cross the black belt finish line is a special thing to witness. As I’ve witnessed the graduation of many long time mat rats I have also seen a less encouraging phenomena spreading throughout the ranks of more senior black belts – a dire case of BJJ apathy.

Yes, sadly I witnessed a great many jiu-jitsu instructors completely lose their passion for the art. Some of them quit the art entirely; others are financially obliged to teach so they punch a time clock and go through the motions with the same enthusiasm you might expect out from an overworked busboy.

I first encountered this sad state of affairs as a blue belt. One of my instructors had gone on vacation for 2 weeks. Upon his arrival everyone was eager to hear about the details of his trip, one student asked if he did any training while he was away. I’ll never forget his response, “Do you go to work on your vacation? Jiu-jitsu is a hobby for you guys, but for me it’s my job”. His tone was so caustic, as if the concept of jiu-jitsu for pure enjoyment was completely ridiculous. I swore that I would never allow that to be my attitude. To this day I’ve never taken a vacation that did not include training, even if it meant rolling on the carpet in my hotel room.

Typically this feeling of indifference does not occur overnight. Generally, there are a few predictable phases that someone goes through before reaching this sour state of affairs. It usually starts with an injury of some sort, often times a fairly serious one. The black belt has a prolonged period away from the mat where they develop an interest in other hobbies that more strongly capture their enthusiasm. There are black belts I used to learn from and train with regularly that now lack the energy (or desire) to roll with me, but if I take them to a shooting range they suddenly have the exuberance of a kid on Christmas morning. I dabble in a few interests off the mat, but I never allow myself to get too heavily invested in them. I want my passion to remain teaching and practicing martial arts – period.

Even if the injury bug does not steer them to another hobby it can induce BJJ apathy in other ways. Many black belts use competition as a major driving force in their training. The thrill of the fight drives them to push through hard training sessions and keep coming back for more. However, injuries can make competition too risky or rob them of their once great athletic abilities making competitive endeavors a source of disappointment rather than excitement. Another side effect of injuries, especially when combined with age, is that these proud black belts begin to get tapped out. Getting tapped is something everyone must reconcile early in their BJJ career. At white through purple tapping is so common it can induce carpal tunnel syndrome, but brown and black belt is a special time. You become one of the alphas and tapping out becomes a thing of the past, instead you hand out submissions like they’re going out of style. An injury can send a black belt back in time, replacing their feeling of invincibility with a sense of inadequacy. As a result the black belt stops rolling with their peers, reserving their mat time for students only. Eventually they avoid their senior students until finally they stop altogether. Part of this is a problem with BJJ culture. Many students expect that a black belt instructor will always dominate lower ranked students regardless of age or physical condition. There are undoubtedly still seasoned jiu-jitsu practitioners who would expect a 55 year old Rickson Gracie to effortlessly submit Buchecha if they met at the next Metamoris. However, the bigger dilemma exists within the black belt’s own mind. They fear their student will lose their admiration for them and head to greener pastures. Personally, I’ve tapped out many of my coaches. The ones I haven’t are those who stopped rolling with me as I climbed the ranks. My respect was never lessened for a coach I submitted; rather I was grateful that they trained me well enough to accomplish such a thing. Additionally, I recognize that the tap is not the “be all end all”. maxwell An instructor can tap and still show a student where they could improve. Rolling abstinence is a surefire way to extinguish BJJ enthusiasm. I recently heard a podcast with Steve Maxwell, now 61 years old, where he talked about how he still rolls. He might have to approach rolling with more caution and consideration, but the act keeps his desire strong.

Another pitfall that can lead a black belt to apathy is burn out. New instructors are typically excited to grow their school and produce satisfied customers. Their jubilation leads them to teach morning, afternoon, evening and weekend classes plus a healthy amount overworked of private lessons all by themselves. This marathon pace wears on them until jiu-jitsu transforms from a passion to a burden.
Their long hours provide them with no opportunity for their own personal training or avenue to expose themselves to new ideas and tactics. In their down time they feel the need to escape the pressures of their self-imposed prison sentence and retreat from the art, making it less and less of a lifestyle until they view their time on the mat as work rather than play.

So what’s a black belt to do? How can one avoid these pitfalls? Personally, I know I’ve allowed BJJ to stress me out at times. Injuries have made driven me crazy before and at times made training a chore. Competitive setbacks have dampened my training zest in the past. I’ve overloaded myself with teaching and business responsibilities in the past – for a whole year I literally lived in my gym to make the school a success, not realizing the anxiety I was inducing in the process. Here are a few things I’ve done to hit the refresh button on my BJJ experience and keep me passionate.

First I remained a student. I sought out coaches with a contagious excitement for the art. I make sure I prioritize traveling to other gyms and training as a student in a distraction free environment. I get to be selfish, I concentrate on my technique and don’t worry if the new white belt in the corner has his belt tied correctly. I also take advantage of online learning resources. Although I rarely make it out to his academy, Marcelo Garcia helps me stay current in BJJ around the clock via MG in Action. Rener and Ryron clean up my self-defense on Gracie University and Javier Vazquez teaches me new tricks on istagram. The online BJJ world has allowed me to always have an ace up my sleeve and prove that you can indeed teach an old dog new tricks.

While training away from my home mats allows me to sharpen my sword, I make sure I still get rolling in with my students and I make sure I don’t put tapping on a pedestal. When I was a purple belt you basically had to choke me unconscious or break an extremity to induce tapping. I’ve removed the pressure of not getting tapped, it will never be the most enjoyable part of my training, but I don’t allow myself to lose sleep over it. I remember the gratitude I had towards my coaches when I submitted them and realize my mats won’t be empty because I got caught in a toe hold.

The hardest, but most important decision has been not overloading myself with teaching and business stress. I hired a manager and let him handle answering the phones and filling out paper work, allowing me to focus on the big picture without getting overwhelmed. I also took the time to develop a supporting cast of instructors to help me shoulder the teaching responsibilities. Aside from a handful of exceptionally dedicated professional fighters I don’t teach private lessons. I teach about 15 classes a week and I know any more and I’ll burn out. I definitely leave some money on the table by refusing privates, but it’s a small price to pay to keep my sanity. I also make sure I create a schedule that I enjoy. I’m not a morning person so I don’t teach AM classes. Sure that might cost me a few members, but I have a smile on my face every time I walk into my school and never feel like I’m at work. If I had to drag myself to a 6 AM class it wouldn’t be long before the sight of the tatami filled me with rage.

Finally, I remember why I started BJJ and all that it’s done for me and all that it continue to do for my students. Jiu-jitsu didn’t just give me cauliflower ear and a deviated septum; it gave me the confidence to hold my head up high and the ability to look someone in the eye. Another thing that helps me is talking to people who have “real jobs”. Sure it might drive me nuts when someone steps on my mat with their shoes on or a kid starts crying because their sister got a stripe and they didn’t, but that stress pales into comparison to my police officer friend who had to fight a guy on PCP or my roommate at the MTA who had to deal with a train derailing. I remember that I essentially get paid to teach my friends cool choke holds – it’s a wonderful life.

Looking for a great place to train with passionate black belts? Check out Precision MMA in LaGrange, NY

Precision MMA

A little south of LaGrange? Be sure to check out my friends at Yonkers Jiu-Jitsu and Denville MMA

Confessions of a Weight Cutter

Posted on October 16, 2013 by fighter in martial arts

Over the last decade and a half I’ve had over 100 grappling matches, 9 pro MMA fights and a handful of boxing matches. In that time I’ve faced black belts, world champions and professional competitors from a myriad of martial arts backgrounds. However, in truth I’ve never considered myself an ideal candidate for martial arts competition. In many ways I don’t have the stomach for it. I sweat the small stuff – I obsess, stress out and far too often allow bright lights and uncertainty to overwhelm me. In times of discomfort and peril one must develop a coping mechanism or fall to pieces entirely. For me, I coped with the crucible of competition by preparing as vigorously and thoroughly as possible. I left no stone unturned, I attempted to maximize my potential for victory with regards to each and every variable. I believed if I dotted every “i” and crossed every “t” then the only plausible outcome would be a decisive victory. I often carried this approach to ridiculous reaches, occasionally flirting with absurdity. I remember when I first started preparing for MMA I had trouble acclimating to the gloves so I wore them around my apartment performing every imaginable task for two weeks straight. Often my neurotic tendencies were harmless with the worst consequence being the slings and arrows of peer ridicule. However, one area where I potentially faced severe detriment was with regards to weight cutting.

Growing up I was always the small kid. As a result I think I developed a warped body image, always seeing myself as weaker than my peers. Weight cutting offered me a solution to this dilemma. One advantage I had as a competitor was that I was always willing to inconvenience myself in order to improve. 5 AM runs for cardio, 2 hour car rides to train at the best gym, going broke buying private lessons – if I thought I’d improve by 1% then all were performed without hesitation. As a 17 year old blue belt I knew most people wouldn’t be willing to put trash bags on and run in the 90 degree heat for an hour in order to have a 6 pound weight advantage, but for me, I’d do it with an ear to ear grin on my face. So back in 2002 my weight cutting saga began. As a teenager my body was pretty resilient. My “weight cutting” routine consisted of a few weeks of crash dieting followed by hard cardio sessions in a sauna while covered in trash bags. I did every stupid thing you could imagine. I’d drive to summer tournaments in my winter coat with the windows rolled up and the heat on. In traffic jams or red lights I’d chew gum and spit into a plastic bottle. In the winter I’d occasionally sleep with the heat off and windows open since I read that shivering forced your body to burn more calories. In reality I probably wasn’t doing myself much good, but for me it was a mental hurdle. I looked at my competition and knew I was bigger than them and that was enough to allow me to compete with confidence. I was earning plastic trophies which likely appraised for less than $5, but intrinsically they were priceless. A part of me knew this wasn’t healthy. When cutting weight in high school I’d answer the most pedestrian test questions incorrectly and in training I once was so fatigued when I introduced myself to a new student I told them the wrong name (yes, I once was so loopy I forgot my own first name). We all did stupid things in high school, some people got bad tattoos, I cut too much weight.

Like anything, my weight cutting underwent a maturation process. I read a few books and took some college courses on nutrition, resulting in a more refined diet and cutting routine. I had things down to a science and was following less detrimental practices. There was one tournament where I slipped up though; using an inaccurate scale I missed weight for a pro grappling division. I was so embarrassed I swore it would NEVER happen again. I thought to myself, I would rather have both my arms broken than admit that I couldn’t make weight.

At this point all weigh-ins were the same day as the competition. However, once I was bit by the MMA bug everything changed. Now I would have a full 24-30 hours to rehydrate prior to competing. In MMA the stakes were higher as well. There was much more money on the line than in grappling and fighters were willing to make sacrifices that amateur grapplers would not. I now had to cut weight not to gain an upper hand, but to simply avoid being at a disadvantage. This was 2006, Sean Sherk and Rich Franklin held UFC titles in large part by dropping a weight class and enjoying considerable size advantages. For my first fight I sweat out 10 pounds over two days to weigh in at 155, I won the fight but kept thinking I was too small for the weight class. Eventually I was dropping close to 15 pounds the week of the fight. I finally felt like I was big enough, but at the same time my life was revolving around making weight. Friends hated going out to eat with me because I would grill the waitress on the type of cooking oil used or whether their salad dressing contained sugar. The problem became, as soon as I was big enough for the weight class I was having trouble making weight. I thought about going up to welterweight, but being 175 pounds I knew I would be at a huge disadvantage going up against guys coming down from 190 pounds. Psychologically the weight disadvantage would be too daunting.

I remember going out for the Ultimate Fighter and being reminded the shame of not making weight. We had all been paired off for our elimination bouts and Jason Guida missed weight by 1 pound. He was severely dehydrated, he was having muscle spasms, his blood pressure dangerously low and he was dry heaving and light headed. He was universally resented for his failure to make weight and in many ways his professional career never recovered. I remember thinking “that will never be me, no matter what”.

After many fights were canceled last minute I was starting to lose my desire to compete. I had resigned myself to simply being an instructor and relaxed certain aspects of my regimen, my super strict diet being one of them. Then I got an opportunity to fight in Strikeforce, but I would have to drop 25 pounds in about three weeks. Not wanting to miss out on the opportunity, I took the fight. The weight didn’t come off the way it usually did. Half way through my cut my body stopped sweating. I was sitting in a steaming hot bath covered in rubbing alcohol and Epsom salts. I was mentally and physically falling apart and still 4 pounds over. Picking myself up to check my weight felt like climbing Mount Everest. My cornerman was keeping an eye on me and felt like I had transformed into a different person. All I thought about was that I HAD to make weight. I didn’t care about the damage I was doing to my kidneys or even how detrimental the cut would be to my performance the next day, I would rather die than face the shame of missing weight.

After trying every single trick in the book I made the weight. To this day I consider it the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life. Come fight time I fought great…for the first minute of each round. Then I was so fatigued I could barely pick my hands up to block the punches to my face. I was beaten badly, covered in blood and embarrassed – but I do remember thinking “at least I made weight”.

I equated missing weight with quitting, with cheating, with being a coward. I could deal with my opponent getting the better of me, but I would never want to endure the shame of not showing up the way I had agreed to – on weight.

More recently I decided to jump into a grappling tournament, my first one in years. I was 172 pounds a few days before the competition and was planning on sweating out 12 pounds to jump in the 150-159 pound division. As I put my foot in the steaming bath I felt the familiar discomfort which flooded back memories of Strikeforce. I immediately got out of the water and began to wonder what was wrong with me. Did I suffer some sort of amnesia? This was a NAGA tournament, I wasn’t earning any prize money (in fact I was paying to compete) and still I was going to put myself through that torture. It was just part of my routine, if I didn’t shed any weight I was forced to face my pre-competition neurosis and admit the fact that someone might be a little bigger or a little stronger than me. I ate breakfast and competed in the 170-179 division. At the end of the competition I realized the need to cut weight was largely in my head. Yes a few guys had bigger biceps than me, but the consequence of competing at a higher weight class was worse in my imagination than it was in reality. I was glad that for once I valued my health above a shiny belt (fortunately I was still able to win the tournament).

Lately the issue of extreme weight cutting has been placed under the mixed martial arts microscope. Just weeks ago in just his 3^rd pro fight, Nova Uniao’s Leandro “Feijao” Souza died while cutting weight. There are reports that Souza was taking Lasix, a powerful loop diuretic used to treat edema and hypertension, in order to shed excess water weight. Souza passed out in the sauna, still 2 pounds over the 125 pound weight limit, before being taken to the hospital where he was pronounced dead. More recently, Rodrigo Damm was forced to withdraw from his UFC bout with Hacran Dias due to kidney stones associated with cutting weight. Recently, infamous UFC weight cutter Gleason Tibau revealed that despite competing in the 155 pound weight class he routinely enters the octagon at over 180 pounds.

I have friends who have passed out while sitting in a sauna. Kidney stones are most common in males over 40 years old, but I know more than a few fighters who have endured them in their 20’s. I guarantee the weight cutting problem will get worse before it gets better. Pundits, gurus and experts have all suggested solutions to the problem. Recommendations have ranged from additional weight classes, multiple pre-fight weigh-ins, or hydration tests. Brazilian Jiu-jitsu has done away with weight cutting by weighing the competitors immediately prior to the start of the bout and disqualifying anyone who misses weight by the slightest of margins. While this works for tournament jiu-jitsu, it would be disastrous for professional MMA. Huge fights would be lost on the scale rather than in the octagon. Too much money is at stake for the UFC to risk disqualification in high profile bouts.

Honestly, only a cultural shift is necessary for the sport as a whole. Coaches need to monitor the weight of their athletes and educate them on safe weight loss practices while dissuading extreme measures. Fighters need to be less short sited and consider their long term health. Retired fighters should alert the younger generation about the troubles they’ve faced as a result of their years of extreme weight shedding. Above all though, competitors have to realize that regardless of the professional stigma or personal shame, no match is worth dying over.

Brian McLaughlin is a Poughkepsie MMA coach at Precision mixed martial arts in LaGrange, NY

MMA in Morris County – Andy Main on the path to mixed martial arts success in Morris County, NJ

Posted on October 1, 2013 by fighter in MMA in Morris County

MMA in Morris County

Morris County MMA artist Andy Main has been a training partner of mine for the past 5 years. In that time I’ve watched him go from a teenaged mat rat to an elite professional mixed martial artist. Over the years Andy has accomplished quite a bit, going from his MMA home in Morris County all the way to the Ultimate Fighter house and more recently the historical ring of Pancrase in Tokyo, Japan.

Andy and his brother Mikey, an equally skilled Morris County martial artist, have opened Pure MMA in Denville, NJ (Morris County) with the goal of spreading their unique style of MMA to students everywhere. I’ve taken the trip down to Pure many times and really loved the atmosphere – hard training mixed with big smiles.

So if you’re looking for a family friendly MMA school with elite coaches in Morris County then Pure MMA is the place to be.

Check out this Morris County MMA technique to see a small piece of the training you can expect at Pure

MMA in Morris County is just a click away – visit www.puremixedmartialarts.com

What if…

Posted on August 13, 2013 by fighter in Hudson Valley MMA

4 Ways the Gi Would Change MMA

By Jamey Bazes

The rules and regulations of the sport of Mixed Martial Arts have grown exponentially since the first Ultimate Fighting Championship took place back in November of 1993. Back in the early days of MMA, when it was generally referred to as either NHB (meaning “No Holds Barred”) or Vale Tudo (meaning anything “anything goes”) there were no weight classes, no time limits, no restrictions on the attire worn by the competitors, and only three rules: 1) no groin shots, 2) no eye gouging and 3) no biting. As the sport evolved more safety precautions were put into place. Over time, knees to the head of a grounded opponent, strikes to the back of the head, kicking the head of a downed opponent and downward elbow strikes were all banned. Wearing anything other than regulation shorts, cup, mouth piece and 4 ounce gloves was disallowed while Gis, T-shirts and shoes had previously been permitted, 8 weight classes were set into place and time limits were firmly established along with a number of other changes. We have even recently seen the entry of women into the UFC while only a few years ago president Dana White had said this would never happen. With the change of rules and format many bout outcomes have been altered from what they might have previously been. With the introduction of time limits, no longer is a bottom guard player allowed to wait all day long to secure a submission, so many Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu fighters do not have as much success as they did in the early days. Because of the prohibition of certain strikes, strikers have found their arsenals limited from what they once had, and perhaps some have had less success because of it. These changes in the sport are talked about with some frequency by MMA fans who have an interest in how the sport has adapted over time. However, one rule change which is not often discussed which has drastically changed the MMA landscape is the prohibition of the Gi in MMA, and MMA fans rarely consider how much this may have altered fight outcomes. I for one, believe that though many of the rule changes that have taken place in MMA have been positive, that there is room for more than one rule set in Mixed Martial Arts and that it would be both possible, and very interesting, to see MMA matches occasionally fought with the Gi on to see how different the results might be from current no-gi MMA. Afterall, sport Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu includes both Gi and No-Gi divisions, so why couldn’t the same be done in MMA? In this article, I will discuss 4 ways in which I think occasional Gi matches could change the outcome of MMA fights, and why I believe that it would not be ridiculous to introduce Gi divisions into modern day MMA.

Before going into the ways in which the introduction of the Gi could change the outcome of an MMA fight I would first like to address possible criticisms to this idea and my thoughts about how this concept could be put into practice without it hampering the positive changes which have already taken place in the sport. When discussing the concept of Gi-MMA fights with other MMA fans the first criticism that I usually get is that MMA fights fought with the Gi on would involve too much stalling due to the fighters excessively holding onto each other’s Gis. To this criticism my response is that the sport of MMA already has a great deal of stalling and that in certain ways wearing the Gi could actually prevent stalling, or at the very least, make it no worse than it already is. For one, lately we see an abundance of wrestlers in particular satisfied to score takedowns and then simply sit in an opponent’s guard without trying to pass while only landing minimal strikes and hoping for the decision. This tactic is often referred to as “lay and pray” by MMA fans. In my opinion, a Gi MMA match would decrease the incidents of “lay and pray” because fighters would have a much more difficult time sitting in top guard against skilled BJJ players who can use the Gi to attempt many submissions which are not possible in regular MMA, including Gi chokes and many types of submission set ups which utilize the Kimono. What I think we would see in a Gi MMA match, is fighters without expert submission defense being much more reluctant to go to the ground with top BJJ artists, and a much greater attempt to pass top guard once hitting the ground than we currently see due to the extra threats a bottom guard player would have. Because of this, I think the extra emphasis on either passing guard or staying off the ground in particular might lead to more submissions for the bottom guard player once hitting the ground, and also more knockouts in fights that might have otherwise gone to the ground where the wrestler or top game expert chooses to stand out of fear of the bottom game of his opponent. In all likely hood, I actually see the possibility of fights fought with the Gi on having a much greater percentage of finishes than we currently see.

A second criticism I hear to this idea is that there would be no fan base for MMA fought with the Gi on, but without any reason being given for why this would be so. I don’t have much to say to this criticism other than that the idea is entirely unfounded. Back when MMA allowed the Gi and different types of clothing it had its fans, and the Pride Fighting Championship also allowed the option of wearing the Gi and was at one time just as popular as the UFC.

Yet another criticism I hear to this idea is that people would see wearing the Gi in MMA as unnatural or strange and not want to watch because of that. To this comment I would respond with the following retort. I would first ask them why no-gi MMA fighting is natural in the first place. Lets face it; nearly all of the rules that have been put into place in modern day MMA are almost entirely arbitrary. A street fight in its’ essence has no rules to begin with, so any rule set is arbitrary. However, because MMA is not a street fight but rather a sport, it must include rules and whether or not the rules are appropriate is entirely subjective and dependent upon the commissions which preside over them. For example, there is no reason why knees to the head of a downed opponent are unnatural or necessarily any more dangerous than slamming an opponent directly on his head, which is allowed currently in MMA. Likewise, I cannot understand why strikes to the throat are still legal with the dangers they pose, or why upkicks from a bottom guard player to the head of a grounded opponent are illegal when they are probably no more dangerous than any head kick. All these rules are arbitrary, and so in my opinion is the restriction of wearing the Gi in MMA.

Finally, critics to this idea will state that there would need to be separate weight classes for fights fought with the Gi on, and that in particular, the UFC as the largest MMA org in the world would not have room on its roster for these separate divisions. To this I respond that it is most likely true that the UFC would not have space to accommodate all those extra fighters choosing to compete only with the Gi on, nor would they have the time on their cards to showcase these sorts of fights. However, they would most likely have the time and money to put an occasional “Gi-MMA” fight on a card, and I see no reason to believe that there would not be an audience for it. But the UFC is not the only MMA organization in the world. If the presiding commissions would agree to allow for Gi-MMA fights with very few rule differences from those set out in the Unified Rules we could see separate orgs rise to prominence with only Gi-MMA fights and the sport could grow on it’s own as a sub-genre of MMA with its own champions and weight classes. I see no reason why MMA needs to have only one rule set, and apparently, neither do the Japanese with their differing formats which allow fights to be fought with the Gi, as well as knees to the head of a downed opponent and several other rule differences from those used in the U.S.A.

So now that I have addressed the possible criticisms to allowing Gi-MMA fights to take place in the current landscape of the sport, let me address how the outcomes of fights might be different if fought with the Gi on and why these sorts of fights might be very interesting to watch as well as to compelling to compete under for current MMA fighters of different backgrounds. First of all, experts in arts which utilize Gi throws and takedowns such as Judo and Sambo would find much more success than they currently do. Right now the fighters who generally achieve the most takedowns in MMA come from wrestling backgrounds or from heavy cross training with wrestlers. However, if MMA was fought with the Kimono this might no longer be the case. Wrestlers and other sorts of takedown artists would have no answer to the specific tactics of Judokas and Sambo experts and would have to cross train in these styles. Also, the high amplitude throws utilized in Judo and Sambo which are less prominent without the Gi would probably be extremely entertaining for viewers. Many countries with top level Judokas would also become more involved in MMA as a whole and this could only add to MMA’s growth worldwide.

Another way in which the usage of the Gi would change the outcome of MMA fights is that there would be many more submission finishes overall. Gi chokes would become a common finish, which are of course impossible in modern MMA. However, almost all other submissions would probably become more common due to the extra grips and friction allowed by the Gi, as well as reduction of the sweat factor which allows fighters who are not necessarily all that skilled in submission defense to escape from decent submission attempts. Finishes by way of arm lock, leg lock, and chokes of all kinds would most likely rise in incidence, necessarily leading to more finishes in general and fewer decisions, which would please MMA fans in general. Also, holding dominant positions would become easier and we would likewise see more finishes by way of ground and pound and TKO.

This ties in to my next point which is that the guard position in general would become a more dangerous position to be in for the top fighter and for this reason opponents on top guard would be more likely to attempt guard passes. Because submissions and sweeps would become a much greater threat for the top guard player, fighters who might normally stall while on top in guard or half guard would be forced to attempt to pass to positions like sidemount and mount where they would not be in such danger against skilled submission artists. This would in turn lead to more submissions and sweeps for the bottom player because the attempted guard passes would leave the fighter on top vulnerable. It would also lead to more finishes for the top player who can successfully pass guard, because submissions and ground and pound are more effective from top positions like mount and sidemount than top guard.

Finally, because going to the ground in general would be a more dangerous proposition, especially against Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu experts with excellent guards, many fighters who would otherwise choose to grind out boring top control based decisions might choose to keep the fight standing and try to win using their striking. I think it is extremely likely that Gi MMA fights might include more striking than modern day MMA because of the extra threats of going to the ground, and in general the more casual fans as well as the die-hards tend to love a good stand up battle. All in all, I believe the incidence of finishes of one kind or another would go up exponentially with the Gi on, and in general MMA fans prefer to see a finish of one kind or another over a decision.

In summation, there is no reason to assume that MMA fought with the Gi could not thrive as a sub genre of MMA in the United States and worldwide. As already mentioned, there are a number of reasons why finishes by way of submission, KO and TKO might rise due to the unique circumstances created by the Gi, and we would most likely see an increase in exciting high amplitude Judo throws which would probably be greatly crowd pleasing. Fighters of different backgrounds would have more chance of success and really, the idea that MMA needs to be fought at all times under the rigid format that it currently has adopted is an arbitrary concept. If MMA has room for fights fought in both the cage and the ring, by both men and women and by fighters of all weights from flyweight through heavyweight, then I see no reason why it cannot have room for fights fought with the Gi on. Perhaps at some point some open minded athletic commissions and fight promoters will give this idea a shot and we can find out if the assertions made in this article are correct.

Jamey Bazes is a Hudson Valley MMA student at Precision Mixed Martial Arts. He holds a brown belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and is a lifelong martial artist.