Years ago, one of the MMA and BJJ gyms where I coached was located next door to a CrossFit gym. I arranged an exchange with the owner that allowed me to use their equipment during hours when they weren't running group classes, in exchange for some private lessons. I didn't expect to learn much about coaching culture from the experience. I just wanted somewhere to lift weights. But I noticed something almost immediately about the women who trained there, and the contrast with

One of the questions I think every martial artist should ask themselves from time to time is a simple one: Am I actually getting better? Not am I attending class regularly, learning new techniques, or getting tired during training, but am I becoming a more capable martial artist? Can I do things today that I couldn't do six months ago? Can I solve problems that used to give me trouble? Can I perform under pressure with greater consistency? These questions matter because it's

I've met plenty of people who want to fight. They love MMA, they enjoy learning techniques, and they'll happily spend hours drilling, hitting pads, wrestling, and sparring. They want to compete, they want to get better, and they want to see how far they can take the sport. But there's a difference between wanting to fight and being willing to prepare yourself to fight. The interesting thing is that most of these people aren't lazy. They'll show up to the gym after a full day

Walk into a sporting goods store, scroll through social media, or listen to almost any fitness podcast and you will eventually hear about electrolytes. Apparently, we're all one workout away from a sodium deficiency, and the solution is usually a brightly colored drink, an expensive powder, or a packet of salts that promises to transform our performance. At the same time, some dieticians have started pushing back against the idea that everyone needs electrolyte supplements. T

A few months ago, I wrote an article about David Epstein's book Range and its implications for developing MMA fighters. One of the central ideas I took from that book was that complex, unpredictable activities often reward breadth of experience rather than narrow specialization. MMA is an obvious example. A fighter needs to understand striking, wrestling, clinch work, and ground grappling, and more importantly, how those areas interact. A specialist who develops tremendous sk

Every so often, someone asks whether MMA is good for self-defense. It's a reasonable question, but it tends to produce some predictable answers. MMA enthusiasts will tell you that combat sports are the only legitimate way to learn to fight. Traditional martial artists will explain that MMA is a sport with rules and that real violence is completely different. Both arguments contain a little truth, but neither tells the whole story. I own and coach at an MMA gym, so you can pro

One of the questions I get from parents fairly often is, “What should my kid get started in?” If they're talking about a young kid, my answer is usually pretty simple: gymnastics, wrestling, and a team sport. Then I tell them to let the kid play. Usually they're looking for the sport that will give their child the greatest athletic advantage, or maybe they're already thinking about what sport the kid might eventually specialize in. I understand that instinct. Parents want to

There's a growing movement in Brazilian jiu-jitsu arguing that we're teaching the art incorrectly. Traditional instruction, we're told, relies too heavily on drilling techniques, memorizing movements, and having coaches explain what to do. Instead, students should learn through games designed to encourage them to discover solutions for themselves. Rather than demonstrating an arm drag and having students practice it, we create a game where they compete to get behind one anoth

I've always thought we should be careful about the claims we make in combat sports, particularly when those claims involve safety. We spend a lot of time discussing technique, training methods, conditioning, and equipment, but sometimes we accept an idea because it sounds reasonable rather than asking whether it actually produces the outcome we want. Protective headgear is a good example. It seems obvious that putting more padding around the head should make getting hit in t

I've heard the same thing about judo for years: it takes a long time to learn, the learning curve is steep, and you should expect to spend years working on the basics before you can make much of it work against someone who is actually resisting you. There's truth to those statements. Judo is a difficult martial art, and becoming proficient at throwing another person who doesn't want to be thrown is a serious undertaking. But I think there's a question worth asking: "How much

I've been thinking about a question that I don't have a completely satisfying answer to yet. If you don't want to compete, why train combat sports? I don't mean why would someone enjoy it. I understand that part. I love training. I've spent most of my life wrestling, doing boxing, BJJ and MMA. I understand the satisfaction of learning a difficult skill, the camaraderie that comes from training with good people, and the feeling of doing something physically demanding that most

My father is a farmer. He also taught me how to box. One of the expressions I heard from him growing up was, “Make hay while the sun is shining.” It is good advice for a farmer because there are things you simply cannot do whenever you feel like doing them. When the weather is right and the hay is ready, you have a window. If you spend that window waiting for a better opportunity, you may not get another one. Eventually the weather changes, the field changes, and the opportun

I've been thinking about how martial artists talk about risk. There is a lot of discussion these days about concussions, CTE, injuries, hard sparring, training partners, getting older and whether combat sports are worth the physical cost. I understand why. If you're going to spend years participating in something that involves physical conflict, you should understand what you're getting yourself into. But I think we sometimes ask the wrong question. We ask, "How can I make co

I've been doing martial arts for a long time, and one thing I've noticed about Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu is that the culture surrounding it has become almost as interesting as the art itself. Sometimes that's a good thing. BJJ has developed an incredible community, and there are a lot of genuinely good people involved in it. But every once in a while I look at something happening in modern BJJ culture and have the same reaction: "Jesus Christ, that's cringey." I don't mean that BJJ

“Let's roll light.” Five minutes later, somebody is fighting for their life over a half guard underhook. I've seen this happen more times than I can count. Two people agree before the round that they're going to take it easy. Maybe they're both tired. Maybe they're trying to get some technical work in. Maybe one of them is coming back from an injury. Maybe the coach specifically told the class that the goal of the round is to work rather than compete. Everybody agrees that t

Someone recently asked me whether wrestling against the cage is an advanced MMA tactic that isn't really as applicable to amateurs, or whether it should be learned right alongside the basics of grappling. To me, the answer is pretty clearly the second one. I don't think fence wrestling is some advanced skill that you learn after you've mastered wrestling, BJJ and striking. I think it's one of the fundamental skills of MMA. That doesn't mean I think a brand-new student needs t

I've spent a lot of time teaching both grappling and striking, and there is something I've come to appreciate more as a coach: Grappling is easier to teach. That doesn't mean grappling is easier to learn. It certainly doesn't mean grappling is easier to become good at. It means that the nature of grappling gives a coach more control over the learning environment. Striking doesn't give you that luxury. And I think that difference explains a lot about why striking can be so dif

I don't know how wrestling for BJJ should be taught. I can tell you how I teach it. I'm a former Division I collegiate wrestler and a judo black belt, so it probably isn't surprising that I teach a lot of takedowns. In fact, nearly half of what I teach in grappling is takedown-oriented, and I teach both gi and no-gi. But the longer I've coached, the more I've changed how I teach wrestling to BJJ students. The biggest change has been realizing that teaching takedowns to a new

I've always loved looking at the different wrestling traditions around the world because they show us just how much the rules and equipment can shape a grappling style. Change the uniform. Change the grips. Change the rules. Take away one set of grips and give them another. Somehow, people keep finding ways to throw, trip, control and take each other to the ground. You can almost think about them by looking at what the wrestler is wearing. Collars, sleeves, pants — Judo. Coll

I've always liked the way judo handles rank promotion. I trained judo for years, and one thing that always stood out to me was the way the promotion system recognized that there are different ways to demonstrate development in the art. There was a pathway for competitors and a pathway for non-competitors. The competitor could use competition as part of the evidence that he had developed, while the non-competitor had a different set of requirements, including more time in grad