Last night I was lucky enough to attend a seminar given by Neil Adams. For those that don’t know Neil he was a two time Olympic games silver medallist, three time world champion, 5 time European gold medallist and former coach to the British team.
What struck me when talking to him was the gulf between the talent pool in No gi grappling and judo at the highest levels, heck even between BJJ and judo. Every country seems to have a national association, with most having clubs in every major town. Just to become a national judo champion means you have to beat a deep talent pool of talent. Most top countries have full time national squads and full time national training centres where these guys are paid to do nothing but train against each other, which again drives the talent pool through the roof. Hence when someone like ronda roosey enters MMA the girls she is fighting simply don’t have anywhere near her experience with competing against world class people
Back to the seminar, Neil has been a national level full time coach for years and it showed: his ability to get across important tactical points simply and in a manner which everyone can understand was outstanding. I watched everyone from first time grapplers to national level grapplers and pro MMA fighters all improve their games in a two hour slot under his teaching.
Some of the specific things he taught were how to control balance and centre without the gi, where to look and put the head when throwing, how to take their balance in one of three directions depending on their reaction. On the ground he taught his rolling arm bar (obviously its what he is famous for) how to set up the opponent to give you the arm no matter how hard they defend, the correct way to break a strong grip (which with 10 years of grappling I and other were still impressed by and adopted into our games straight away) He also taught several strangles when the defend the arm (one of which was totally new to me), and how to use the single leg hook to control them and keep contact with them. Balance on the ground was also stressed
Tactically he stressed the following over and over: keeping balance at all times and knowing where you opponents balance is at all times, keep balance after the throw and not falling with them, the importance of the transition between throw and the ground (90% of all control is lost in the transition and the ability to control and dominate this transition is the difference between a good national judo guy and a great international fighter)
Once on the ground have a game plan: Know what you want and hunt it down, the best fighters know what they want and go for it regardless and bully you into giving it up. And finally he covered the one thing he felt the books dvds etc never coach or get across: the shear brutality of grappling at a high level and how you have to stop being nice and be brutal in order to win