I’ve had the pleasure of training with lots of police officers at NJ United MMA. One common theme that many of them have repeated is their dissatisfaction with the lack of or quality of self-defense training in police training academies. In recent history, this has led many officers to seek formal self-defense training at specialized […]

Slight caveat – I don’t consider age 39 to be “late in life.” But hey, by the standards of some hip, young, early-20s Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu competitors, I guess that even age 29 could be regarded thus! In any case, today I was happy to discover this short article about 39 year-old Rubens Charles Cobrinha, one […]

“Nah, I’ll wait a few months until I feel in better shape.” “Yeah. No. I don’t know. I’ll totally let you know how I feel later.” “I feel that I’ve got some things to figure out first.” ^ Those are just a few one-liners I’ve heard from people who inwardly want to raise their standards […]

I love Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu testimonials because each of them rings true to me in a different sense. Check out this recent video testimonial from our student Jay Hernandez here. I’ve been training with Jay for about a year now, and I can 100% vouch for what he’s saying. Here are two ideas from Jay’s testimonial […]

When I was in college, I remember my favorite professor describing the creative writing process: “It’s hard to be simple, but it doesn’t have to be.” I think that’s true of any walk of life. Over-complicating things seems to come natural to us, and the first things we forget are the basics. That’s a lesson […]

In the early 2000’s, before beginning any martial arts training, I was a fan of Toughman boxing contests on TV. The draw of these bouts was their human-interest factor: two non-professional fighters would don headgear and 16oz gloves, meet in the ring, and slug it out for three one-minute rounds. This premise was ridiculous but […]

Big losses and long stretches of inactivity can do strange things to fighters. Some of them will develop a new shtick, or use an old one to set off the media drama that will win them another fight and possibly a bigger paycheck. But the strangest thing it can do to a fighter is to […]

Well, I’m glad I’m not a betting man, because I would have lost a lot of money last Saturday at UFC 193. I would have put all my money on Ronda Rousey beating Holly Holm via superior clinch work, takedowns, and ground control. Holm certainly prepared well, as she negated almost all of that. But […]

The 16th century Japanese swordsman Miyamoto Musashi was the Dan Gable of his day. I’d wager that he was history’s best sports psychologist as well. He relentlessly studied the parallels and symbiotic relationship between martial arts, politics, the arts, and day-to-day life. He’s also the originator of the often-reiterated “Today is victory over yourself of […]

Tonight, we had a great Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu 101 class in which we drilled some self-defense headlock escapes based on your opponent’s positioning. Remember that it’s essential to have backup escapes; after all, there’s no one escape that’ll enable you to escape everything! Always obey the philosophy of “Right time, right technique, right opponent.” We also […]