Inverted Gear Blog
Tag: MMA
Evicting Ring Girls (and Other Cage-Side Thoughts)
Sometimes you have to kick a ring girl out of her seat, and other insights from working the corner in MMA fights.
A Jiu-Jiteiro Amongst Mixed Martial Artists
A few months ago, Marshal picked up a head instructor role at an MMA gym in Pittsburgh. How has training a mix of fighters and sport jiu-jiteiros influenced his teaching style?
Ariel Helwani and the State of Fight Journalism
My fight journalism career began 10 years ago with Lockflow.com. From there, I wrote for Ultimate Grappling (which became Ultimate MMA), Fight! Magazine, Victory Belt Publishing, and The Escapist. At the busiest point in my career, I was writing 10 articles a week and producing a video podcast (The Lockflow Show). These days, my fight writing is limited to jiu-jitsu, and even that writing focuses almost entirely on instruction. Here’s why: the fight world does not support actual journalism. This piece is, of course, a reaction to the UFC banning Ariel Helwani from UFC press credentials for life for being a journalist. A source told Helwani about the Brock Lesnar signing, and Helwani broke the news before the UFC could...
The Four Corners of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu
As a student or teacher of jiu-jitsu, it can help to break the martial art into four main contexts: gi, no-gi, self defense, and MMA. These categories let you to analyze the effectiveness of your training methods and inform how you select techniques. It can also help you understand conflicting opinions between people who may not realize they are training for different reasons.Let’s breakdown the four contexts to their specifics: Gi A sport with rulesRefereeNo strikingUniform to gripOne-on-oneNo weaponsNo environmental obstaclesKnowledgeable opponent No-gi A sport with rulesRefereeNo strikingNo uniform to gripOne-on-oneNo weaponsNo environmental obstaclesKnowledgeable opponent MMA A sport with rulesRefereeStrikingNo uniform to gripOne-on-oneNo weaponsCage with a fenceKnowledgeable opponent Self Defense No “rules” but legal concernsNo referee but maybe policePotentially strikingProbably...
Adventures in MMA
I cleaned out my garage last week, and while that was an adventure in itself, I happened to stumble across an old pair of MMA gloves. Talk about memories. Wow. Just about 6 years ago—in 2009—I had my one and only MMA fight, a pro rules amateur bout. I won by toehold of all things. I have been an MMA fan for a long time, and I was a fan before I even started training. I always had a goal of doing one fight at some point, check it off my athletic bucket list so to speak. A few of my training partners were fighting on the same card, and somehow they convinced me to join them. Six weeks before...