Yes and No.
Before going to sleep, I often let my mind fade into thinking about random thoughts and ideas in a form of meditation. Because I am a MMA competitor, those thoughts often turn to new techniques.
I imagine weird situations or techniques that most people never think about doing because, “that wouldn’t work,” or, “my teacher told me not to do that.” Those limiting beliefs can cost you dearly if you never actually go out and see for yourself.
Nothing is taboo for me on the mats. If a technique works and it is legal, I don’t care how silly it looks or where it came from. I am all about effectiveness and expanding the horizon of martial arts.
Last night I had envisioned three techniques just before going to bed. So I wrote them down in my iPad to make sure I remembered them and practiced them after training.
Sometimes these “dream moves” don’t work. They just translate into the real world as they do in my mind, which is ok. Often times, I gain a better understanding of MMA by knowing why something doesn’t work, which can be used to fix the technique and make it work.
However, today these three techniques worked well in practice mode. So now it is time to use it in sparring and see how they really work. Two of the techniques are very promising and are new Kimura Trap (www.KimuraTrap.com) techniques that come from a completely new angle that should really surprise a lot people.
So moral of the story is to make your dreams work for you. The important part is to write them down. If you just think of a cool idea and let it go at that, more often than not it will just fade away and be forgotten forever.
Visualization is a great tool! Growing up in martial arts, I learned different methods of meditation. The method in which I saw the quickest result from was visualization. It was introduced to me as an eary teeneage by my wrestling coach. He showed us videos on how to do it and the studies that were behind it. We tried it the next day at practice. And believe it or not 90% of the people that were training got injured. From there, my wrestling coach said that it was a useless exercise that didn’t work. I saw that change in myself and my friends. We were harder working and more focused. So, I continued to use it and it helped me become a better wrestler. I still use it today.
I think that this was a great article but, can you take it a step further? Can you teach it and give us real notes and do it on video. That is my challenge to you!
Awesome seminar this weekend (at Noel Smith’s place). I’m looking forward to practicing the trap techniques you taught us.
To your point about thinking out of the box, I was wondering if there is any way to use the kimura from the bottom of the mount somehow (say, if you can trap the arm during a choke attempt or if he makes a mistake) as a way to set up an escape?
Thanks again
Phil
really great videos your are sending me, as i have not long taking up the sport all the info i receive is taken on board, as for visulization is one thing at times i feel as thou my mind goes blank which is the norm at still an early stage, just needing to relax more any tips on that will be more than welcome.
as for the kimura superb great move.