10 Things I learned from Royce Gracie

I had the privilege of attending a seminar by Master Royce Gracie last night at Master Guy Mezger's Lions Den Sports Club in Dallas, Texas. The event was extremely well run and over 55 people of all ages worked out with Master Gracie for 2 hours. I can assure you they learned some significant techniques that they will use the rest of their Martial Arts lives.

Royce Gracie is a Living Legend in the World of MMA and is the person who is directly responsible for the incredible growth of the UFC and Ultimate Fighting. His complete dominance of men twice his size and strength in the first 4 UFC competitions, propelled the UFC into the public eye and created the enormous following that MMA has today.

It was truly an amazing when the people of America and the World saw the first UFC competition. No gloves, no weight limits, no time limits, NO JUDGE. You fought until someone was the Winner, and there was never a doubt of who the winner was, since the loser was usually unconscious, or disabled. It was violent, bloody and incredibly exciting because of the first time on TV you saw a "real fight" with very few rules and a decisive winner. For the first time you saw smaller men fighting other men who were much bigger, stronger and "meaner looking" than them. Master Gracie defeated people you wouldn't want to meet in an alley, even with a gun, and he did it with relative ease and simplicity. Not overpowering his opponents, but by using superior technique from a superior street fighting style Gracie Jiu Jitsu.

Last night I got to meet Master Gracie for the first time in person and watch him teach a seminar. It was an amazing thing. Here is a man who is now 42 years old, looks like he weighs about 170 pounds and doesn't have any real noticeable muscle bulging from his body. Yet this man has beaten people who outweighed him by 300 pounds, Akibono the great Sumo Champion, and men who were huge muscled up, tattooed, black belts and street fighters with ease and grace, or should I say "Gracie". And last night at the seminar I learned why.

I have been training in Martial Arts for 46 years now and am a Grandmaster, author of 38 books, 24 DVD's, and for the first time in my life I saw why and how a man who is "smaller and weaker" can easily beat a man twice his size. I learned 10 things and 10 Techniques from Master Gracie I want to share with you over the next few weeks and 10 techniques that you can use to overpower your opponents with Grace and Ease

The first thing I learned from Royce Gracie. You can control any fight with Grace and Ease.

The First thing I learned from Master Gracie is that he can control a room with gracie, and ease. From now on I will use the word "gracease" I mean, the "gracie" way of doing Martial Arts, with ease and technique, not power, and force. He controlled he room with "gracease", just as easily as he controlled his fights with grace and ease. Please let me explain.

When you have a room full of people who are training in MMA, you usually have a room full of noise, disruptions and violence. Master Gracie immediately took control of the room by making it clear that if you wanted to hear him, you had to shut up and listen, because he wasn't going to talk any louder and wasn't going to scream to get you to stop your training noise and movement to continue the class. If you wanted to learn, you had to be quiet, listen and pay attention.

When the room started getting a little "rough", Master Gracie took control by pointing out that he was not from here, didn't have a car, wasn't going to take anyone to the hospital if they got hurt, and wasn't going to feel bad about it, because he didn't know them. He suggested that this was "training" not a fight and that they should "slow down" and work the technique, and not try to overpower, or overcome their partners with power, speed and strength, but with "gracease". It was a great lesson and one that Martial Arts teachers and students should learn and follow in at schools. Too many times I have been to a Martial Arts Class or school where students were too noisy, disruptive and going much too hard with their partners. Almost immediately someone would get hurt, or the class would break down into little groups of noisy, inattentive students. Controlling a class with Grace and Ease (gracease) is the first thing I learned from Royce Gracie.

The 2nd thing I learned is you have to be ready to fight anyone, anytime, anywhere.

Master Gracie was showing a technique to a student who asked to see how to escape the mount. During the demonstration of the technique the student struggled very hard with Master Gracie, who did the escapes anyway. But after he had done so, he asked the student, if he wanted to learn the technique or if he wanted to fight, and he was very serious. He repeated it again and made it very clear that if he wanted to fight he was ready, willing and able.
He also told stories to illustrate his point, about how when he was training with another black belt, the other black belt told him he was going to stop teaching techniques because he wasn’t sure if they worked. So he was going to go into the streets and try the techniques out. I remember The Golden Greek Demetrius Havanus telling me the same thing. When he was training with Allen Steen in the 1970’s he and a few other students would learn a technique and then go into the streets that night to see if it would actually work in a fight. If it did, they continued to practice the technique, if it did not, they didn’t practice it anymore.
The point Master Gracie was teaching and the point that probably escaped most of the people in attendance is that you must be prepared to “prove it” anytime. You don’t get mugged and then set up a date 90 days from now to fight. You don’t get into an argument at a bar and then step outside to arrange a date to “fight’ 120 days from now, after you get your training in. If you have to get ready o fight, if you have to be in shape to fight, if winning the fight requires that you train for 90 days, then the system you are learning is bad. It won’t work in the real World because you don’t get to “set up” fights in the real World. You get into fights, and you either win or lose with what you have and what you bring to the fight during the actual fight. Techniques you used to know but have forgot, techniques you can’t do correctly, techniques that don’t work, won’t win any fights. You have to be practicing and learned techniques that will work in a real fight that might actually happen when you walk out of the dojo. And if you are practicing Martial Arts to learn to fight, then you better be prepared to fight, anytime, anywhere against anyone.
Goggle “gracie fights” and you will see dozens of instances where “challengers” from other schools, styles, or systems came into Gracie schools and challenged a Gracie to a fight. There was no time for preparation. No time to go train with your coaches, no time to get into shape. There was a challenge and then there was a fight. And the Gracie’s always won. Why? Because the style they practiced taught them how to win a street fight against bigger, stronger, faster opponents without having to prepare for weeks for the fight.
If you are taking a Martial Arts and if one of reasons you are taking the Art is to learn to defend yourself. Then you have to actually try using the techniques you are learning in a fight. You can do this in Class, you don’t have to go into the streets, and I certainly don’t recommend that you get into street fights, but I certainly do recommend you practice your style in such a way that you will actually Know if what you are learning Works.
So the 2nd thing I learned from Royce Gracie was to be ready, willing and able to fight anywhere, anyone at anytime and prove your system of training works.

The 3rd thing I learned is that Fighting and the Martial Arts are very mental.
I asked Master Gracie who was his toughest fight and he said it was his “mind”. Then he asked me who was my toughest opponent, and I hesitated until he pointed out that my opponent was in my mind. He suggested that if he were to tell me that he intended to fight me tomorrow I would not sleep that night due to the mental anxiety. And I couldn’t agree more. How could you sleep if you know that Royce Gracie was going to whip your butt the next day? And that was the entire point.
It’s the mental aspect of “fear, anxiety, apprehension, worry, concern, confusion” that is the real fight. With all the anxiety’s associated with the possibility of being in an imminent fight, you can’t relax, you can’t train right, you don’t eat right, you can’t sleep right. Your entire training and preparation program is confused, diffused, and destroyed by your “mind”. It is only when you overcome the mental anxiety associated with being in the fight that you can control the actual fight.
You fight with your body and your mind. Your body works by “mind control”. Your hands and feet can’t do what they are trained to do if they are not getting the correct signals from your mind, and you mind can’t send the correct signals if it is “confused, excited, anxious, neurotic”. You must have a calm relaxed mind to fight well and your mental conditioning is just as important as your physical conditioning.
My son Teddy is a Champion Wrestler and he worked very hard mentally and physically to become a Champion. He trained 5 to 6 days a week, 2 to 4 hours a day for 10 years to become a Champion. He didn’t just train 1 hour 2 or 3 times a week, like so many Martial Arts Students do. He trained 10 times as much as the average Martial Arts Student for 10 times as long, and he trained his mind to enable him to achieve his full potential. When he first started wrestling, he was much too nervous and anxious to do his techniques right. He went too fast, too hard and was out of breath, and exhausted if the fight went pas the 2nd period. It was only when his “mind got right” that his “wrestling got right”. Once he learned to control his mind he learned to control his opponents.
Many of the guys he wrestled never learned that. One in particular comes to mind. He was probably the best “practice wrestler” I had ever seen. No one took him down in practice, and he dominated almost all of the other wrestlers at the elite camps, even those who outweighed him by 20 to 30 pounds. He was calm, cool, and efficient. He never got tired and never made stupid moves. But when it came time take the fight to the mat, he was a different person. He became confused, nervous, anxious and soon lost control of his mind which lead to loss of control of his breathing and then control of his muscles and finally control of the match.
One particular example comes to mind. He was wrestling in the Greco Roman Wrestling State Champions and so was my son. In Greco wrestling you can earn a lot of points with a few moves and if you get up by 12 you win the match. My son got trapped after a bad shot and his opponent began a series of rolls and switches that got him up 11 to 0. Teddy held on the last 10 seconds, only because of his strong mind and refusal to lose. At the break, he turned to his opponent and said that “he was in trouble now”. Think about it. This is a wrestler 1 point from losing the State Championship and he is telling his opponent he was in trouble. And he was. When the 2nd period started this time Teddy‘s shot was perfect. He took the guy down and immediately pinned him for the match.
At the same tournament the other wrestler I have been talking about was also in trouble do to a poor shot and was soon down 8 to 0. At the break, he turned to the coach with a look that basically said, “I quit”. And in the second period he did just that. He quit trying and was pinned almost immediately, by a guy who he beat daily in practice with ease. How and why did he lose? He lost in his mind. He became confused, anxious and lost control of his mind which in turn caused him to lose control of his techniques and then lose control of the match. When you can’t control your mind, you can’t control the fight and you almost always will lose.
Master Gracie was exactly right he said the toughest opponent was in his mind, and it is true for you too. Learn to control your mind and you will learn to control the fight. You can’ win with a “weak, confused, nervous mind”. You will win with a “calm, determined, powerful mind”.

The 4th thing I learned is You don’t have to be stronger to beat a stronger opponent.
Now everyone has heard that before many times at their Martial Arts school, but until you have actually done it in a real fight, you don’t really believe it. Think about it. The UFC has weight classes, professional boxing has weight classes, real wrestling has weight classes. Why? Because they don’t think a “smaller, weaker” man can usually beat a “bigger, stronger” man, and they are usually right.
But that is exactly why Helio Gracie started Gracie Jiu Jitsu. Helio was a very small, rather weak man. I think he was about 5’ 6”, and about 150 pounds, yet he fought and defeated men that outweighed him by 50 to 150 pounds. He even challenged the World Heavyweight Champion of Boxing to a fight. In his last interview shortly before his death he told the reporter that he was unhappy that people think that if a man is bigger and stronger, he was going to beat you in a fight. He said he “invented” the techniques of Gracie Jiu Jitsu to allow smaller, weaker men to be able to defeat larger stronger men, and he, his sons and 1,000’s of students were proof it worked.
In the first 3 UFC Championships, there we no weight classes and no time limits. You fought anyone of any size until someone won. And that was the opportunity for the World to proof that Gracie Jiu Jitsu needed to prove that a smaller man could beat a stronger, larger man. Royce defeated men much much bigger and stronger than him and he as subsequently even defeated Akibono, who is 6’8”, 450 pounds. You can’t get much bigger and stronger than that. Yet Master Gracie was able to defeat him. How, and why?
Techniques, confidence and years and years of actual fighting experience proved to Royce that what he was learning worked and if he simply remained calm and did the techniques right. He would defeat anyone in front of him, no matter their size and strength. It is really a remarkable thing to see someone defeat someone who is larger and stronger than them, but it is an altogether different thing to actually do it.
You can talk about smaller weaker men defeating bigger stronger men all day with your teacher, but until you actually start fighting bigger stronger men and defeating them you won’t believe it. I have done that 100’s of times in class teaching ground jiu jitsu techniques and in some fights and it never stops amazing me when I do it. How I do it is with technique. Technique that doesn’t rely on being bigger and stronger, but being better trained and doing moves that actually work to stop the bigger stronger opponent. It doesn’t do you any good to practice techniques that look great, but don’t work. It doesn’t do you any good to work on moves that are flashy and don’t work. It doesn’t help if you can punch 10 times and kick 10 times in 20 seconds. It does matter if you kick the man in the groin. Break his arm, or destroy his knee.
What makes you defeat a bigger stronger opponent without using size and strength are techniques that go against his balance, coordination, joints, vital organs (like the eyes, ears, throat, groin). You can only weigh 100 pounds but if you kick him in the groin, he will not continue fighting. You can only weigh 100 pounds but if you bend his 20 inch arm over your leg and snap the elbow, he will quit fighting. You can only weigh 100 pounds but your finger will go deep into his eye and he will stop fighting. And my friend that is the secret of beating a bigger stronger opponent. You fight to win. Not to impress.
The reason we have weight classes are several. One it makes the fight legal and if they fighters are trained equally, it makes the fight competitive. But the most important is that it makes the fight Legal. And by that I mean it has rules. You can’t punch him in the eyes, snap his fingers, kick groin, and break his neck. If you could, you could easily beat him, but the beating would result in permanent damage. You can’t have a competitive fight league if you have rules and regulations. You won’t have any fighters left after a few months if you do.
Master Gracie knows he can defeat a larger and stronger opponent because has done it many times in fights with no rules, no weight limits and no size limits. If he has rules, regulations, time limits he is really limiting his ability to win the fight. In the street he doesn’t have to abide by these rules, regulations and time limits and he will win.
The techniques of Gracie Jiu Jitsu are specifically made to work against bigger stronger men because they attack the joints and use balance, movement, coordination, angles, and leverage to destroy the opponents ability and will to fight. They can break his elbow and he will quit, or they can “prove” to him that they can easily break his elbow and he will quit because he knows you will do it. They don’t attack the eyes, groin, throat, but they do attack the joints, neck, and breathing. And they rely on stamina and technique to allow them to totally wear the opponent out and make him easy to defeat. If you make your opponent totally exhausted they have no chance to win the fight. You can do that easily with proper use of jiu jitsu techniques.
The 5th thing I learned is: The best way to escape a dangerous situation is to not get in it.
Master Gracie was asked several times by different people at the seminar, “How do you get out of arm bar?” “How do you escape from a rear naked choke?” “What’s the best escape from a kumara?” And his answers were rather profound, but perhaps not understood and thus overlooked by many of the students at the seminar.
One of his replies was, “How do you let Mike Tyson hit you in the jaw”? They didn’t seem to understand and asked again “but how do you escape from an arm bar?”, and he once again replied. “How do you get ready to let Mike Tyson hit you in the head?” He went on to explain. There are a lot of things you can train for. You can train for speed, endurance, techniques, specific attacks and escapes, but you really can’t do training that would allow you to let Mike Tyson hit you in the jaw. There is no realistic way for you to let Tyson hit you and for your to survive.
And that is the point. When you are “in an arm bar”, when you are “in a rear naked choke”, when you are in a “kumara” there is not realistic way to escape. When these moves are applied correctly and you are trapped in them, your arm will break, you will go to sleep. It is that simple. There is no practical escape from a properly applied finishing technique.
I learned his the hard way about 30 years ago when I was doing a “hard KI” demonstration to a group at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, CO. One of the parts of my demo was to allow someone from the audience to come up and hit me full power in the ribs, the stomach and the throat. I picked a 250 pound man to come up and he proceeded to pound away with great abandon. I felt no pain, because there was no injury due to my “ki flowing”. Then I asked him to choke me with both hands viciously around my throat. Again no matter how hard he tried, he could not choke me. Then he asked if I could be choked with a deep Judo rear choke, applied with the GI? I said “of course not” and proceeded to let him apply a deep rear naked choke with the GI. This did not go as planned. You see I can not be choked with hands due to the fact that I use my KI and I make my Adam’s apple float backwards into my neck muscles, protecting it. This has very little to do with protecting yourself from a GI choke, which is a “blood choke”. It cuts off the blood to the head and you go to sleep, which I was about to do when I asked him to stop, and start again. This time, when he started, I escaped the choke.
This is a great example of Master Gracie’s maxim. The best way o avoid a dangerous situation is to not get in it. If you let someone apply a “blood choke”, if you let someone sink in a “deep arm bar”. If get caught in a kumara and they are applying the pressure. You are out of luck and out of the fight. The thing you want to do is not get into this situation, and by proper training you can learn dozens of ways to escape the situation that would put you in the arm bar, the chokes, the kumara, etc.
When I first started training with Master Carlos Machado, the first 6 months of daily 2 hour a day practice was literally nothing but Escapes. We didn’t learn any finishes, we didn’t learn any moves. We didn’t learn any attacks. We learned to Escape. And when we finally began to learn some move, attacks and finishes, we found they were much easier to do if you could escape any attack from your opponent. Master Machado is Master Gracie’s cousin, and they grew up training together, so they both learned the lesson of “not getting into the dangerous situation” as the best way to avoid the dangerous situation.
Too many Martial Arts Schools start teaching there student’s attacks and finishes from the first day, and these students are usually easily defeated by a good jiu jitsu player who knows the escapes as well as the finishes.
It’s the same thing your parents have told you since you were little. Don’t go there. Don’t hang with the bad crowd. Don’t go to that drinking party. They know all too well that the best way for you to not get in trouble is to not go to places where this is trouble. The same thing applies in the Martial Arts. The best way to avoid a dangerous situation is to not get in the dangerous situation.

The 6th thing I learned is: Martial Arts Mastery is a life long program.
Master Gracie is only 42 years old, but has been practicing Gracie Jiu Jitsu daily for 40 years. From the time he could walk, and maybe before, he was on the mat learning techniques, practicing and perfecting. He has not stopped his training for 40 years. I am 61 years old and started my daily Martial Arts Training when I was 15. So I have been practicing for 46 years. If you were to ask me or Master Gracie if we “knew it all” or “had learned all there was to know”, we would both immediately say No!
Martial Arts Mastery is a life long program of continual learning, training and perfection. In the modern times, you can become a Black Belt at some schools in 2 year, 3 years max. And these “black belts” are some of the worst Martial Artists I have ever seen. It took me 6 years to become a Black Belt and in Gracie Jiu Jitsu it takes 7 to 10 years to become a Black Belt. They keep their standards incredibly high, even though it is definitely costing them $1,000’s of dollars in promotional tests and fees if they would only promote these students in 2 to 3 years. They simply refused to promote unless you earn it. I believe in that kind of promotional system too and have made a lot of students and parents mad when I refused to “pass” their children to a higher rank, due to the fact that they did not know the techniques “perfectly”. I don’t believe you can make but 1 or 2 mistakes on a Black Belt Test. If you do, you don’t pass. Why? Because in a real fight, if you make 1 or 2 mistakes you will get hurt or killed, and so I don’t believe in promoting someone who in a real life situation would get hurt or killed.
Martial Arts Mastery is a life long program of learning, practice and perfecting your techniques. You can learn new techniques for a life time, but that doesn’t’ mean you need to keep adding more and more techniques to your program. You don’t need to. You can in reality never perfect the 1,000’s of techniques you have already learned.
So many students think that Martial Arts is just being able to beat someone up and when you are too old to beat up someone you are too old to be a teacher, or you are too old for students to actually pay attention to you.
I believe that this way of thinking is caused by simple ignorance and the modern trend to only know what is “current” and “happening now”. Whatever someone did 10 years ago doesn’t mean anything. Because they can’t fight in the UFC now, they don’t deserve the respect that the current UFC fighters get. And when they “lose” they don’t deserve that respect any more. This is the “pop culture” definition of respect that so many students seem to have or give to their “teachers”.
When Royce fought Matt Hughes a few years ago, Hughes was very disrespectful of Maser Gracie. Saying that the sport had passed him by, and he didn’t have any respect for someone who didn’t know all the things he knew and couldn’t win fights anymore. After the fight Matt apologized, saying it was only for “ratings” that he had said that, and I believe that is true. Matt Hughes is a gentleman who knows and understands the tradition of Martial Arts and realizes full well that Royce Gracie is directly responsible for the entire UFC being in existence today. If Royce had lost the first 3 UFC’s to some back street fighting punk puncher, then there would be No UFC. The UFC exists today because Master Gracie defeated street fighters with technique and precision. Not because he out punched, kicked and beat them with “made up system” of street fighting techniques (Kimbo Slice is a prime example of that. He was famous as a street fighter, but when he had to fight people who actually Knew something, he got his butt kicked. And because he got his butt kicked so fast and decisively, he actually destroyed the Only Prime Time MMA show on TV. The same thing would have happened to the UFC if Royce had lost).
I can tell you that as you get older and you are still practicing Martial Arts you literally will have forgotten more than 90% of your students will ever learn. Grandmaster Pat Burleson was teaching a rather smart mouthed student some technique and the student appeared to be acting like he didn’t really want to learn his technique from this “old man” who just happened to be the First International Karate Champion in the World. Grandmaster Burleson told him in no uncertain terms, “Son, I have forgotten more techniques that you will ever learn, and you better pay attention if you don’t want to see some of the more deadly ones on your head right now.” The student began paying strict attention and so did the class.
Now the point isn’t that Grandmaster Burleson, Master Gracie, or I Grandmaster Gambordella can beat you up. The point is that we have been practicing 40+ years and are still learning and teaching and if you want to become a Master you need to continue your learning, practicing and perfecting for the rest of your life too! Like the old Zen saying “a cup can be filled up a single drop at a time”. You can become a Master a little at a time. A little more each year. Martial Arts Mastery is not a “sprint” but a “lifelong marathon”.
The 7th thing I learned is: Confidence is created by proper training.
Everyone knows the importance of training, but most people do not train properly. Please let me explain. The average Martial Arts Student goes to class 2 times a week for 1 hour, sometimes they might even go 3 times a week. During a typical class they might spend 10 minutes doing warm ups, 20 minutes doing basics, stances, blocks, kicks, counters. 15 minutes doing new techniques and 10 to 15 minutes sparring or doing kata. These times may vary by teachers and students, but this is about the usual. A 1 hour workout is typical and it actually is effective in making most students get better....to a point. Please let me explain.
I mentioned before that when my Son Teddy Gambordella was training for his wrestling team, he trained 5 to 6 days a week, 2 to 3 hours a day, at least 250 days a year. His high school team won State all 4 years he was in high school, and he went to State all 4 years. When I went to the Olympic Training facility in CO to do a seminar on injury prevention, way back in 1980 the wrestlers there trained 4 to 6 hours a day, 6 days a week, 360 days a year. They won several Gold medals and had lots of wrestlers win World Champions. My friend Brandon Slay, and Olympic Gold Medalist is now the new coach of the USA Wrestling Team, and he intends to go back to this vigorous training schedule for the team, after some rather disappointing recent Olympics.
A friend of mine, a great Martial Arts Teacher and an Olympic Diving Coach Grandmaster Bryan Robbins of SMU, trained his diving team 2 hours in the morning and 2 hours in the evening 5 to 6 days a week, 300 days a year (or whatever the school year was, including summer school), and he produced Olympic Champions. Another friend of mine and the only person ever to be a World Boxing Champion and a World Full Contact Karate Champion. Master Troy Dorsey trained 4 to 6 hours a day, 360 days a year to get ready for his World Championship fights. Master Gracie when growing up spent 8 or more hours a day on the mat and still spend 4 to 6 hours a day on the mat.
All these great champions and great teachers train hard and train very long. They also train very "properly". And by that I mean that they trained techniques that worked, in situations that they would actually have in a real fight, or competition. So many schools spend their 1 hour training their students in techniques that have no practical value in the real World. Their students would get beaten in a real street fight and usually get beaten in the tournaments they go to. Why? Because their training was not "proper". Proper training involves intensive training. Proper training involves intensive workouts. Proper training involves intensive real World scenarios. Proper training involves working harder than your ever have and pushing yourself to the limits on a daily bases.
When you train properly you get "confidence". You Know you won't get tired, in a short fight, or tired in a long fight. You know you will be in better condition than your opponent. When you train properly you will know what to do in 90% of all situations you will find yourself in during a fight. There will be no surprises. You will know all the techniques you need to know to stay out of trouble and to take control of the fight. Master Gracie said he knew a "million techniques", and while that may be an exaggeration of an actual number, what he does know is a "million" times more than his opponents do. His proper training has taught him 100's of techniques for every possible scenario that might come up in a real fight. There will be No surprises for him in the ring or in the street. He has been there, done that. Seen that and overcome that, and this "proper" training has given him a confidence that is justified. He knows he can do it in the ring, because he has done it 1,000's of times in class under realistic fighting conditions.
Proper training in your Martial Arts School will produce the same confidence for you. I don't believe you can become a Great Martial Artist if you only train 1 hour a day, 2 to 3 times a week. You have to work harder than that if you want to be great in anything. You have to practice at home, you have to do 2 classes a day, or help with another class. You have to get a training partner and practice before and after class. You have to go to other schools and practice with other people. You have to buy, or rent, or watch online training video's from great teachers and practice the moves they are teaching. You have to have a library of books and videos at home you study on a daily bases. You have to keep a record of your training and what you learned and write it down, or video it for future reference. Remember in my last article where Grandmaster Burleson said "I have forgotten more than you will ever learn". Well that is true. Grandmaster Burleson did not have the use of video cameras to record all his training and classes on a daily bases. You do. You can record all your lessons, or record what you learned in your lessons and keep them on file in your computer. If you can't record, then you can take photo's of new techniques you learn and keep them on file.
I am the author of 38 books and 24 DVD's and I honestly see things in the books every time I look at them I forgot I knew. But because they are in the book or in one of my DVD's I remember them again and can start practicing or teaching them again. You can do the same thing. With Proper training your confidence will grow and you can become a Martial Arts Master.
The 8th thing I learned is: Don't be in a hurry to start or finish your class or fight.
I arrived at Master Mezger's school about 45 minutes before the seminar and found Master Gracie and Master Mezger standing and talking in the middle of the mat. They were relaxed and joking and walking around the room shaking hands and taking photos. Master Gracie was kind enough to take photos and take time with everyone who asked, and he even went up to students who were just looking in "awe" and said hello and shook their hands. He was kind, considerate, relaxed and appeared to be in no hurry to get started and more importantly after the started the class he appears just a calm, relaxed and considerate and did not appear in any hurry to finish his seminar, and that is a great thing I learned from Master Gracie. Don't be in a hurry to start of finish your class or a fight. Please let me explain.
Several times when I have been at a seminar the teacher seems rushed, worried, harried and anxious. It often seems that he can't wait to get started and get finished and get out of there and on to the next seminar or class. If you will start noticing these things I am sure you will agree. The next time you watch a MMA fight on TV or in person. Notice the fighters are any of them anxious. nervous, worried and when the fight starts do they seem to be in a hurry to start and finish the fight. Rushing around, punching and hitting wilding and without precision. These fighters will invariably be worn out in a few minutes and 9 out of 10 times they will become exhausted and lose the fight or be knocked out. Why? Because they were in a hurry to start and finish the fight and so their worried condition reflected in their techniques and they did not perform at their best.
It is the same in the real World. Do you run around in nervous, excited and in an anxious condition? Always trying to get the class over, the job over, the situation over as quickly as possible. If you are always in a hurry to get started, so you can get finished and get out of the job, the school, or the situation, you will not do your best. You will not be your best and you will never achieve you full potential in Martial Arts or the real World.
You will see this "relaxed, confident, no hurry" look and approach when you see any great Jiu Jitsu fighter. Master Carlos Machado is my friend and teaches in Dallas, TX, where I live. I have been training with him for the last 12 years and never once during that time have I ever seen him in a hurry to get the class started, or finished. And more importantly I have never seen him in a hurry in a fight to get the fight started or finished. When he is "rolling", if you look at his face, he is calm and relaxed. There is No tension in his face or in apprehension in his eyes. He is in no hurry to finish the fight. He takes his time setting things up and moving very precisely to the next move to set up the next finish.
One day I was at Master Machado's class when a 300 pound guy, wearing fighting shorts, no shirt and sporting a tattoo that said "pain" across his entire stomach walked in obviously looking for trouble. He stalked around the floor for a few minutes telling everyone who would listen "I am looking for Carlos Machado and I am going to whip his ass". Master Machado calmly walked up and said, "you found him", and just stood there calmly waiting to see what was next. The guy proceeded to tell Master Machado about how he was this great fighter and had heard about him and was going to whip his butt to see prove that he was better than him and everyone else. Master Machado never go nervous, not got in a hurry and calmly said, "let's go over here and we can roll". He took the guy up to the corner of the mat and proceeded to teach him a severe lesson in jiu jistu. After only a few minutes the guy was tapping and almost crying. He was afraid and was trapped and he had no way out unless Master Machado decided to give it to him. Now Master Machado is a gentleman and a Great Martial Artist and would not hurt someone just to prove a point, so he did not break the guys elbow, but he did teach him a severe lesson in humility. And he did it not being in a hurry to start of finish the fight. He was confident he could beat the guy and there simply was no need to be in a rush.
Master Gracie told the people at the seminar that his longest fight was 1 hour 30 minutes and Master Mezger was actually on the same card and told everyone how incredible it was to see 2 great Martial Arts Masters rolling hard for almost 2 hours. Master Gracie said the fight was 6 rounds of 15 minutes and after the first 30 minutes he was thinking to himself, "come on, let's get going. I am ready to go the distance". He was not nervous, and in no hurry to try stupid techniques or take stupid chances to finish the fight. He really fights the same way in all his fights. He is never in a hurry to start or finish the fight. He takes his time, sets his opponent up, tries the finish, and if it does not work, rolls to the next set up and the next finish. Cool, calm and collected. Never in a hurry, never rushing around, never trying stupid moves. Relaxing, taking his time and getting the job done. Master Gracie is never in a hurry when fighting, or when teaching and his relaxed confident style is very comforting and assuring to his students. He appears relaxed and confident because he is relaxed and confident and he wants you to feel and act the same way. Relaxed and confident. In no hurry to start of finish your class or a fight.
You can do well to remember that in your training and in your life. Relax, take your time. Don't be in a hurry to start of finish the class or the technique. Take you time, do it right. Take your time, learn it right. Take your time, practice right and you will become a great Martial Arts Master.

The 9th thing I learned is: When the technique is done right it works.
It is an amazing thing to watch so many fighters trying to make a bad technique work They will wear themselves out with incorrect techniques done improperly and wonder why they lose the fight or the match. A technique that is done wrong will simply not work. You can wear yourself out trying to make it work and your opponent can wear themselves out using poor technique to defend you poor technique. It is like watching a train wreck. Nothing good is going to come from it.
The UFC is incredible to watch, when the techniques are done right, by fighters who know and execute proper techniques. It is boring and ridiculous when the technique is done wrong by fighters who don't know what they are doing. I am sure you will agree that too many times recently the UFC fights are really example of "bad boxing" rather than good MMA. They don't throw any good punches, kicks and never go to the ground, and if they do go to the ground their technique is worse there. They roll around trying insane moves and missing obvious opportunities to finish because their techniques are so poor and so poorly done. And these are the "best MMA fighters in the World". It is much worse at the local fights where you see even more ridiculous crappy techniques done by people who don't appear to know anything but "brawling" and have won most of their fights because their opponents knew even less than them.
Master Gracie during his seminar made it a point that the technique is done right. He also explained when and how the technique is done wrong and how to avoid making these mistakes when you are training. I went to a seminar with John Smith 2 times Olympic Wrestling Gold Medalist and as in all seminars he demonstrated a technique and asked some students to come up and do the technique he just taught. Now in 90% of all the other seminars I have ever been to, when the students come up, they try the technique, the instructor corrects the a little, lets them try again, and corrects them and then let's them go sit, and moves on to the next technique, The students never really demonstrate the technique properly but they try and that seems enough for the teacher.
It was not allowed by John Smith to the students in his wrestling seminar. When he called up 2 high school students to demonstrate the technique and they got it wrong. He said in a firm voice, "do it again". He told them what they did wrong and told them to do it again. When they did not do it right, he said in a firm voice, "do it again". This went on for 2 minutes until the students did the technique right. Not almost right, but right. He would not let them practice wrong and he would not accept them doing the technique wrong. He is the same way teaching his Wrestlers at OSU, and that is why OSU has won 5 US National Championships in the last 8 years. He expects and demand that all techniques are done Right at all times during practice. He will not allow or tolerate techniques being done wrong. He teaches and expects perfection and his wrestlers seldom if ever get beat because they are doing techniques wrong. They do all their techniques correctly. Practice all their techniques correctly and when the fight in on, they do the exact same thing. All their techniques are done right and when done right a technique will work.
Too many Martial Arts teachers allow their students to practice techniques that are done wrong, and then they wonder why their students don not win in local tournaments. They don't seem to realize that if your allow your students to practice technique that is almost right, you will not get the same results as when you only allow your students to practice each and every technique done right.
Master Gracie knows that if a technique is done right it works, and if it is done wrong it won't work. He has real World experience in real fights that prove the technique done right works, an that assure him that the technique done wrong doesn't work. When you do a jiu jitsu technique right, the size and strength of your opponent do not matter. When you do the technique half right, the size and strength do matter and when you do the technique wrong, the size and strength matter completely. Do the technique right and the elbow will break, or he will tap out. Do the technique wrong you will spend a lot of time and energy to try to muscle the finish. Do the technique completely wrong, and he will escape, reverse you and beat you.
The 10th think I learned is: You don't plan a fight, you win a fight.
One of students in the seminar asked Master Gracie what was his favorite technique to win a fight? And he replied, "the one that wins the fight". He went on to explain that he did not plan a fight. He did study film, if he had it and had the time, and he did have specific moves for certain times that he intended to use and to try at various times during the fight, but he did not make a plan of attack in his head and try moves that were not working or techniques that would not work against a particular opponent and try to do them anyway.
I asked him how St. Pierre beat BJ Penn last week and he said that St.Pierre took BJ out of his game plan. Every time BJ tried a certain move or expected to be able to try a certain move or implement a plan of attack for the fight. St. Pierre did something to take him out of his game plan and nullify the response that BJ intended to do. I remarked that I was surprised that BJ, who is so great on his back and on the ground was in fact on his back and on the ground almost the entire fight and was beaten so badly by a man who in no way can be considered the "ground jiu jitsu master" that BJ Penn was. And Master Gracie said, that was because every time BJ tried to do a move or a technique that he had planned, St. Pierre stopped it, countered it and proceeded to beat BJ to a pulp.
Master Gracie went on to explain to the class that you don't "plan" a fight, you win a fight. You do practice and work on techniques that you think might be good for a particular opponent, but when the actual fight starts you have to use techniques that your opponent is giving you, not techniques that you are determined to try anyway, even though your opponent is fully prepared for them and will stop them. Master Gracie said that you adapt the techniques you know to the particular fight and the fighter you are fighting.
He also went on to point out that most of the times in the real World you do not have a video of your opponents old fights. You do not have 6 months to get ready for the fight and so 6 months to learn and practice techniques that you fell will work on that particular opponent. In all the street fights Master Gracie had been in, and he had been in 100's, he only a few seconds of a few minutes to get ready for the fight and did not have any time to prepare a fight plan. And if you ever find yourself in a street fight you won't have but a few seconds to a few minutes to get your mind and body ready for the fight.
What you have to do is "go with the flow". Take what your opponent gives and you and use the techniques that you know that will stop what your opponent is doing, nullify his attack and allow you to control the fight, control the events in the fight and win the fight. You might be a great kicker, but if you are on your back, you won't be able to use your kicks. You might be a great puncher and hard jabber, but if you are held against the wall, you won't be able to jab and use your punches. You might be great on your right side, but find your opponent has held you from your left side. You might have a great guard, but find yourself caught in the mount. You might have some great chokes, but find yourself being choked. So all your "plans" and all the techniques you think you are good at or even great at, might not be able to be used because your opponent is not allowing you to do them.
You have to be able to change your techniques to techniques that will work against that particular opponent at that particular time in the fight. I can tell you from experience that you have to be prepared for anything. Master Guy Mezger is one of the greatest fighters to come out of Texas in the last 30 years was a UFC Champion, Pride Champion, Kick Boxing Champion and even wrestling champion. Master Mezger has some of the strongest and best kicking techniques in the World and has used his viscous kicks to win many fights, but if he can't kick and winds up on his back, he is also a great jiu jitsu fighter and can beat you on his back. When I ask him about what technique he used to defeat a certain opponent in a certain fight, he will go into great detail about what and how he did it. Some of his fights he won with a side kick, some with a round house, some with a right cross, come with a rear naked choke, some with a knee bar, some with a arm bar. The more we talked about the fights the more and different ways he told me about the fights he won. He always adapted the techniques he used to that particular fight and changed whatever he needed to do to allow him to win that specific fight. He was constantly adapting the the changing conditions in the fight and using and changing his techniques that will is using in the fight to win that particular fight. You can and do the same thing.
You must learn to practice all aspects of your fight game. You must become great in punching, kicking, throws, chokes, hold downs, wrist locks, joint locks, combinations, strength training, diet, mental training, etc. You can not just be a good boxer and win all your fights with punching. You can not be just a good kicker and win all you fights with kicks. You can't just be a great ground jiu jitsu player and win all your fights on the ground. You have to be good at everything. You have to train in all aspects of the fight game and be prepared to make adaptations to any particular fight at any time during the fight with easy and confidence. If you don't adapt and change as the fight progresses. If you just keep trying the same punches, kicks, take downs and attacks you did in round 1, into round 2 a you probably wont' make it to round 3. You have to be prepared to change the way you are fighting and defending to what your opponent is giving you. When you learn that, and when you have practiced enough to know what to do in any particular situation, you will become a great fighter and a Great Martial Artist.

1.
For more info: Grandmaster Ted Gambordella is the author of 38 books and 24 DVD's. For more info: http://www.blackbeltinabox.com

For the best MMA training in Texas try Guy Mezger's Sports Club, Dallas, TX http://www.guymezger.com