A lone figure in all black with a hood approaches you in a dark alley. He stops 5 feet in front of you. You are unarmed and cornered. Which of these weapons feels the least dangerous to you? Against which weapons would you rather defend yourself.

How many of you have a family member that also trains? What advice do you have for getting our loved ones to join us? What excuses do you most often hear for not training?

This week when you catch someone in a submission, practice ramping. Ramping means to slowly increase the intensity of the squeeze. Count to 10 while you apply your submission. Increase your pressure by 5% on each count. This will give your partner time to try to mount an escape. This will also give you an opportunity to practice maintaining control instead of racing to finish before they slip away. When we ramp something like a choke, our partner feels like they cannot wait this out because it just gets worse over time. On top of that, we are far less likely to exhaust ourselves and burn out squeezing as hard as possible. When we make it a habit to work this way with our partners for the majority of rounds, everyone gets better.

This week, if you have a move in which you are confident and adept, teach it to a friend. Help them learn the move against the most common reaction you have gotten. You will find that teaching will deepen your understanding. It will highlight the pieces you are less familiar with. When I was a newer teacher at Rickson’s school in LA, the what if questions made me nervous because they could sometimes stump me. I would go find Rickson or another professor there and dive deep. Embrace the what ifs. These days I get bored of there aren’t any what ifs. 😜