Popovitch's BJJ- Mixed Martial Arts Blog

After watching many Mixed Martial Arts(MMA) fights and training with top level fighters I came up with the most important aspects I believe someone needs to master in order to be able to succeed in mixed martial arts fighting.

I will write some of the fundamentals I believe are essential from a grappler point of view since my expertise is Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu/Wrestling.

The fundamentals:

Setting up to take the fight to the ground-
You need to have good boxing or kickboxing skills, you don’t have to be great but you have to be able to strike to set up your takedowns. I recommend a wrestler/BJJ to learn boxing first and then try to learn kickboxing. For a grappler boxing feels relatively easier to learn than kickboxing.

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2008 is almost over but we are still training strong. Our 12:30pm Pro grappling and MMA training has been great and we are getting a lot of really good people to train with.

UFC Superstar Hermez Franca and Jeremy Stephens, BJJ champion Cyborg Abreu and a couple of his brown belts also have been coming to train with us. Plus Team Popovitch Black Belts Jay Moncaio, Vagner Rocha, Kevin Albertini. Newcomers stars Fred Moncaio , James Brasco, Brian Fuery ,Ron Melnik and Johny Cardonna just to name a few have been training everyday.

You put all those guys in a room and we have a great practice, we have been training Brazilian jiu-jitsu, wrestling everyday and mixing it up with MMA about two times per week. Hermez has a big fight coming up in February against Lauzon in the Ultimate Fighting Championship in Tampa. Vagner Rocha is schedule to make his MMA debut in February, Johny Cardonna has his Pro Debut schedule for February as well, and I have to start competing in as many grappling tournaments as I can to get ready for The ADCC 2009. We are training strong but we will start the year competing in high level competitions.

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