Grapplearts: What do You Want to Know About MMA Training?

[Stephan Kesting]

Hi there

I'm green with envy, because in a few weeks my friend Don Whitefield
(from West Coast BJJ) is traveling to Florida on a BJJ training trip.
He's going to be training with some big names there, like Marcelo
Garcia, Ricardo de la Riva, "Boca" Oliveira and Ricardo Liborio.

Ricardo Liborio has been in the news a lot recently, because he's the
co-owner and head instructor for the mixed martial arts powerhouse
known as American Top Team (ATT). He's also one of Carlson Gracie's
most famous black belts. He won the 'most technical fighter' award in
the 1996 BJJ World Championships, has competed at the highest levels
of submission grappling, and has now turned his attention to producing
MMA champions.

ATT has fighters in almost every UFC. For example, Denis Kang (who is
fighting this weekend in UFC 93) calls ATT home, and raves about the
quality of training there.

So here's the thing...

Since I can't go to Florida myself, I figured I'd ask Don to ask
Ricardo Liborio some questions for me. I'm particularly interested in
how BJJ has to be adapted to work in MMA, how competitors should
balance different aspects of their training, and what a typical 'work
week' looks like for their fighters.

But I'm also going to open the floor to you guys. Do you have
questions about BJJ, MMA, or the relationship between the two. If you
do, please just reply to this email and send me your TOP QUESTION. No
promises, but I'll do my best to get an answer for you.

Let's get together ASAP and figure out ATT uses BJJ to dominate the
UFC and MMA! (Sorry, I couldn't resist...).

Stephan Kesting
www.grapplearts.com

P.S. I'm working on getting a couple of cool new articles up onto
Grapplearts in the next little while. When that happens I'll let you
know).