KombatClinic.com sponsored seminar
Submission wrestling with Jeff 'the Snowman' Monson
UFC veteran, Abu Dhabi World Champion (1999 & 2003) and 2007 FILA World Champion

For those of you that have been around me for the last 6-8 weeks you know how much I was looking forward to this session we had planned with Jeff, I literally did not stopped talking about it! Jeff Monson; an Ultimate Fighting Championship veteran, Pride Fighting Championship veteran, recently fought for the UFC Heavyweight Championship (UFC 65), had choked out Fujita- 'the Unchokable' (Pride 34), 1999 & 2003 Abu Dhabi Combat Club world champion and more recently crowned 2007 FILA world grappling champion.

The session itself went from good to brilliant as Jeff shared some of his tried and tested drills and flows that he uses successfully every time he sets foot on the mat against some seriously gifted/talented opposition. Based on developing enormous core strength and natural weighted transition at every position Jeff's teaching style was balanced enough to extend from the total beginner, more at home in a traditional Karate dojo to those attending who had several MMA matches under their belt.

The session itself

Like most attendees Jeff actually got caught in traffic on the way down from Coventry (and I accidentally sent him to the wrong address) but the session started with us going through various warm up drills that Jeff regularly goes through whilst training at the American Top Team gym in the US. Stressing the importance of dynamic and technical movements we began by drilling the simple 'shrimping' movement with the aim of covering as much distance across the mat as possible, this movement formed pretty much the whole session in terms of all escapes from side control and the full-guard.

One exercise Jeff did share was the 'caterpillar' and exercise that he had picked up from arguably the best pound for pound grappler on the planet- Marcello Garcia . Resembling the exercise that can be performed to develop the abdominal's with a wheel this simple exercise was surprisingly taxing and is great for developing strong abs. in fact my stomach still feels sore.

Throughout the evening Jeff stressed that he was not there to teach submission after submission and was not about to try to teach techniques that he would never be able to do, rather, the session revolved more around strategy and philosophical movements to attack an opponent at various levels from top to bottom, creating a mistake or shift in bodyweight and then to apply a prescribed movement or escape capitalising on the movement.

Obviously looking at Jeff and his physique you can gauge a rough idea of the type of strategy Jeff employs in contest grappling; weight transfer as opposed to fancy sacrifice techniques and an attempt to dominate every position possible. This evident assumption was carried through into all the technical drills from the double leg drill to various sweeps from full-guard and the Omoplata position- all with the aim of getting on top.

Because of the time constraints placed on the session we didn't have time for a roll with partners however I had the pleasure of being tossed all over the room by Jeff and felt his weight and strength whilst stressing the techniques we were drilling. AWESOME is a word that could be used to describe him.

At the last seminar we held with Braulio Estima he used me to demonstrate the effectiveness of a rear naked choke if applied with proper technique and not brute force- how effective Braulio was at this technique was scary as I was on my way out after 3 seconds.

To look at Jeff it doesn't take much to work out that he is going to be incredible strong but what most would fail to grasp is just how technically brilliant Jeff is from vertical to horizontal grappling. I know it sounds stupid but I could just feel how good he was and I understood that I would not stand a chance during a free roll. Even whilst he was demonstrating with me giving some form of resistance he could easily engage with the other attendees explaining all that was needed for the movement to work.

We are hoping to arrange another session with Jeff in early December 2007 so keep you eyes and ears open for more information.