Chris Stone of Gig Harbor MMA (one of our affiliates) had an epic win this last Saturday by submitting his opponent in the 2nd round with a triangle-choke:

Some things I reflected upon and want to point out to our students are:

• If you want to do MMA, then you better have really strong BJJ.  I think Chris’ opponent regretted taking the fight to the ground, because Chris was a non-stop threat there (despite the fact that he’s an excellent kickboxer, his Jits is legit).
• Good Attitude! Chris tried to touch gloves with his opponent and he didn’t reciprocate. Not only is this bad sportsmanship, but if you lose, you look really foolish.
• The Book of Five Rings talks much about defeating your opponent’s spirit and you have already won the fight. While most people reading this would say, “duh”, it’s important to look beyond the primary effect.  I noticed at the start that Chris’ opponent was haunched down, while Chris stood tall; whether this was out of laziness or arrogance matters not.  Chris stood like a rock, showed good sportsmanship and came out looking super chill, like he knew he was going to win the fight.  So he didn’t hesitate (Secondary effect) to attempt a double-leg and get the guy to the cage.  Every time his opponent was in a bad spot, he seemed to only think of his escape and not what should follow after he was out.  He was, in a sense, just defending against his bad positions and not thinking two, three, four moves ahead (Tertiary effect).  Chris gets good position, knows what escape his opponent is going to use and sets up the triangle-choke, while his opponent is just thinking “escape mount”.  Chris even mentioned to me, “as soon as he under-hooked my leg to escape mount, I was thinking ‘thank you!’.”  And Chris wins by submission (Quaternary effect).
• Triangle-chokes are rarely finished in the first setup.  Notice how Chris just kept adjusting, adjusting, adjusting, and sunk his triangle-choke after he had perfect position?  Perfect execution of what we’ve been working on with triangles.

Well done to a great fighter!  October and November will be exciting months for us in the MMA world, as one of our own, Edson Penado, will be putting everything on the line for his two upcoming fights.