33 Zombieland Survival Rules For MMA

[Black Death]

By PDXFighter






In the movie Zombieland, Jesse Eisenberg survives by diligently sticking to his personal rules of Zombie survival. In fairness, I don’t recall if any of them were Korean. In homage to this great zombie movie, I’ve decided to take his 33 rules and adapt them for MMA. Sadly, the Zombie Cage Fighting Championships is still just a hope for the distant future. And according to Nate “Rock” Quarry there are only 2 rules in Zombie Cage Fighting: Rule 1. Humans, No Biting Rule 2. Zombies, Mostly Biting. Until then, learn the 33 rules and apply them to step your game up. They may not keep you alive when the zombie apocalypse hits, but at least they may help you kick some human ass.


Rule #1   Cardio
This one is easy. MMA athletes, much like zombies, live very active lifestyles. So should you. Everything you want to do and intellectually know how to do in MMA is predicated on your ability to get your body to actually do it. MMA is grueling and muscles need oxygen like zombies need brains. The number one rule is Cardio. Get it before it gets you.


Rule #2   The Double Tap
I love this rule. The double tap is basically insurance. If you are executing a technique or are close to a finish, always try to keep a backup plan just in case what you want to do goes south. The last thing you want to do is sink in that sub with your last ounce of strength and find your opponent slipping out and you have no back-up plan. If you’re gonna finish him, make sure if he escapes, that he walks headlong into your backup plan. Ideally the Double Tap will insure that you go home carrying one of your opponent’s limbs in your bag. Good luck getting that through security.

Rule #3   Beware of Bathrooms
Cutting weight is a big part of the game. There are a lot of methodologies to a good cut but the best way is to just burn more calories than you consume. Don’t mess around with diuretics and colonics. It is much healthier for your body to reduce calories than it is to put your body through that kind of stress. It’s literally the shittiest way you can make weight. This really would have been much funnier if it were rule #2.

Rule #4   Wear Seat Belts
It seems very few positions are worse than getting your back taken. As any bjj white belt can tell you, when the opponent gets his “seat belt” or “harness” grip around your neck and under your armpit, you’re in a world of trouble. The problem is so many people spend so much time attacking it or struggling to not get into it, they don’t know how to properly defend it. I’m telling you now: give up your back in practice. Work on surviving the rear naked choke, arm bars and triangle attacks from the back. When you become comfortable defending and escaping this terrible position, you’ll feel much less anxiety if you get caught there in a real match. Unless, of course, your choke-happy opponent really is naked and on your rear. In which case, you’re in for a bumpy ride.

Rule #5   No Attachments
People get fixated on their go-to move, their style, their favorite techniques and positions. Don’t get attached to any one thing. Work on the weakest elements of your game just as hard as you work on perfecting the strongest parts. Work out of your comfort zone to improve every part of your game. If you get into a pattern and your opponent recognizes it, you may have a long and painful match ahead of you.

Rule #6   The “Skillet”
Prepare your own food. It may be new for you to avoid restaurants and fast food but it will be the easiest way for you to keep track of what goes into your body. Preservative-laden, high calorie, fatty, sugary food is omnipresent. Your body is a machine that needs the highest quality fuel to perform at the highest levels. It is up to you to either make it yourself or work with a nutritionist to help guide you to what is good for you. Several nutritionists have programs online that can help your diet immensely. And besides, chicks dig guys who can cook.

Rule #7   Travel Light
There’s a maxim in boxing: if your heels are on the mat, your mobility is limited. Stay light on your feet; work on your foot work daily. Creating angles in the stand-up game keeps you moving and setting up shots while your opponent is awkwardly playing a catch up game. Stick, move, adjust, stay active but do not plant your feet and slug. Particularly if your opponent is smiling at your best punches.


Rule #8   Get a Kick Ass Partner
Steel sharpens steel. If you train with people who don’t challenge you, your game will never get to the next level. Training partners that know how to push you to your absolute limit without injuring you are a golden commodity.

Rule #9   With your Bare Hands
Among my earliest introductions to martial arts as a teenager was a via wing chun/tai chi technique called “pushing hands”. Pushing hands is drilled with a partner and will improve your leverage, reflexes, pressure sensitivity, timing, coordination, positioning and footwork. It also helps you learn to redirect force rather than resist it which is excellent in grappling and defending strikes. See? Tai chi isn’t just for old Chinese ladies and douchebags in the park.

Rule #10   Don’t Swing Low
This is a given, even zombies should stay away from your junk. No matter how much you may associate that part of your anatomy with “brains”.


Rule #11   Use Your Foot
If your striking game is heavy on the classic boxing and muay thai, you may be missing out on one of the single most powerful techniques in all of mixed martial arts: kicks. Punish the thigh/knee of your opponent who leads heavy on his front leg, smash the inside leg, cripple with kicks to the body or knock a fool out with a decapitating head kick. The back, glutes and leg muscles are the largest muscles in the body. Use them to decimate your opponent with kicks. They hurt more than punches and even hurt when they’re blocked. Just watch out for those defensive takedowns!

Rule #12   Bounty Paper Towels
Great for wiping up messes on the mats caused by spilt blood, sweat, snot, vomit, saliva and teeth. Yeah, that’s right, I said teeth.

Rule #13   Shake it Off
No one likes a gym bitch. This ain’t ballet, you’re gonna take some lumps. Shake it off and get back in there.

Rule #14   Always carry a change of underwear
Believe me when I tell you â€" and I’m absolutely serious about this â€" I choked a guy out one time in a rear naked choke and while he was tensed up struggling to breath, he dropped a load. That’s right, I literally choked the shit out of him. It was Naaaa-ha-ha-HA-sty! That one brings back bad memories. Let’s just move on to number 15.

Rule #15   Bowling Ball
In high school P.E. class we did a week of bowling. Everyone picked teams but a Down syndrome boy named Zane was left out so my best friend and I added him to our team. Little did we realize that Zane was a beast at bowling. What no one knew is that Zane bowled several times a week for years. He was a straight pimp with a bowling ball and killed everyone. Zane also had one very muscular right arm. I guess several hours per week of tight control of a bowler’s arm swing does wonders for the muscles, tendons, joints and ligaments. That can’t be bad for combat sports. The moral of this story: you can find something useful to combat sports in just about anything you do â€" including bowling. Second moral, sometimes Down syndrome kids just need a friend. Go Zane!

Rule #16   Opportunity Knocks
What is not commonly known is that fights fall apart all the time. Fighters get injured. When a bout falls prey to a vacancy don’t pass up the opportunity. Stay on weight, train like your fight is coming up. Let promoters know you are available as a backup for your weight division if someone backs out or is injured. When opportunity knocks, make sure you answer the freaking door.


Rule #17   Be a hero
There are so many ways to lose a fight that is may be tempting to play it safe, hold your position, dominate the control game without risking losing position to strike or submit your opponent. This kind of lay-and-pray mentality is universally hated. On the other side of the coin, you can just lay there and hope the ref stands you back up, give up and take the beating your mother warned you about, or you can do something spectacular. Take a chance, go for the knockout, the submission or at least do whatever it takes to finish the fight. Playing it safe sucks. Be a hero. You will be praised by the masses.

Rule #18   Limber Up
Contrary to popular belief, studies have proven that stretching doesn’t actually significantly prevent injuries. Most injuries occur within the range of motion. What it does do though, is increase your range of motion and allow you to hit better moves through better flexibility. Just please, please don’t bring a fuchsia yoga mat to the gym.

Rule #19   Break it Up
Change up your workout routine. Change your style. Change your partners. Change your attack patterns. Change the days of the week and the times of the day you train. Change the aggression and cognitive ratios during a bout. Make your body constantly adapt and learn to adapt mentally to every scenario. Don’t be complacent. And while you’re at it, see rule #14 and change your damn underpants before you roll. No one needs to smell that.

Rule #20   It’s a marathon, not a sprint, unless it’s a sprint, then sprint
MMA competitions are usually measured in three rounds of 5 minutes each. This gives you 15 minutes to do what needs to be done. Recognize that you don’t need to blow your wad in the first minute of the first round or you’ll be killed in the remaining minutes of the next two rounds. It’s a marathon, not a sprint. Unless of course, your opponent is fading quickly, you smell blood, you have him badly trapped or you know if it goes much longer the fight will be his. In those cases, sprint like the zombies just broke through the glass windows and are now inside the mall with you.


Rule #21   Avoid Strip Clubs
Generally a good idea for lots of reasons. Drinking is poisonous to your body and you really don’t need the extra calories. Being around smoke is bad for your lungs, which is bad for your cardio which violates rule #1. Wasting hours at the strip club would be better served training, watching fight tape online, promoting yourself, getting fights or just plain hanging with your friends and family. Giving away money to girls who pretend to like you for money is just plain useless â€" unless you’re T-Pain and you can get rich off a song about it. Finally, if you’re gonna get in bar fights for free, you’re wasting your talent when you should be getting paid for it.

Rule #22   When in doubt know your way out
Understand that for every technique there is at least one or more counters and for every counter there are usually recounters. If you find something you’re good at, learn the counters and develop recounters. If you find yourself in unfamiliar territory, always make sure there is a way out in case you’re actually walking right into your opponent’s trap.

Rule #23   Ziplock
Be prepared. Although your gym may have a first aid kit, carry a few ziplock bags in your gym bag containing the following stuff because you never know when you might need them: Q-tips, ibuprofen, spare contact lenses, bandages, cotton balls, gauze, boxing tape, travel size hand sanitizer, spare mouthpiece, Nosebleed QR, non-latex gloves, mouth guard spray/disinfectant, toe nail clippers, medical scissors with protective sheath, and liquid bandage â€" they even make liquid bandage in a spray bottle now. Although it doesn’t fit in a ziplock, it’s also a good idea to have an instant cold pack in your kit. If you aren’t rocking a great reliable gym bag with lots of room, at the very least, keep this kit in your car. You won’t regret it. Note: this may also be useful in the coming zombie apocalypse.

Rule #24   Use your thumbs
Ever thought about thumb strength? Smart grapplers increase their grip strength, often squeezing hand grippers. This is great for the hand and fingers but it really leaves out the thumbs. Even if you have fingers of steel, if your thumbs are weak you won’t be able to keep your grip on your opponent or your own hand/wrist/ankle/arm for long. Seal the deal with your submission grip game by exercising your thumbs as well. Use thick foam or a small hand towel or your gi belt wrapped around a barbell to simulate a thick wrist or ankle and squeeze tight. You can do the same around a pull up bar too to get your thumb used to squeezing and developing an iron grip. Finally, you can get some simple spring clamps from a hardware store and just pinch down on them with your thumb. Fair warning: you may need to control yourself the next time you get under your girl’s shirt.

Rule #25   Shoot First
It has been said time and time again that offense is the best defense. If you are aggressively attacking, your opponent is forced to spend more time defending and less time attacking. This can pay dividends, particularly if you work your way into a dominant position. Pull the trigger on him and keep him on the defense.

Rule #26   A little sun screen never hurt anybody
When the weather is nice, outdoor training can be a really nice change from the gym. There are a lot of things you can do at parks, at the beach, in the woods, in the back yard or just around your neighborhood. Hit up a local park and work the jungle gym, that equipment can really test your fitness levels if you work it hard. Wrestle with a buddy in the sand at the beach. When your feet get used to that environment, the mats seem easy. Camping trips can be transformed into a natural boot camp, especially if you have a bunch of fight buddies with you. The backyard is grossly underrated as a training environment. Bored with the standard run through the neighborhood? Why not spice it up and try out some parkour? Note: Parkour, along with most things French, will be useless in the zombie apocalypse.

Rule #27   Incoming!
We spend so much time drilling offense and defense but sometimes you just gotta learn to take a hit. It’s going to happen so you may as well just get used to it. Strengthen your core to absorb body shots and get used to taking a shot to the face/head from time to time. If you drill it in the gym, it won’t be as bad when you feel it in the cage. Exception: nut shots. I don’t recommend drilling those.

Rule #28   Double-Knot your Shoes
The last thing you need during a fight is equipment failure. In a recent televised bout, one of the fighters’ shorts actually came down around his knees while caught in a grappling scramble. Similarly, cups have been seen flying out onto the mat (and strangely put back by referees and Japanese ringside professionals!), poorly fit mouth guards fly out all the time, and gloves come undone because someone forgot to tape them up. You already have enough to be concerned about without worrying about your gear during your bout.

Rule #29   The Buddy System
Why don’t you ever see zombies attack each other? Because at the most basic biological level they recognize they’re on the same team. They support one another, and you should too. MMA may seem like a very personal and individualistic endeavor and you can easily forget that your team mates are also on their own personal journeys. Support your training buddies. Go to every team member’s fight you can go to, support them like you want them to support you. You’ll enjoy some good fights, learn about your local MMA scene and you might just get some good networking in.

Rule #30   Pack your stain stick
I’ve ruined a lot of shirts in training and that’s ok. But if you wear a white gi when you train BJJ and you want to take good care of it, you may wanna pack your stain stick, chances are it’s gonna get bloody. Of course, if you have a more serious accident, you might just want to refer back to rule #14.


Rule #31   Check the back seat
In the movies there’s always someone in the back seat that suddenly appears and strangles the driver. Although rule #4 says you should give up your back to get comfortable with the position, this rule might seem to contradict that but it doesn’t. Rule #4 applies to training and practice. Rule #31 applies to actual matches. Learn to always be aware of your position and keep your back from being taken if you can. It really is a crappy place in which to find yourself. When all defense fails and you do get your back taken, at least you can fall back on what you learned by employing rule #4. Unless of course it is a real zombie, in which case, you’re screwed.

Rule #32   Enjoy the little things
Enjoy the small victories. Even if you’re sparring with a seasoned striker and you can avoid taking any serious shots in practice, count that as a win. Survival is a good thing. When you’re rolling with a more experienced grappler, count it as a personal victory when you do better than you did the last time. Remember when you’re training with someone who is better than you, they will always expose your weaker points. It is up to you to try your best to improve those points and get better every time. Eventually those little victories will pay off.

Rule #33   Swiss army Knife
Learn everything you can about every combat sport. There are techniques you need to learn in Judo, San Shou, Sambo, Catch Wrestling, Hapkido and pretty much any combat sport. If you find some stability and destabilizing techniques from Sumo that you can put to use in MMA, you’re a pimp. If you can adapt redirection of motion concepts from Aikido into your game, you may just be Steven Segal. But even if you are Steven Segal, there’s no stopping the zombie horde once you are “Under Siege”.

[Cory]

lol i like this