Recently, at the Southeast Martial Arts Training Conference, held this past October, World Light Heavyweight Shootwrestling Champion Erik Paulson was in Atlanta assisting Guro Dan Inosanto and teaching a special workshop on submission fighting techniques. Trudee Tarkowski of the Francis Fong Academy had the opportunity to talk with Erik and discuss his thoughts about fighting, training, martial arts and life.

FFA: So, how did you initially get involved in the martial arts?

EP: 1974, in judo, my mother started me. I began karate in 1976, in 1978 I began to box amateur, and in 1982 I met Rick Faye. Then I went to L.A. in 1986 and trained with Tim Tackett and Burt Poe in the garage for 3 years, then Larry Hartsell, then I went and moved in 1989 and began Shooto and well jiu-jitsu, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, in 1988 with the Gracies.

FFA: What were you doing with Rick Faye early on, could you mention it briefly?

EP: Thai Boxing, Kali and Jun Fan.

FFA: and Tim Tackett?

EP: More JKD, and Burt Poe was more survival and street fighting stuff. And Larry was grappling, boxing and grappling.

FFA: so how old were you when you started in 1974?

EP: I was 12 years old.

FFA: When was your first professional fight?

EP: 1992. I fought my first fight in Japan. This is my third fight career. I had fought in the point fighting circuit for about 8 years and that stemmed into full contact karate. And then I had some full contact karate matches when I lived in Minnesota and then amateur boxing, a lot of amateur boxing matches. I had a bunch of fights in amateur boxing, although not a career in it. Then after that, the next thing for me was the Shooto - I was doing Jiu Jitsu and I already had the standup, I had some kickboxing matches.

Competition was in my blood, so that's why I started fighting in the Shooto. It was the next step for me. I saw the fights in Japan and I watched them and said, "I can do that".

And at the time I was the only one at the academy who was interested and also I think at the level to fight and then all of a sudden, Yuri [Nakamura], a year later, after I told him that I said I want to fight in Japan, he said OK great, Chad's going to fight with you over there.

FFA: Chad who?

EP: Chad Stahelsky was my training partner and he started doing the Shooto. He had a competitive nature also and was very good at kickboxing, so he was my training partner for the fights. We basically beat the crap out of each other, over and over, to get better.

FFA: So is the mentality in Japanese culture a little different towards fighters or is it like here?

EP: NO. It's totally different. And there's a ton of respect, like people are quiet over there. Number one, all the people are quiet.

FFA: Did you have any particularly noteworthy experiences over in Japan that still stand out in your mind?

EP: My fond remembrance is having to cut anywhere from 8 to 12 pounds one day before my fight.

FFA: How do you do that?

EP: It's all water so you run and don't eat.

FFA: Do you spit it out too?

EP: NO, I don't spit. I just don't eat and I don't intake water during the day, although you should. You have to have a little bit. I would suck on ice cubes with lemon. They have this really good lemon ice over there and I would just get lemon ice and suck on it to curb my appetite and my saliva.

FFA: So is there a certain mindset that you would get into before a fight?

EP: OH yeah! You consistently go through a mental process where you are getting yourself prepared for your fight every night. I mean that's why you don't sleep.

FFA: You don't sleep?

EP: A lot of times yeah, you roll around in bed because number one, when your level gets high enough endurance wise you can train - like sometimes I would train three times a day and I wouldn't get tired so sometimes you're training and you go "oh geez I have to stop, I'm training to much today" So by the time you get home your body doesn't shut down quite so easy like it should. You'd think it would if it's going real hard, but when you peak, it's like that so sometimes you don't sleep that well and you get cranky.

But more than that, you're visualizing your fight every night. What you're going to do and this and that and you see your opponent. Especially for these matches, you have your opponent picked out a couple months ahead of time. So you have to study their tapes. It's a whole process, so you put yourself through a lot of mental anguish. Also you're consistently training to get ready to go to war basically. After the fight, you need at least a week to come off of the training, to come off of that mindset that you've set yourself up to do, which is to go to war. You need your nurturing afterwards and you need your love and you need your down time.

FFA: So did you get that from your training partners?

EP: (laughing) no, no, usually it's in your relationship, as long as it's a good one. That's important. And your friends, your friends, your social family or your circle of people you're in contact with.

FFA: So what do you do physically for training.

EP: Physically, I train twice a day. Once in the morning, once at night and in the day I would either run or lift.

FFA: So you do lift, I've heard that too much lifting can be a problem.

EP: You need heavy weights, you need a spotting partner and you go to full failure. Another thing is for cardio I would run, swim, spar, padwork, and heavy bag. Those are the five things I use for endurance. As far as for strength and conditioning I do a lot of pliometric exercises, a lot of gymnastic exercises, like pushups, dips, pull-ups, knee-ups, things like that where you use your own body weight. And also wrestling drills where you're continually lifting and pushing and pulling people. Also running bleachers, or running hills things like that to develop your explosive power, your ability to excel.

FFA: So last night at your workshop you told us that in grappling the most important thing to develop is your ability to pull

EP: To pull, pulling.

FFA: So what do you do to develop that in particular

EP: I do one armed rows, I do seated rows, row with a straight back, I do lat pull downs, but I go wide grip and I bring it in front of my chest and lean back. I do one armed lat pull downs and I do pull ups, and reinforced one-armed pull-ups. But again they're spotted usually because you go heavy weights, high reps and then you pyramid down. So I go to failure, then lower the weight, go to failure, lower the weight, go to failure, lower the weight, so you're consistently just working and working; because that's what you're wrestling match is going to be like. You're consistently going and going and going. So if you can push yourself to do that, if you have a time to rest or relax, that's good , but to stay aggressive and dominate you always want to be attacking. In order to be attacking you have to have that much more endurance and be that much better in shape.

FFA: What about repetition in training?

EP: High repetition, everything is high reps. And, it's not a bunch of different things, everything is based on high percentages. More than anything I always work on getting out of bad situations. Getting taken down I work either preventing the shot, countering the shot, or hitting the floor and working after I've done it and how to get back up onto my knees or onto my feet again so I can strike. It depends on my opponent. If I have a good opponent who's really good at striking then my objective is to get him down on the ground and hold him down. So I do a lot of exercises where I'll take a person down and he'll try to stand up and my only objective is to keep him down, without doing any submissions, but just to hold him on the ground.

As far as full out endurance goes I'll take a pair of Thai Pads and two partners and go down to the park. When I go down to the park what we do is to do 50-yard sprints. So I'll run as fast as I can down to the Thai pads I'll do alternate kicks double left double right usually 10-20 kicks as fast as I can and then I back run 50 yards. My partner runs up and does the same. When he is back running that's when I'm running back so when I'm sprinting back I do criss cross and do 30 punches as fast and as hard as I can. Then I back run as he's running up to do what I just did. Then I run again for the third time and I do plumb and do 30 knees and then I back run again. And then I start the cycle over. That equals, those three things equals one minute. Nine of those all together and that equals three minutes which equals one round.

FFA: mmmm? That's a lot.

EP: Yeah, that's one round, 9 of those is one round. Another thing I'll do is 30-second intervals. 30 seconds double kicks, hit the floor - thirty seconds of wrestling and I'm up - 30 seconds criss cross, hit the floor; 30 seconds wrestling; then get up, 30 seconds of grabbing and kneeing; then thirty seconds of wrestling. Break. That's one round. These are called puke drills.

FFA: So when you have two partners?

EP: Yeah, I have two people one holder and one wrestler. So as soon as I hit the ground I'm wrestling, I get back up and punch. So it goes aerobic, anaerobic, aerobic, anaerobic.

The best thing you can do for overall conditioning, the best thing you can do for overall endurance conditioning is kickboxing with throwing - shootboxing - because the up and down wears you out so that's the influence of aerobic and anaerobic training.

FFA: So, did you want to make some comments on the state of submission wrestling?

EP: Well, now everyone's doing submission wrestling, but the main thing is now my game for fighting, for ground grappling. For fighting contains 4 things and 3 things for submission wrestling. Number one for fighting, it's positioning, controlling and pinning, number two is escapes, reversals and my defense, number 3 is my striking and my trapping on the ground and number 4 is my submissions and finishes, whether it be appendages, chokes, or neck cranks. If it's submission wrestling I work tons of takedowns, shooting and countering the shot, and then on the ground position escaping controls, reversals, and submissions. That's what it is for submission wrestling.

FFA: Do you have any guys who are fighting right now?

EP: I've got lots of guys who are fighting all over. I'm training a lot of people. A lot of guys were fighting, they all wanted to fight. Their technical level was good but they couldn't figure out exactly how to fight. They'd get in the ring and sometimes they'd win and sometimes they'd lose. But, technically they were more advanced or enhanced than the other people out there. So, the problem was with their conditioning. So once I changed their conditioning routine, "I asked them are you guys running?" and they'd say "no". But see if you're fighting or competing you have to be running or you're not competing. The same thing, if you're lifting weights and you're not squatting, you're not lifting weights because squatting is one of the overall muscle developments for total body strength. Leg conditioning, you need squatting or power cleans.

FFA: And what about psychologically?

EP: yeah, I meditate, I meditate consistently, but here's the deal. If your body is poison, your mind is poison. If your body is in top shape, your mind is in top shape; usually. And again your performance is affected by many factors; being your environment, your work, your social life, your family life, and your love life. It also has to do with your diet and nutrition. It also has to do with any habits that you have such as smoking and drinking. So, there are many factors that come into play as far as your overall performance.

I have a chart in an article I did for training on how to train for a fight. In Grappling Magazine, it's the one where I'm on the cover chicken winging a guy. That magazine article has all the performance factors. If I had known this before, I would have blown that up and put it on my wall and looked at it every day and written yeah or nay for each one. That's how you figure out where you're at and what you need to work on. Not only as just a fighter, but in your overall life. There might be one portion of it you're looking at going, well you know I'm really lacking in this one and I'm over abundant over here. So it's all based on balance; mind, body, spirit. Balance is your key - you're spiritual life, your social life, and your life in the gym. You have your discipline, you get your butt in the gym and training real hard. Your work ethics are key. If you have strong work ethics then your real disciplined with yourself, you make yourself run, you watch your diet, you get your proper rest, you get along with your spouse, your girlfriend, your boyfriend, whatever, that's your key. That's your balance. The training, the wartime is when you're training in the gym. The downtime, the nurturing time is when you're in the gym.

EP: I travel every weekend right now. I'm hitting all parts of the continent. I'm not hitting Japan so much, but I've been going all over Europe, I have a really good European response.

FFA: Do you work a certain curriculum?

EP: I have a curriculum in either submission fighting, or submission wrestling curriculum. Some people prefer only grappling, some people prefer a mixture. And I think one thing that sets us aside is the mixture, and another thing that sets us aside from a lot of the others is the fact that the ground position is gi-less, and it's submission. It is different. If you go to a jiu-jitsu seminar, it isn't the same as jiu-jitsu. Jiu-Jitsu plays a major roll in your controlling game and your escaping game, a lot of guard work, a lot of sweeping. A lot of armlocks, a lot of chokes. As far as the other submissions, it's some of the loophole things that a lot of people don't work, so I think the mixture of the two together offset each other and creates an animal that doesn't exist.

FFA: And you've got such a wealth of different styles in your background.

EP: Yeah, but more than anything it's not about an accumulation of knowledge more than. It's about what you can retain and also getting your base system, your core system, what's your meat and potatoes., Don't go out and get all these tricks if you still can't do a good round kick, if you still don't have a good right cross, if you're not very good at slipping. Those are your basics. Your basics are your key. Like in Muay Thai, there's not a lot of, well, there's more so now, more tricks and things, but in the beginning there weren't a lot of tricks in the beginning the key to the development of Muay Thai. Muay Thai was more than anything the development of your basic skills, your quick switch left kick, your right kick your hopping right kick, your curve knee, your skip knee, your straight knee.

FFA: And now those tricks have come up because there are people out there who have come to that place, to that skill level where you need them.

EP: Well, the deal is when you're fighting you develop your own game, and you also have kind of a signature move that you do. It's just a development, it's something that works for you.

FFA: What was yours?

EP: Well, I have a mixture of things I like to do.

FFA: So, there's no one signature move that people really associate with you.

EP: mmmmmmmmmmm... I hockey punch people a lot.

FFA: (laugh)

EP: They shoot in and I always forearm their neck to stop them and then I always stop them with the Hockey Punch cause I'm from Minnesota. Hockey for me was part of my youth. I was in the penalty box more than I was on the ice. That's why I decided to go into combat martial arts, the killing arts.

FFA: I thought you said something great at the workshop last night that you'll remember what you're ready to know.

EP: You retain what you're supposed to. It doesn't matter where you're at or what you're doing, even on a level like I'll go Guru Dan or go to his seminars and even if I've seen the move over and over and over, I understand it to a different level. And also from the way he's teaching, you understand and respond to what he's teaching differently every time. So again I think when you're ready for stuff, it'll come to you. They always say when the student is ready, the teacher will come. And the other thing is, as long as you're out on the cutting blocks, out on the floor, out on the mats, using the mook jong, hitting the heavy bag, whatever it is. As long as you are doing that you'll consistently be creating; and creation is more important than remembering just straight structure.

FFA: You do an intensive one on one program?

EP: Yes, I do a 5-hour program. People come in and train for 5 hours in anything they want. So then my key is to train people in standup takedowns, or submission or striking. And what I like to do with everybody is mix everything up so they get to see the whole game and I actually throw them in the ring so they get a chance to punch, kick, throw and submit. When you're up a little bit higher elevation and people are watching you, because the pressure is one thing that a lot of people, maybe they're a gym fighter and they're number one, but then once they step in the ring and they've got all the pressure and the people around, they crack under that pressure. So everyone has their ups and downs. But more than anything, it's about learning and above all it's about having fun. And if you can't look in the mirror and smile then you need to work on something else.

FFA: Definitely! So, you're going to be opening a school soon?

EP: Yeah, my school will be opening hopefully in November in Brea California. It's about 40 minutes out of Los Angeles and I'll be doing it with a partner from Sharktank. We're going to be capitalizing on submission wrestling, possibly Shooto, STX kickboxing (That's Savate/Thai Cross-training, which is our method) and possibly just straight Muay Thai and cardio kickboxing for women and for the kids either grappling or karate class.

FFA: Anything else???

EP: Yeah, I'll be changing my website soon. I've got a lot of videos on line and I've got 6 new DVD's coming out which are just loaded with tons of grappling information and they're more than anything principals like pummeling, hand fighting, not allowing someone in working your defense, Vale Tudo, guard passing, ground attacks, take downs from punching, ground game development, and the 6^th DVD is all outtakes; like wiffle ball bats with buckets on our heads, and rollerblade pillow fights..

FFA: What are you doing with wiffle ball bats and buckets on your heads?

EP: You'll have to buy the DVD to find out.

FFA: I'll be sure to do that.. Anything else you want to throw in?

EP: Yeah, thanks to Sifu Fong for everything, and thanks for the interview and for that backrub last night, oh damn, And I do technical advising for GRAPPLING magazine. It's the number one grappling magazine in the world. It's from Inside Kung-Fu CFW Enterprises.

FFA: Ok thanks.

[Editors Note: Anyone interested in further information about Erik Paulson's' videos, DVDs, seminars, and intensive personalized training programs may contact Erik Paulson for more information at either of his two web sites, combatsubmissionwrestling.com or erikpaulson.com]

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