First American World Judo Champion.

You might know Dr. Ann-Maria Rousey DeMars as the mother of Olympic judo bronze medalist (Beijing 2008) and current MMA star Ronda Rousey, but long before Ronda ever put on a gi her mother became the first American to win a world judo championship (Vienna 1984). Dr. DeMars is still involved in judo – she teaches a kid’s class in Los Angeles and has a book on ne-waza coming out soon.

Her latest blog post is about escape from kesa-gatame. We’ve been covering this lately in class, it’s worth a read. The short version: it’s hard to escape from kesa-gatame once it’s been fully locked in (the BJJ guys I work out with have been discovering this 😀 ), so your escape should start before you reach that point. Yes, that’s right: the best way to get out of kesa-gatame is don’t get put in kesa-gatame in the first place. Read the whole post here: Teaching Escapes from Pins.