Colin Oates is a left handed fighter. When up against same stance opponents, those also in a left stance, his only thought as he took to the mat was ‘stop the left hand’.

He did this initially by targeting his partner’s left shoulder and chest, before transitioning down to a sleeve grip.

Here, ...

Colin Oates’s mentality against left handed opponents was ‘stop the left hand, catch the hand, break the grip’.

He felt most uncomfortable when his opponent managed to get a high lapel or collar grip. If they managed to get the grip, his main way of dealing with it was by easing their hand down ...

In this clip we see Colin Oates’s gripping strategies against left handed opponents, used in the heat of competition.

In the 2014 Paris Grand Slam, Oates perfectly demonstrates his game-plan of stopping the left hand, by targeting the chest, against double World Champion Rishod Sobirov of Uzbeki...

Colin Oates says that in his early competitive career he spent a lot of the time finding ways to neutralise his opponent’s attacking abilities.

Against right handed opponents his principle gripping technique was the sleeve pull through. He credits the pull through as one of the main reasons he h...

To move from an average international competitor to being inside the world’s top five in his weight, Colin Oates made some significant adjustments to his Kumi kata.

The biggest transformation against right handers came when he started to dominate the back of his opponent. Rather than fight for t...

A gripping scenario Colin Oates was not happy with was when a right handed opponent pinned his left sleeve, whilst fighting to control his right sleeve.

Oates’s response was to snap off the sleeve pin on one side, then neutralise his opponent’s grip on the other side, before taking his favoured ...

In this clip we see the competition variations of Colin Oates’s gripping strategies against opposite stance opponents. This sleeve pull through allows Oates to get a deep and dominant grip around the back, against Israel’s Raufman, on route to winning a bronze medal at the 2014 Samsun Grand Prix....