2007 January | Aesopian

Archive for January, 2007

Q&A 1

Filed Under: How To Study Jiu-Jitsu, Jiu-jitsu Techniques

Jan.31, 2007

Thanks to my recent injuries, I’ve had more time to hit up BJJ forums. In my e-travels, I’ve written a few lengthy answers to questions that forum-goers asked me, and I want to share them here.

In this first Q&A, I’m covering two common problems—not getting smashed in half guard and escaping side control—so I think this advise will help many of you.

Smashed in Half Guard

One area I need work on is the “really bad half guard” area. This is when you managed to get half guard, but your opponent is pinning you really tightly either with the shoulder of justice, a crossface pass, or his body is across your’s and really high up in your armpits. All of these positions are really really bad for me in the bottom, so I could use some help returning to a good posture in half guard from them, or sweeping/mounting some kind of offense from that position. I have a few ideas, but when I fall into the bad position it has just been killing me lately.

I know everyone’s usual advice for half guard is get the underhook, get on your side, take the back, et cetera. I’m sure you’ve heard that countless times. That’s all well and fine, since it’s a good way to play half guard, but it can be nearly impossible to do in situations like the ones you’re describing.

I’ve never been good at getting the underhook from half guard against someone who stays tight and maintains a lot of upper body pressure. Without the underhook it’s both extremely difficult and meaningless to try to get on my side, since I’m not going to be able to take their back or generate the leverage for a sweep. Maybe others can but I never have.

The solution I was taught by my instructor, which he was taught by Jean Jacques, which Eddie also teaches in his latest book, and which seems to have become the de facto standard, is to start putting butterfly hooks in.

When someone is that intent on flattening you out, your chances of winning the pummeling battle from the bottom are low. You’re much better off sneaking a hook in and using it to create space. This is often pretty easy if they’re intent on keeping pressure like the shoulder of justice, since they’ll often raise their hips to drive in, giving you space to work the lower body.

My first tutorial ever covers a situation like this:

www.mmalibrary.com/tech_display.asp?id=174

Pay particular attention to the details on getting the hook in: monkey feet, hipping in and out, wiggling the toes.

Bjarni shows another way of getting the hook in that’s similar to Bravo’s “stomp”:

www.aesopian.com/86/a-part-of-bjarnis-half-guard-game/

Once I’ve got the butterfly hook and the overhook on the arm, I’ll play a game like this:

www.aesopian.com/19/playing-butterfly-with-an-overhook/

But any butterfly or half butterfly game can work. Bravo shows good options from here in his book.

If they are sitting out and turning towards your legs to pass (like Saulo and Marcelo teach) then it can be harder to work this butterfly hook, since they can often kick over it, but it still has its uses. I recommend checking out Kesting’s latest DVD for how he addresses this. I’m still working on this situation but what he shows has worked best for me.

Let me know if you have any more questions. I just wanted to get you to start thinking of putting the hook in and creating space in general, since I think it’ll work for a lot of the grips and positions that are bugging you. But if you have a very specific problem with a certain way of being held down, let me know and I’ll see what I can come up with.

Escaping Side Control

I need some options from the bottom of side mount. I’m a pretty small/weak guy (125 lbs), so whenever I get on the bottom of sidemount, its all over. No matter what position my arm is in, they grab a hold on my wrist, drag it out, and do whatever they want with it (kimura, americana, armbar using the arms). Arm submissions from bottom of sidemount is what I tap out to the most. The most annoying thing is, I can’t do it since I’m not strong enough to drag other people’s arms out when I get them in sidemount.

At 150 lbs. I’m no hulk either so I used to suffer from the same problems. I found solved this with four main points:

1) Drilling side control escapes a ton.
2) Focusing on proper posture under side control.
3) Having my escape and posture ready before they settle in.
4) Developing guard retention skills.

You should know a few basic escapes that involve either returning to guard, turning to your knees or rolling them over. I’d prioritize ones where you return to guard since that will work best for you as a smaller guy. Drill these escapes a ton.

By “drill” I mean to get in a ton of static reps but that’s not all. You can also get “reps against resistance” if you understand functional training methods. This is where I developed much of my skill in side control escape.

Let me pull out something I wrote a while back that explains what I mean:

To get the most out of my advice below, you’ll need to understand some about SBG breaks down their instruction. They teach in three stages, which they call the I-Method. It goes like this: – Introduce. – Isolate. – Integrate. The introduction stage is simply demonstrating and explaining the technique or concept, and having the students drill it statically until they understand the move and can do all the parts. The isolation stage involves drilling and sparring that focuses on the technique or concept that was taught in the introduction stage. Special drills and games can be created to isolate the specific ability being taught. The integration stage is where the student works the technique or concept into his overall game. This is commonly where free sparring and rolling occurs. I doubt any of that was new and foreign to you, since most BJJ/MMA gyms already do this, though they don’t necessarily think about it like this. Like with many other aspects of their training method, the SBG doesn’t claim to have invented much of what they do, but they were one of the first to really analyse and breakdown WHY things work and then use this understanding to do them more creatively. In particular, I have been really impressed with how SBG has been fleshing out the isolation stage. I’ve often heard complaints that too many gyms have a “here’s a technique, now let’s roll” attitude, and that too much is left up to the student to bring the static move to full out sparring. The isolation stage is what bridges these two by letting the student develop the skill with progressive resistance, until he’s able to bring it into his game in sparring. I’ll use my friend’s problem to illustrate this: If you’re having trouble with escapes, you should consider focusing on them in isolation. As explained above, I don’t mean putting in a ton of static repetitions, though that can be useful if you’re really making a point of paying attention to the details and improving with each rep. Most people find that too boring to get too much out of it. I think you’ll get better results if don’t overdo static drilling and instead work on isolated positional sparring from wherever you’re having trouble. For example, start under side control and try to escape (return to guard, go to knees and takedown or reverse/roll them) while they try to pin and submit you and improve position. Reset and restart if either achieves their goal. You can ease the learning curve by using progressive resistance, i.e. starting at 10% resistance and working up to 100% gradually as you succeed at lower percentages. Starting at full blast might be great fun for the top guy, but that’s not necessarily what is going to help the guy on bottom learn and improve their escapes as well. You can also refine the purpose of this drilling by taking this approach and applying it to really specific problems. If you’re having trouble with escaping side control, figure out a specific problem you are having. Look at your posture, the placement of your head, hands, elbows, hips, knees, feet, etc. Where are they ending up? Where should they be? How can you get them there? Once you’ve worked this out and developed a solution, do isolated sparring for just that single point. Maybe even forget the rest of the escape for the time being and just work on that single issue. As an example, you might find that you’re ending up with your near hand out of posture. Analyse the situation and figure out some ways of getting it back where it should be. To drill this, you start out of posture under side control, with the goal of regaining proper posture; your partner tries to keep you out of posture. Reset and restart once you’ve achieved your goal or if the positions change enough to take you outside the scope of the drill. You might want to take it back a bit and just look at how to prevent yourself from getting in the bad position in the first place, instead of just escaping it onces you’re in trouble. It also helps to have a willing and helpful training partner. If he keeps getting you with something, he should be happy to explain how he’s doing it. He doesn’t need to feed you all the answers, but the learning stops if he just keeps trying to “beat” you without then telling you what he’s doing and give suggestions on how to counter it. There should be a sense of cooperation and development. I think training like this can be very beneficial, though most people don’t put in the time and effort to do it. I know I could sure do a lot more of it.

This is where finding a good training partner really pays off.

If you want to learn more about smart training methods that will help you develop specific skills, check these out:

www.aesopian.com/66/5-1-stages-of-resistance/
www.aesopian.com/51/inquiry-method/

As I’ve mentioned several times already, proper posture under side control is of the utmost importance. Getting your arms pried out and cranked is what I consider the most illustrative example of what happens when your arms are taken out of posture.

It seems like you already know where your arms should be, so just keep working on it and it’ll come to you eventually. In case anyone doesn’t know what I mean by “proper posture”, I basically mean that you keep your elbows in and your hands by your neck/face, like you’re in a boxing stance. This is so you can protect your neck, arms and elbows from submissions and not get locked down. If you’re reaching all over the place and hugging over their back and headlocking them, you’re just screwing yourself.

Stephan Kesting’s latest tip of the week talks about posture in positions other than in guard:

www.grapplearts.com/2007/01/posture-outside-of-guard.htm

The last point is a combination of the other two with a dash of another new concept mixed in: Awareness.

What I mean is that once you’ve got your escapes and proper posture down, you need to learn to be aware of when you’re losing position (usually as you’re getting your guard passed) and be ready to have proper posture and start escaping early, before they really have a chance to sink in.

I hate when people tell you the counter is to just not give them a chance to do it in the first place. But it’s usually true. It’s like a boxer asking how to avoid the last punch that hit him in the face—it’s already too late. You need to just not get punched.

If a heavy mofo has a chance crush me under side control, I’m kidding myself if I think this is going to be a breeze to escape. After all, it’s called a “dominant position” for a reason.

Being drilled in my escapes and having proper posture will certainly help but I’m still in serious danger. I am far better off by never allowing myself to be put in such a bad spot in the first place. Easier said than done but it is how I solve most problems like this.

Awareness and being able to foresee and avoid nasty situations before they happen comes from experience. Luckily you can quickly rack up this valuable experience in specific positions and situations if you put in the time to do the drilling and isolation described above.

The last point of guard retention refers to the ability to defend against and counter guard passes as they happen and return to offensive guard positions. The specific techniques vary widely depending on what guards you use and how they try to pass, so you’ll have to figure this out on your own. But once you have, I think you find that guard retention and side control escapes (and escapes from any bottom position) complement each other nicely, and are often one and the same.

For more on side control escapes, check out this:

www.aesopian.com/84/fundamental-five-of-escapes/

I hope that helps.

Nuggets of Advice

Filed Under: How To Study Jiu-Jitsu

Jan.29, 2007

As is the fashion when one receives a new belt, I felt I should offer a handy list of advice on what helped me get my purple.

The problem with pieces like this is how easy it is to blow off their truisms. I hope I can avoid this a bit by offering less common tips like…

Don’t feel stupid.

As a beginner, especially before you realize how understanding and supportive your school is, it’s easy to suffer from “feeling stupid”. So much is unfamiliar and unknown to you, and you’re being constantly required to do things before you know what to do.

Add to this that you’re having to deal with emotional issues like the discomfort of physical contact with strangers, the pressure of performing in front of others, wanting to fit into the group, not wanting to be embarrassed, trying to make your instructor proud, and so on.

Overcoming these concerns can be a lot to deal with at first, and I think it is psychological issues like these that cause most white belts to quit.

Realize that everyone else went through the same issues and understands what you’re going through. You’re not stupid if you don’t know something yet—-that’s the whole reason you’re at class.

So relax and don’t sweat it.

Be optimistic.

Eduardo had a saying that has stuck with me ever since I was a white belt:

“Jiu-jitsu is for the optimist.”

An optimistic outlook will aide you greatly as you learn and improve at BJJ.

Let’s say you get caught in sparring with a move you didn’t expect at all. You could react to this a few ways.

You could beat yourself up for getting caught, start muscling the guy so he won’t get you again and get a “revenge tap” out of him.

Or, as I’d suggest, you could admire his success and ask him to show you what he did so you can learn it too.

Your mindset, negative or positive, can affect how quickly and smoothly you improve, as well as set the vibe at your gym.

Believe in the techniques.

Your optimism or pessimism can extend specifically to how you learn new techniques.

I’ve seen someone learning a new move and dismiss it, saying “I’ll never get that to work.” This becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, since they go on to half-heartedly drill it, and then never attempt it in sparring, so it “never works”.

Drill each technique like it’s you’re favorite move and look forward to using it. Try to get it in sparring the same day. Don’t get discouraged when you can’t get it to work at first. Just keep drilling it and going for it in sparring. It will come to you in the end.

Don’t be a douche bag.

This would be the spot normally reserved for the trite “Leave your ego at the door”, but I don’t really like that cliché. I think “douche bag” explains the problem better than “ego”, which is why I’ve gone with my saying.

Ego can be a good thing, since you should feel an appropriate sense of self-worth and be proud of your accomplishments. What people really don’t want is for you to be self-important and make others feel bad.

In case you still don’t get it, here’s a handy list to get you started:

Don’t

Don’t worry or gossip about who can tap who, who you can tap, who can tap you, and so on.

Don’t use needlessly rough moves and especially no illegal or injurious techniques.

Don’t get caught up in rank and hierarchy and running after the next belt.

Do help less experienced training partners and answer their questions.

Do put up a good (and safe) fight when seriously sparring.

Do your best to be as technical as possible.

It’s just training and you’re all there to learn together.

Find good training partners.

Make friends at class and find someone else who shares your interest in improving. This is easier if you’ve got the last point down.

What should you look for in a training partner?

They’re happy to put in the time to do the extra drilling and sparring with you.

They’re someone you can exchange techniques with who will help with the R&D.

They’ll work on a move and give you details and tips they’ve figured out.

They’ll spot a mistake you’re making and help you fix it.

I feel I owe much of my biggest improvements to my great training partners who are willing to put in the time and energy to stay after class and come in on Sundays to get the extra training.

Visualize.

Use your otherwise idle time (driving, taking a shower, laying in bed, etc.) to do mental exercises like visualization.

Remember each step and detail of a technique. What did the instructor say about the move? What mistakes did you make? What adjustment did you have to make? What happens if you do a step wrong?

Try to vividly recall a round of sparring. What did you do? What did they do? Where was your weight? How was your balance? What should you have done differently? What did you do right?

Keep a training log.

I’ve kept a log for most of the time I’ve been training, and it is what I attribute to my being able to remember each technique in detail. It is the most involved form of visualization I use.

It’s not that I return to what I have written, since I rarely read my old notes, but the act of finding the words to describe the techniques makes me run through the move over and over again in my mind.

Drill drill drill.

Eduardo thought back on what he saw the top Gracie Barra black belts doing that set them apart. What were guys like Nino and Soca doing different? They tirelessly drilled their best moves.

The importance of drilling is one of Eddie Bravo’s messages. He told a story about how it was only once he could put in extra sessions of drilling that his game really took off. His slang was to find the “magic number”, the number of reps where the move suddenly sinks in and becomes automatic.

From personal experience, my best moves are the ones I drill the most. The reverse omoplata was a novelty until I drilled it to a point that I could do it with my eyes closed, and by then it had become my top submission.

Spar spar spar.

You can’t just “think” your way through BJJ. Analysis and gaining a conceptual understanding is important, and putting in reps on a move is valuable, but you need to balance it all against a healthy dose of sparring.

It’s through sparring that you’ll hammer out the techniques you drilled and put all of your thoughts into action. Sparring is also where you develop the attributes associated with experience and skill, like timing, sensitivity and awareness.

Keep training.

You will have ups and downs, peaks and slumps. You’ll have good days and bad weeks. You won’t always feel like getting on the mats. You’ll get bumps, bruises and serious injuries. You’ll be off your game or be caught by surprise and get tapped by lower belts.

Accept all of this as an inevitable part of our sport and the art. Then just keep training.

Rubber Guard Movies

Filed Under: BJJ Instructional Videos, Jiu-jitsu Techniques

Jan.21, 2007

Here it is again. The footage of Eddie teaching rubber guard for the Submission Spirits book and DVD has now found its way online once more.

Becoming a Better Butt Scooter

Filed Under: Jiu-jitsu Techniques

Jan.18, 2007

Today, while working with John, we covered sitting guard versus standing passes like the matador pass. This gave me a great chance to go over everything I’ve seen discussed recently on a UG thread about countering the toreando pass.

John and I did the butt scooting drill that I’ve described before (when I put together a lesson using nothing but Marcelo and Stephan’s DVDs), only this time we didn’t just work to get to x-guard, and we could use any tactics and grips we wanted.

Butt Scooting Basics

Sit up and lean weight forward.
Butt scoot using feet to move.
Tuck feet in and open knees wide.
Arms out, palms up.

This is all as Marcelo and Leo Kirby showed in their videos.

Basic Problems and Counters

Running around – Butt scoot to follow and always face them.
Shoving the head – Ignore, since I should be leaning forward enough to counter it.
Shoving the shoulders – Parry if they put enough weight into it to knock me back, otherwise ignore.
Grabbing the knees – Break the grip.
Grabbing the ankles – Break the grip.

With the basics covered, we had several tactics to counter the standing passes, especially the bull fighter.

Grab the wrists.

Actively grabbing the wrists can cause fits for the person trying to pass. It’s extremely difficult to pass without freeing one’s wrists first, since all of the grips needed are preemptively blocked. With wrist control, it is very easy to armdrag at almost any time. Going for the wrists is usually the first line of defense (and offense) since you can reach out and grab their arms before they can get grips.

Grab the collar.

Reach up and grab the collar. The other hand posts back behind you to help you move and not get flipped back. A cross collar grip is good for pulling them into collar chokes. A same-side grip is better for stiff arming them. Snapping down and coming to knees for here has much the same effect as armdrags.

Grab and hook the legs.

Scooting forward to grab and get hooks on the legs lead to shin-to-shin, butterfly and x-guard. These lead to all of their own sweeps.

All three of these tactics could be used together. Going from wrist control to a collar grip, and vice versa. Switching to a collar grip when they got too close as you tried to grab the legs.

If I could end it here, saying “And that’s all there is to it”, it’d be convenient. But unfortunately/fortunately, I had a few other counters that don’t neatly fit into the above classifications.

If he leaned towards me enough as I was moving forward, I’d reach up and get underhooks to pull him down. This was just to keep him from running around freely. From here I usually got hooks and went to x-guard.

Several times when he grabbed my pants, instead of breaking grips, I hugged tightly around both of his arms then whipped up to me knees as I used my bear hug to sweep him.

A couple times I skipped everything else and just drove forward into single legs and ankle picks.

So what worked best? Well… Everything.

John did really well with grabbing the wrists and getting the armdrag. He used armdrags to pull me down to my knees, take my back or enter single legs. After reminding him about it, he also used the wrist control to pull my arm in as he stepped on my hip for spider guard. He said he didn’t really like the collar grip and preferred wrist control, and I felt his wrist control was better.

I did okay with grabbing the wrists but I felt stronger with a collar grip. I had trouble keeping the wrist grips, and I felt rushed to regrip, while I could get the collar grip and securely hold it for much longer. While I did armdrags, I preferred using the collar grip to snapdown into front headlocks and single legs as he tried to run past. Whether I was controlling the wrists or the collar, I looked to grab and hook the legs for butterfly and x-guard.

So everything worked, and it really just came down to a mix of spur of the moment reactions and personal preference.

I think that as long as you know a variety of counters and tactics, and you do enough isolated sparring to gain skills in them, you’ll find that they all work, and you’ll learn which work best for you.

RNC Details from John and Leo

Filed Under: BJJ Instructional Videos, Jiu-jitsu Techniques

Jan.16, 2007

Leo Kirby and his training partner John Davis filmed two more excellent tutorial clips. This time it is John showing details on how he finishes the RNC.

Here’s what Leo has to say:

Two years ago John started coming to my regular Saturday morning class at One Dragon at just about the time I had become interested in Marcelo’s game. My Saturday class was always an experimental class and the experiment at that time was X guard.
We trained together for a couple of years and attended all of the Marcelo seminars and privates together and worked like hell to break down his game. Last year John’s game had just gotten to the point that I was no longer one of his coaches, but we had become training partners. We would exchange submissions most of the time when we wrestled. So I tapped him with something during a night class and proclaimed myself the champion of the civilized universe, and the best part was that he was going on vacation that weekend so he could not attend my Saturday morning class. It would be at least a week before he could get revenge. Just at the end of my Saturday class that weekend John came running into the gym, kicked off his shoes and attacked me. After a hard fought match he caught me in a rear naked choke, tapped me, grabbed his shoes and ran out. His wife was at home waiting to leave and John had told her he needed to run out and pick up some ice before they left. John has become a master at taking the back and finishing the RNC. We filmed a couple of clips here with him showing some things he has been having a lot of success with. We probably should have started with the setups and will probably do that in the next few weeks. But I wanted to get these on tape for now.

Simple Anaconda Choke Escape

Filed Under: Jiu-jitsu Techniques

Jan.15, 2007

Sorry about the lack of updates over the last week. With my neck injury and flu, I’ve been out of training, and so I haven’t had a chance to shoot new tutorials. I just got back to class today, and I made sure to shoot a ton of photos for instructional I had planned.

It was to be about a defense to the anaconda choke, and re-countering it with a brabo choke. Unfortunately, all of the photos came out horribly, except this one, and I’m not too crazy about it either. At least the technique is good.

I’m doing a simple and easy defense to the anaconda choke. With my trapped arm, I’m grabbing behind my opposite leg and mule kicking. This creates space around my neck and forces his arm triangle to loosen. From here, I just hang out until they release the failed anaconda.

I plan to explore arm triangles, anaconda and brabo chokes in greater depth soon. You’ll just have to wait while I reshoot everything to keep standards up.

Aesopian

Recent Comments