Takedown defense in BJJ

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Takedown defense in BJJ

Takedown defense in BJJ is something that isn’t practiced enough in BJJ schools in my opinion. Ninety percent of your opponents takedown defense and counter offense comes from his head, hands, arms and hips. So, if you can get behind him, you’ve immediately disarmed the overwhelming majority of his defense and made your job of taking him down much easier and safer. That is something we preach here at Savarese BJJ Academy (www.njbjj.com). There are significant benefits to starting with position before takedown whenever it’s possible for you to do so. You can’t always do it, but when you can, it’s a truly great option. Opponents that seem impossible to takedown from the front can often be put down much more easily from the back and with a much better chance of scoring under Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu scoring criteria in the ensuing scrambles. Make a habit of working to get behind opponents in the standing position first and getting takedowns from chest to back positions. At the very least it’ll create defensive reactions that open up more conventional frontal takedowns, and quite often it’ll give you the positional advantage that allows for clean and decisive takedowns from the back that lead directly into the best scoring and submission positions in Jiu-Jitsu.

The Jiu-Jitsu Mount

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The Jiu-Jitsu Mount

The Jiu-Jitsu Mount: The mounted position is, along with the rear mount, the highest scoring position in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. The reasoning behind this is that in a real fight with blows being thrown it is a devastating position from which to throw fists and elbows into a helpless, pinned opponent. In grappling without strikes, a lot of grapplers prefer rear mount as it does not require strikes to opponent up a defensive opponent (Many also slightly prefer rear mount even in MMA and self defense contexts too, but that’s a different topic and there are many people who would disagree with this opinion). Understand that when you first get into the mounted position and you are looking to establish initial control, you typically begin in a position with your hips over your opponents hips. This creates good stability and let’s you use your arms to post out wide on the floor for base. We preach this at Savarese BJJ Academy (www.njbjj.com). Realize however, that the hip over hip position whilst excellent from a stability viewpoint, will limit the number and type of submissions you can attack from mount. To expand your attacking arsenal from mount and start incorporating your legs into the attacks (armbars and triangles for example), you must now go the extra distance and start progressing up to your opponents chest and shoulders with your hips. In addition you will need ANGLE. Your body must be able to pivot around your opponents shoulders. Gaining the confidence to climb up from hip over hip to hip over chest and begin forming perpendicular angle is the key to going from someone who can hold someone in the mounted position, to becoming an athlete who can finish someone from mounted position. It’s a difficult thing to learn as you have to sacrifice a stable and secure pin for a less stable and less secure alternative, but which enables you to attack far better. Here, our student Andrew Zeppetelli climbs high up on to the chest to get into a devastating mounted position, the result of the position and angle he achieved, and can now go into a very strong submission attack or strikes. Getting to mount is great, but your route to mount mastery must involve moving higher up the torso and getting an angle.

Guard theory for BJJ

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Guard theory for BJJ

Some good Guard theory for BJJ is every attack from guard position should begin as an attack upon your opponents posture and balance. In order to be effective from top position, your opponent must work from a strong efficient posture and must be in balance. Therefore, your goal always is to take these two essential prerequisites away from your opponent as soon and as often as possible. Every attack you can make from bottom position is significantly easier when your opponents balance and posture are broken. You can break an opponents balance forwards and backwards and side to side. Develop the skill of off balancing and posture destruction and make it the basis of your guard game. Here, our Savarese BJJ Academy (www.njbjj.com) student Leo Alves demonstrates the value of breaking your opponents posture as he stands in a closed guard. In addition, walking his legs up head to continue to control his opponents posture as he starts to work for his submission. This concept is crucial in making many of the major submissions and sweeps much easier. Practice and refine the skill of knocking your opponents hands, knees and hips down to the floor. As they try to recover balance and stance your attacks will break through easily during that momentary distraction.

Pressure passing and limb isolation in BJJ

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Pressure passing and limb isolation in BJJ

Here at Savarese BJJ (www.njbjj.com), we have really focusing on Pressure passing and limb isolation in BJJ. A master of position must perfect chest to chest and chest to back positional dominance, but a master of submission must go behind this and actively seek limb isolation as the basis of their craft. Futhermore, the basis of offense in traditional Jiu-Jitsu is position. Typically this is understood in terms of getting past your opponents legs and pinning them down either chest to chest or chest to back. However, the ability to submit an opponent requires you to go further and isolate a limb. The ability to draw a limb away from the torso and away from the other limb. Only then can you break an opponent. Ultimately, this will require you to develop subtle methods of maneuvering around a limb and trapping it in place long enough to apply the various submission holds of Jiu-Jitsu. But your first step is MINDSET. Don’t be satisfied with simply getting the chest to chest or chest to back positions. Train yourself to always think of going the extra step of limb isolation after you get to a pin. Initially, you will have some frustration here, as the act of isolating a limb often requires movement that can lessen control momentarily and result in an opponent escaping when performed poorly. However, only by persisting and developing this crucial skill will you make the jump from positional dominance to being a solid finisher, the highest ideal of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. Look how our student Ariana Zeppetelli uses an underhook to wedge an opponents arm in place and move her opponents  elbow away from form hher torso to isolate and weaken the arm. She is close to moving beyond the safety of chest to chest into the world of isolating wedges that lead to the possibility of submission. This will make your  finishing percentages high. With patience and practice, so too can yours.

Let your opponent feel the stress

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Let your opponent feel the stress

Let your opponent feel the stress, this is a common phrase here at Savarese BJJ (www.njbjj.com). Always let the other guy feel the stress. Also, a common problem I see all the time is that of a BJJ practitioner or any grappler doing a good job getting to a dominant position like the mount or back and then trying too hard too quickly to get a submission. In addition, losing control of the position they worked so hard to attain. Unless there is limited time left on the clock, relax, your opponent, not you, should be the one in panic mode, be patient. Use the superior position to recompose yourself, recharge your lungs if necessary and formulate a plan to finish. If at any point you feel the danger of escape, protect the position first and worry about the submission second! You can always come back to that later. We love to teach “the most important part of the mount and back is to keep the mount and back, then submit!  Here, Rafael Lovato Jr anchors himself in place in the mount position at the World BJJ Championship after a long period his opponent going crazy trying to escape. He kept his position first, remained in control and finally finished with a beautiful cross collar choke from the mount to secure the victory. Using this simple pattern of exertion to gain a position followed by active rest and recomposing in that position to gather resources into a final push for submission allowed him to secure the choke soon after this photo was taken. In conclusion, always remember to remain calm in the dominant position, you spent energy to get there, let you opponent waste their energy trying to escape (also known as “cooking” your opponent), get tired and then apply your finishing hold.

Leglock theory for no-gi BJJ

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Leglock theory for no-gi BJJ

Some leglock theory for no-gi BJJ that we teach here at Savarese BJJ (www.njbjj.com) goes as follows. Break them down to a hip: One of the distinguishing characteristics of the revolution in leg locking that has swept the world was the heavy emphasis on leg locking from bottom position. In the old days, the vast majority of leg lock entries were from top position. Indeed, leg locking was largely seen as an alternative to guard passing. This created a lot of naïve criticisms of leg leg locking that seem almost out of touch nowadays. Students were told that leg locks were a bad idea because if it didn’t work you would lose top position. Well, what if we entered from bottom position? Then there was no danger of positional loss, and many leglockers who compete in grappling have put their emphasis there. There are many, many great entries from bottom position into an opponents legs. But be sure to realize that though your ENTRIES into the legs will be on a standing or kneeling opponent in your guard, be sure to knock your opponents down to their hips/buttocks (or at the very least one knee) before you start working for your FINISHES. It is quite difficult and risky to try finishing as a skilled opponent stands over you. Much safer to off balance him down to a hip first and then and only then start working for the finish. Remember always that the magic of ashi garami position is that it has a dual nature. It is just as good for off balancing and sweeping as it is for finishing. Use both of those aspects of ashi garami from bottom position and your success rate from under tough opponents will start climbing in the directions you want!

Covering distance in BJJ

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Covering distance in BJJ

Covering distance in BJJ in its essence: Don’t worry about the speed with which you move, concern yourself with the distance you have to cover. Very often, I am asked by students if they are too slow or old or too unathletic to be effective in Jiu-Jitsu. Certainly it’s an impressive thing to see an athlete with blazing speed in the mats. In truth however, most of the finest players in the sport work at a rather slow pace for the majority of the match and many more never really use speed at all in their game. And there are some awesome Masters competitors so age cannot be used as an excuse either. Clearly then speed is not essential to success, though it definitely can be useful at times. Understand that because Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu is predominately a ground sport, speed will always be limited. A much more important consideration than top speed is the distance you have to cover to get to your objectives. If I have a speedy opponent who moves twice as fast as I do, but through inefficient positioning and course setting, always has to move twice as far to get to his objectives we will be working at effectively the same mat speed. Sometimes, I like to slow a “fast” opponent down in a tight closed guard to limit him. Indeed, I will be able to sustain that mat speed longer since I am doing less work and may end up being faster as fatigue becomes a factor. The first step to becoming faster on the mats is to become more efficient at covering distance to get to an objective. The more direct your path, the sooner your arrival time. Practice the skill of minimizing wasted motion in getting to the next position every time you move. We teach this theory a lot at Savarese BJJ (bergencountybjj.com). Soon you will find yourself beating faster (but less efficient) opponents in the race to get to the next position!

The mental battle vs open guard

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The mental battle vs open guard

The mental battle vs open guard or the great challenge of open guard is understanding your desire for offense with your need for defense. Open guard play is probably one of the most frustrating elements of Jiu-Jitsu for most players. It offers almost limitless possibilities for attack with sweeps and submissions, but it also offers our opponent limitless opportunities for positional attacks of his own – guard passes. As we are thinking about our offensive possibilities it takes only a fraction of a second for an opponent to blast past our legs and in a flash we have gone from pondering offense to scrambling desperately for defense and preventing an opponent scoring with a guard pass. Everything we do from open guard has to be done with a sense of defensive responsibility. The main thing that prevents an opponent gaining the distance, angle and level change he requires to get past our legs is our connection to his body. If we are well connect to him, we will follow his movement easily as he tries to out flank our legs. If we lack sufficient connection he can pass your guard in a heartbeat and put you under great pressure. Whenever you begin to feel your connection to an opponent is failing, you must begin to shift from PULLING connection (offensive) to PUSHING connection (defensive) and thus create frames that prevents an opponent getting chest to chest contact and control of your head that will enable him to solidify a pass. Learning shift seamlessly from offensive grips to defensive frames as the second by second dynamic of the match unfolds is the key to reconciliation of your desire for offense and your need for defense from open guard. Here, our Savarese BJJ (www.njbjj.com) student Leo shows excellent defensive responsibility as his opponent Anoop threatens to pass his legs. His frames are quickly set in place and this will prevent further advances long enough to recover the position of his legs and the integrity of his guard.

Don’t freak out in BJJ

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Don’t freak out in BJJ

Don’t freak out in BJJ. Freaking out isn’t going to help. It is natural when you find yourself in a bad situation in Jiu-Jitsu to feel some degree of panic. No one likes losing, even in the Academy, and so the intensity always goes up as the danger of losing increases. Now, as this feeling of foreboding starts to escalate into genuine concern, the danger of it degenerating into total panic increases. It’s at this point that one starts to see chaos break out. Students will start exploding in various directions in order to affect a breakout. This can definitely work in many cases at beginner level, since most beginners lack the ability to control and immobilize a wildly thrashing opponent.  Here at Savarese BJJ (www.njbjj.com), this is something we address right away in your training. It can also work if you are bigger and stronger than an opponent. However, as size discrepancy decreases and skill levels rise, this will work less and less. If you were given a complex math problem, would it help you to solve it if you began by freaking out? No. In fact if we look at almost every daily problem we have to overcome, from flat tires, to navigating through an unfamiliar part of town, to paying bills over the phone, we see that it is almost never the case that wild emotional or physical reaction aid our ability to solve and overcome the problem. Jiu-Jitsu is no different. Just as the solution to any complex math problem is best found with a calm mind that calmly and methodically searches for the solution, the same case is true in Jiu-Jitsu. Make your first reaction to a difficult hold in Jiu-Jitsu be a grounding breath, and then a mental commitment to the idea of staying as calm as you can and THINKING your way out rather than FREAKING your way out. This is the spirit you want to operate in whenever you find yourself on the defensive. This will ensure you prevail in all situations rather than just against smaller or less experienced opponents.

The importance of the hook sweep

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The importance of the hook sweep

The importance of the hook sweep was taught to me very early in my BJJ journey. Mastery of the hook sweep also known as the sumi gaeshi, has always been  an essential part of my approach to Jiu-Jitsu. In my purplebelt and brownbelt days training at the Renzo Gracie Academy in NYC, very often visitors would recount recount their training experiences to me. A very common theme that I hear many many times is this – “Man, I was expecting everyone to be good at leg attacks and back attacks and guillotine 9all staples of our Academy at the time), but the one thing that really caught me by surprise was how easily and often everyone swept me from butterfly guard.†There is a reason for this. A very heavy emphasis was put on the hook sweep by our instructor, especially John Danaher, who favored entries from butterfly guard and open guard game for his competition team. No other sweep is performed as often and in so many forms the my coaching program. for me personally, one of my favorite fighters to watch was Jean Jacques Machado, I always loved the smoothness of his technique and how he was equally effective gi or no gi. He was the master of the hook sweep and I must have watched his match in ADCC vs Cael Uno 1000 times. The hook sweep can be used from any grip, in both left and right directions, standing or on the floor and creates defensive reactions that set up all our favorite entries into lower body and upper body submissions. Development of a strong hook sweep game is one of the first signs I look for when assessing the progress of a developing students bottom position skill level. All of my top students excel in this move without exceptions. I have even done hook sweep months where half your sweeps had to be hook sweeps. There aren’t many moves that I enforce upon my students, generally I liked to let them pick and choose their favorites past purple belt, but the hook sweep is one of them. We drill it every class in warmups. Make sure you devote time to this classic and powerful move. It will benefit every aspect of your bottom game both position and submission.