How to be a good student in BJJ

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How to be a good student in BJJ

How to be a good student in BJJ, I am often asked the question. As the head of Savarese BJJ (www.njbjj.com) for almost 20 years, I am always asked “what makes a good student?” or “what d you look for in a student”.  People offer all kinds of attributes – intelligence, dexterity, coordination, strength, flexibility, height, mental toughness, confidence etc etc. In fact, over the years I have seen champions emerge who were totally dissimilar in their attributes. Some were confident, some weren’t. Some were strong, but not others. When you look at the winners podium you see every body type and psychological profile represented. In the end, I came to the conclusion that there was no set of attributes that determined how far you would go in Jiu-Jitsu…. except one. There was one attribute that every champion I ever met or trained possessed. It was the only commonality among them all. It was PERSISTENCE. All of them withstood the many trials, heartbreaks, pitfalls, boredom, fatigue and sacrifices on the path towards excellence and stayed true to the course. When I think about this I find it very encouraging. Most of our physical attributes are determined at birth and most of our mental attributes are determined quite early in our upbringing and so there is little to no choice in them. But PERSISTENCE is something that all of us can realistically exhibit, regardless of whatever else we have or lack. In this sense, you all have what it takes to get very good indeed if you can develop and strengthen this simple and widely available attribute. Don’t worry too much about your progress for this day or this week, concern yourself more with this year. think long term. PERSISTENCE OVER TIME is the most valuable trait you can possess and interestingly, the one most likely already in your possession.

Back Attack Theory in BJJ

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Back Attack Theory in BJJ

How does my back attack theory in BJJ differ from others? Here it is…The back… How should I play between the position and the choke? I always coach that in a no-gi submission match with no striking, the back is the ultimate position. When BJJ practitioners wear a gi, I prefer the mount. The mount is arguably as good as the back because you have the collars to create a strong choke threat that combines will with arm bar threat. In MAA or a street fight, when punches/elbows are allowed, the mount becomes a devastating position, but for no gi grappling the back is king in my opinion. A natural question to ask is, “what is the relationship between the position and the main submission from there, the rear naked choke?” In the great majority of cases focus first on solidifying the position first and your choke second. As you get more advanced, your opponents will get very adept at defending the choke and you must then start trapping arms to get the breakthrough. My students are all very adept at this crucial skill and employ a step by step system to get the breakthrough. Understand that the higher you go up in rank, the more you must start to close the gap between position and the choke. The moment you lock the position, you should be threatening your choke and in some cases where appropriate, you can even get you choke arm set FIRST and then get the position AFTER. The more threat you can create at the neck, The easier it will be to trap arms and sometimes even get a quick finish as your opponent defends the position instead of the submission. Here at Savarese BJJ Academy (www.njbjj.com), we practice this often.

Training with smaller partners in BJJ

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Training with smaller partners in BJJ

A very important topic to discuss in Jiu-Jitsu is training with smaller partners in BJJ. When you train with the smaller partners, it is important not to use all your strength to just submit them over and over. In Jiu-Jitsu, we are expected to train with a wide array of partners. Some will be very good, some will be beginners, most will be somewhere in between. Additionally, they will come in all shapes and sizes. Figuring out the unique challenges of each different body type is a big part of your development. In response to the many different types of training partners you will work with, you must learn to develop different intensity levels in your game. When training with smaller or less experienced partners, use this to develop your defense or a weaker part of your game. Remember,  unlike competition, the goal of training is DEVELOPMENT, not victory. That means seeing a sparring round with someone you know you can defeat easily not as a chance to beat them as expected, but as a chance to take some aspect of your game that needs improvement and spend time on that or by handicapping yourself in some way to make the match more even. In this way you can derive great benefit from training with a lessor partner in ways that will make you more successful in the future against your toughest partners. We preach this practice at Savarese BJJ (www.njbjj.com) as an opportunity to improve, not to feed your ego. This way, you help your partner “level up” and you gain another good training partner.

More 4 limbs in BJJ theory

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More 4 limbs in BJJ theory

Here is more 4 limbs in BJJ theory. If you follow our Savarese BJJ Academy (www.njbjj.com) blog, you have read us speak about this topic. Your guard is four limbed, not two. The centerpiece of guard position is your legs. Your legs are radically stronger than your upper body and so guard position is the best way for smaller people to take on and defeat bigger opponents from underneath. Nonetheless, we must always understand that it is the synergy between arms and legs that will make your guard effective on offense and defense. In the case of guard retention, when your opponent beats your legs, it will be your arms that hold them off long enough for the legs to reclaim their position. In the case of offense, it will be your arms that hold the opponent for your legs to make their way into the various ashi-garami, triangle and arm bar positions that will bring you victory. Always it will be that critical interaction of arms and legs that will make your guard a stalwart of defense and a powerhouse of offense. Look how our student Ivette’s arm and legs form temporary barriers and frames against a strong passing rush and how this creates the time and space to bring the legs back into play and defend the position. Make your guard an interactive four limbed monster of attack and defense and your bottom game will be much closer to where you want it!

Getting better at feeling your BJJ

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Getting better at feeling your BJJ

One you start getting better at feeling your BJJ, your game will skyrocket. In Jiu-Jitsu you can FEEL failure before it happens. Use this to your advantage. First, you spend a lot of time drilling moves. As a result, you all know what a good application of the move feels like. As such, when you are sparring and your application of the move is inadequate, you have a tactile sense of failure,  it just FEELS wrong. Moreover, there is a time period from the beginning of the application to the onset of that sense of failure. As you fight to apply the move, you can feel yourself coming up short of the ideal of the move you as you felt it in drilling. THIS IS A CRUCIAL MOMENT. Most people will feel the onset of failure, recognize it, and give up so they can start all over again. Instead, try hard to see this as an opportunity to make a renewed attack either with a re-application of the same move or a switch to a new move. At this point your mind must start searching for follow up attacks. In a game where failure occurs over time and in which failure can be felt before it is fully manifest,  you almost always have time to search for alternative follow ups if you just train your mind to do so. Here our Savarese BJJ Academy (bergencountybjj.com) student Tom, tried a choke from the mount but when it didn’t work, he re-griped to an arm-triangle and finished his opponent. This was the difference between a loss and a win and also, getting the finish in this match enabled him to save precious energy needed for his next 3 matches in his division. This is so important when competing tournament style.

Variations are key in BJJ

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Variations are key in BJJ

Variations are key in BJJ, you must have multiple versions of the same attack. Here is my take on variations. For any given move in Jiu-Jitsu, there are many variations. It is crucial for your development that when you find a move that suits you well, you study it deeply and come to know all its variations and how these work together. Only in this way can you exploit the full potential of a given move. For example, lets use the triangle choke, one of the most commonly seen and effective submissions in the sport. Most people talk about THE triangle,  as though there was only one type. Here at Savarese BJJ Academy (www.njbjj.com), we teach multiple versions of this attack. You have the front triangle (the most well known and common variant in Jiu-Jitsu), side triangle, rear triangle, reverse triangle and back to front triangle, and within each of those main variations there are sub variations. Each is well suited to a specific task. Learning to use them together to cover every possible contingency as you grapple is the basis of your path to mastery. Here is me using one of these attacks on my training partner.

“The more I know, the less I use”

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“The more I know, the less I use”

“The more I know, the less I use”. The great BJJ master Jean Jacques Machado once said “The more you know, the less you use. To use less, you need to know more.” when speaking about Jiu-Jitsu. When we are white and bluebelts, we want to learn everything…and fast!. But it takes a lot of time and repetition to have good BJJ. Want to make faster decisions? Limit your options: One of the most important factors in who wins and who loses in a Jiu-Jitsu match is speed and quality of decision making. This was evident in this years ADCC tournament if you watched. This is something we are high on at Savarese BJJ (www.njbjj.com). Athletes who make good decisions quickly generally beat athletes who make good decisions slowly. One simple and effective way to increase your speed of decision making is to LIMIT YOUR OPTIONS PER SCENARIO. If you have a thousand options you will inevitably slow down as you decide between competing option. Have one or two strong attacks per scenario and the decision making process becomes very easy and very fast. Of course it’s no good to make BAD decisions quickly – they have to be good ones. To accomplish this I suggest researching the most high percentage moves in modern competition in a range of scenarios. If you have a small set of well trained high percentage moves in each of the main scenarios we regularly find ourselves in daily sparring, you will immediately notice decision making is faster and more decisive. And that will result in the fast and decisive action, a key element of winning Jiu-Jitsu.

Drillers are killers in Jiu-Jitsu

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Drillers are killers in Jiu-Jitsu

Drillers are killers in Jiu-Jitsu. It’s an old saying but is very true. Getting to truly know a move requires a lot of drilling. The famed book Outliers by Malcoln Gladwell states that you must do something 10,000 times to master it. In BJJ, this holds true. Jiu-Jitsu does not reward superficial knowledge. If you know a little about a given move, it’s unlikely you will be able to perform it successfully against a fully resistant opponent your own size and skill level. But, Jiu-Jitsu rewards rewards deep knowledge. In order to get it to work, you must know a lot about how it works and how to apply it against someone who also knows how it works. in addition, how to stop it. As such, the general pattern of success in Jiu-Jitsu is to spend vast amounts of time and energy on a small set of moves to gain mastery of them to a point where you can get them to work against the toughest resistance. Here at Savarese BJJ Academy (www.njbjj.com), I teach a relatively small set of moves. For example, ninety percent of my submissions training time with my students is spent on only six submission systems, but my students have an unusually deep understanding of them. Grandmaster Helio Gracie taught off a set of 32 principle of Jiu-jitsu in his teachings. And his sons turned out to be legends. BJJ demands of you mastery so plan your training accordingly. Think of your favorite moves  as trusted old friends who you know better than you know yourself. Spend time with them, studying them and understanding them, Finally, when you call upon them for help in a tough battle, they will be far more valuable to you than a thousand superficial friends and passing acquaintances.

Chokes are your best submission in Jiu-Jitsu

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Chokes are your best submission in Jiu-Jitsu

Chokes are your best submission in Jiu-Jitsu, it can’t be denied. Nothing beats a good choke. Jiu-Jitsu has three major categories of submission attacks – Chokes, upper body joint locks, and lower body joint locks. All are tremendous weapons that can end a match in a second, but chokes have a special set of qualities that elevate them over the others. In any joint lock, your opponents choice to tap is exactly that, a choice. If he is fearless, he may well decide to let the limb break and continue fighting. In the case of strangles there is not choice – you either submit or pass out – but you don’t get the choice to fight on. Grandmaster Helio Gracie used to say “I prefer choke over joint locks because a tough guy may keep fighting with a broken arm. But anyone who gets choked will go to sleep” In addition, Chokes offer offer a flexibility level of intensity to the match. You can apply a choke in ways that range in intensity all the way from a gentle constraint, to a TKO all the way up to killing someone. Joint locks have no flexibility in their application, it’s all or nothing, it either breaks him or no effect, and even if you break him he may elect to continue fighting. As such, chokes are the ultimate weapon of Jiu-Jitsu. Work all your submission skills, but set aside special time for training your chokes from everywhere. Develop a good choke from the back and one from the front and you will have a weapon that will never let you down. Here, our student Jim applies a very tight cross choke to get the finish in a match. It’s easy to see the mechanical tightness of the hold and how even in the most competitive matches, this will never let you down.

Using your head as base in BJJ

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Using your head as base in BJJ

Sometimes, using your head as base in BJJ is necessary and extremely beneficial. Especially in the mount position. Futhermore, you use your hands as a base of support every day. So why not use your head as well? Most beginning Jiu-Jitsu students instinctively use their hands as a base of support and post them on the mat to preserve their balance as they grapple. Don’t forget however, that your HEAD (in particular your forehead) is your third hand. And that can also be used to post on the mat to preserve your balance. Always remember, if you use your head to post on the mat instead of a hand, one of your hands will now be free to perform other tasks. This works particularly well in half guard passing as well where an extra hand can greatly facilitate passing tough opponents. In the mount, using your head as base allows your hands to attack the neck and choke. Next time you step on the mats, remember that in everyday life you have two hands, but in Jiu-Jitsu you have three! Here our Savarese BJJ Academy (www.bergencountybjj.com) student Ivette uses this principle for victory in one of her matches.