More half guard passing tips

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More half guard passing tips

More half guard passing tips for you…first, when your in half guard on top, there is no need to rush. Of all the methods of passing guard, passing from half guard gives you the most ability to slow things down and dictate the pace. We preach dictating the pace as one of the most important aspects of BJJ at Savarese BJJ (www.njbjj.com). You must learn to use this in your favor. When you first get over your opponents knee and enter half guard, take a moment to to first solidify your top position rather than rush into the passing game. Your first goal should be to shut down your opponents ability to off balance and move you (if he can do that he will be attacking you relentlessly). This means there will be a contest for arm position (most opponents will be looking to get an under hook), head position (opponent will be looking to get your head far forward over his shoulders) and hip position (opponents will be looking to get under you and on to one side rather than flat). Who wins these three battles will generally dictate the overall battle from half guard. So when you first settle into half guard – look to win these three battles first before you go into your favorite passes. Here, one of our students wins the battle for the head control position, which will enable him to start setting him up for some strong passes and thus a stronger chance at submission

Half guard passing in MMA/fighting

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Half guard passing in MMA/fighting is one of the best ways to neutralize for the top. Today’s Jiu-Jitsu has many exciting and very effective methods of guard passing that have risen to prominence in last decade. When it’s time to apply some of these to MMA or fighting however, they often run into problems due to lack of gi grips or the fact that many opponents simply stand up from bottom position as you try to pass. When it comes time to pass under fighting conditions, one method stands above all – half guard passing. I was lucky enough to see John Danaher coach George St Pierre for a couple of his fight camps. Geroge was known for his passing/top control, and often, the overwhelming majority of training time was spent in forcing half guard and passing from there. No other method adapts so well to the rigors and demands of MMA than pressure passing from half guard. He used this with great effect throughout his career, repeatedly passing even world champion Jiu-Jitsu specialists with no problems. Any many other BJJ athlete, Demien Maia for example for one, used this method after him. I can confidently attest that no other method of guard passing adapts so well to gi, no gi and MMA as half guard passing does. Even when I used to see George train in the training room at the Renzo Gracie Academy, George was able to pass even elite level grapplers under shocking pressure using this simple but powerful method of guard passing. Chest to chest contact will make it very difficult indeed for an opponent to stand up on his as he passes, this is something we often focus on in MMA classes at Savarese BJJ Academy (www.njbjj.com). Use to method while Half guard passing in MMA/fighting and what the new openings it will create and watch your game skyrocket!

Ashi garami/single leg x tips for BJJ

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Ashi garami/single leg x tips for BJJ

Here is an Ashi garami/single leg x tips for BJJ. The best entries for Ashi garami based leg locks from bottom position require you to first either get your opponents hands to the mat or butt to the mat. If you want to increase your success with leg locks from bottom position, you need to develop two precursor skills. In addition you should be able to make your opponents hands touch the mat by tripping your opponent forward, or make their butt touch the mat by tripping them backwards. If you can make this happen at will, you will find the world of leg locks opens up a lot easier for you. Almost all the skills of Jiu-Jitsu have precursor skills. Meaning, skills that you must have if other subsequent skills are to be made possible. The two great precursor skills of bottom position leg locks are getting opponent hands to mat or butt to mat. Like any general rule of Jiu-Jitsu there are some important exceptions, but most of the time it holds true and will help your performance in this part of the game. Here, our Savarese BJJ Academy (www.njbjj.com) student Theresa starts the entry to apply this principle on her sister Ariana.

Devastating pressure in BJJ

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Devastating pressure in BJJ

Devastating pressure in BJJ is a common trait that I have seen in all the greats in BJJ over my 26 years in the art.  Some of the most dominant grapplers I ever saw had something in common… they had devastating pressure and were great guard passers. Over the many years I have spent running tournamnets and teaching and competing, the dominant grapplers I ever saw were Royler Gracie, Roger Gracie, Jacare, Cobrinha, The Mendes Brothers, Xande ribeiro, Buchecha, Andre Galvao, Bruno Malfacine, Leandro Lo, Rafael Lovato Jr and now, Gordon Ryan and the things they had in common was they were all great guard passers w devastating pressure. There are many commonalities between them and some important differences, but the thing they share most in common and which is important for YOUR development is that both men were truly devastating in their application of the various to stop movement and hold you down with their Jiu-Jitsu. Having any of them on top of you once they had passed your legs felt you had a Cadillac parked on your chest while you attempted to do escapes. Even Royler who was only 145lbs would put pressure on me that was insane. The pressure was so immense in any one position that you almost hoped they would move to another position to score, just to get a temporary reprieve from the pressure. A minute under a mount like theirs can feel like an eternity. There is no question that a simple hold and pressure can be among the most devastating weapons in your arsenal if applied to its full potential. Learning to shut down escapes and generate pressure while moving from position to position is perhaps the single most important skill in raising your submission success rate. Especially at the higher levels. You must begin to pay attention to your posture and how certain subtle changes in posture can make you feel lighter or heavier. How a shift to one side can sit down a potential escape, how moving up or down an opponents body can change how he tries to escapes. Pinning is perhaps the most subtle part of the entire game. The movements are very small but have deep consequences for your success or failure. Ask yourself what are they doing with his posture at those moments ? His foot positioning? Head position? Near side elbow position? Learning to answer these questions is part of your journey to developing a truly devastating arsenal of pins, from which your submissions game will greatly benefit!

Freeing your legs in BJJ

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Freeing your legs in BJJ

Freeing your legs in BJJ is a must have skill in BJJ. Learning to extract your leg from the grip of your opponents legs is among the most valuable skills in all of Jiu-Jitsu: A fundamental feature of Jiu-Jitsu as a sport is that positional dominance is largely understood in terms freeing yourself from the grip of your opponents legs. As long as an opponent controls you to some degree through the use of his legs, you are not considered to be in a dominant position. As you get better at BJJ, you will find more and more you can get closer to passing an opponents legs, only to have your opponent snatch one of your legs in a last ditch attempt to prevent you scoring. A second situation is that you actually do pass your opponents guard, but he manages a partial escape by grabbing one of your legs with his and thus breaking your pinning position. As your opponents get better, a third scenario you will often encounter is that if BJJ practitioners who favor half guard bottom as an attacking position and who actively look to ensnare on of your legs so that they can enter their favorite attacks from there. These three common situations will all require you to be able to extract your leg from your opponents grasp and get to a dominant pinning position. So, it is one of the most commonly occurring scenarios in the entire sport and one that you have to be very good at managing. It tends to be a rather slow moving situation due to the close body contact. As such, it is a scenario that older and less athletic athletes can excel in and defeat younger and faster opponents if they know what they’re doing. Learning to get a controlling upper body grip and marrying that to a stable posture are the first steps in a good extraction that can get you the dominant positions you seek at relatively little cost in physical output and tactical risk. It will be among the first skills you will need to become a master half guard passer and solid at pinning your opponents shoulder for control..

When to be tight vs loose in BJJ

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When to be tight vs loose in BJJ

When to be tight vs loose in BJJ.  When it comes to physicality, Jiu-Jitsu is a game of contrasts. There are times we need to be loose and relaxed and times we need extreme isometric tension in order to be effective. Learning to balance these opposing demands is a key requirement for your improvement and the price of getting it wrong is either fatigue or ineffective application of potentially winning moves. As a general rule, the more movement is the key to gaining advantage, the looser and more relaxed you want to be. Tightness makes our movement both tiring and inefficient. The more STOPPING AND OPPONENTS MOVEMENT is the key to success, the tighter we want to be. Here, our Savarese BJJ (bergencountybjj.com) student Mariana shows total pressure in her application of the S-Mount. This is exactly the time you want tightness to hold an opponent in an effort to secure a finishing hold long enough to do real damage. It’s hard to imagine that just a few seconds before and after this photo her body was very relaxed, making it possible for her to move smoothly and easily into the move and into a follow up afterwards. Learning to switch gears between softness and hardness is a big part of your progress in the sport and represents a good sign that you are making progress. If you constantly find yourself getting tired or having opponents skip out of your moves even when the initial application was good, then there is a good chance that your physical switching from dynamic looseness to isometric tension is at fault.

A group of people practicing martial arts on the floor.

When to be tight vs loose in BJJ

Dealing with closed guard in BJJ

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Dealing with closed guard in BJJ

Here is a great tip on dealing with closed guard in BJJ. Don’t stay on your knees in a closed guard, stand up and open it! One of the most common problems I see beginning students struggle with is opening a closed guard. On the surface, it feels like you are better off staying in your knees as you are stable and can retract your arms and neck for safety. This is an illusion. Remember that as along as you stay inside the closed guard you have very little effective offense in a grappling situation (MMA is very different). Despite being in bottom position, your opponents hips are actually higher than yours, which means he has some very effective offense from bottom. There are a few specialized ways of opening a closed guard from your knees, but they tend to be used either by a few specialists in those methods or by beginners on other beginners. As you go higher in level, in the vast majority of cases, you will need to stand up to effectively open your opponents guard. We teach here at Savarese BJJ (www.njbjj.com), “What is the best time to stand up in closed Guard?” And everyone answers “IMMEDIATELY!” When you first try you will feel unstable and be knocked down many times. Don’t despair. Get back up and try again. It doesn’t matter if you get knocked down to your butt, so long as your opponent doesn’t actually get in top of you he won’t score. In time you will be knocked down less. Through all of your early attempts and frustrations I offer you this: whatever problems you have getting knocked down backwards while standing in your opponents closed guard are insignificant when compared with the problems you will have when you are pulled forward into a closed guard on your knees. The former is an annoyance, the latter will very often end in your submission. You must develop your ability to stand in a closed guard and open it with confidence – it is a foundational skill of the sport.

Role of a BJJ instructor

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Role of a BJJ instructor

Role of a BJJ instructor is Trust: It’s important to understand that I never coach INDIVIDUALS, I coach the ROOM. Only when the whole room is on the program can individuals rise to their potential. Of all the characteristics I try to preach upon the room, one of the most important is TRUST. My students are renown for their ability to escape from seemingly hopeless situations, specialize in the use of potentially very damaging types of joint locks, and focusing on submission above all. This is only possible because the students trust each other to train hard, but not to recklessly try to hurt each other. In an art where victory comes from holds designed to snap limbs and choke people unconscious, there has to be an understanding among the teammates that they will train hard, but not recklessly. If I know my partner will not try to immediately snap on an arm lock as hard and fast as he can, this gives me the confidence to practice my escapes and get a feeling for what I need to do in a more competitive situation. The rule with joint locks that I always preach in the room, you can extend the limb but not hyperextend the limb. Focus on control of the limb rather than snapping it. This keeps it realistic enough for students to practice and acquire skills but safe enough to give them confidence to try out risky escapes and counters they will need in top level competition settings. Here, one of our Savarese BJJ Academy students (www.njbjj.com) practices her last ditch escapes against armbars with our student Ivette who gives her realistic tension but not dangerous hyperextension. In this way, you can practice even the more extreme elements and skills of Jiu-Jitsu in a safe manner.

Sweeping and throwing tip for BJJ

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Sweeping and throwing tip for BJJ

Here is a sweeping and throwing tip for BJJ. Look where you want them to land! Whenever you want to throw someone from standing position or sweep from guard position, you will need to align your body’s structure and in the direction of the throw/sweep. Only a unified effort recruiting every part of your body will get the job done against strong resistance. so, one of the best ways to do this is to obey this simple tip… LOOK WHERE YOU WANT YOUR OPPONENT TO LAND. In many cases, (there are couple of exceptions) the simple act of looking will get your head pointed in the correct direction. The head leads the body and will thus help you create a unified effort in the proper direction to get the results you seek. Here, our Savarese BJJ Academy (www.njbjj.com) student is setting up a beautiful hook sweep and is following this tip. By looking where he wants his opponent to land he creates a powerful body align that creates high amplitude and a spectacular finish. Next time you are sweeping from bottom, employ this simple but very useful principle and you can get better results!

Dictating pace and first contact in BJJ

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Dictating pace and first contact in BJJ

Dictating pace and first contact in BJJ is very important. Dictating pace will determine that the fight or match is always where you want it to be. In addition, first contact will be the beginning of the dictation. Every grappling match begins with the closing of distance and first physical contact, whether it be in standing position or on the floor. It greatly benefits you to have a plan in mind BEFORE first contact rather than make contact and see what happens and figure it out then. At Savarese BJJ (www.njbjj.com), we teach there are only so many ways that two training partners can initiate contact. Having a good response to the major possibilities worked out ahead of time let’s you get off to a good start. And when you are facing tough opponents, that’s a great thing. In order to make an effective and proactive first contact you will need an appropriate stance, motion, grip fighting sequence and plan of action for the initial encounter. These will all vary depending upon what your aims are. Make sure you devote some time developing these skills of first contact. So many times the outcome is heavily influenced by those crucial opening seconds.