Archive for category: Uncategorized

Have a game plan for your BJJ training

Always have a game plan for your BJJ training. You must have a purpose: The single most important thing you carry into your daily workout is not your skill, your knowledge or your desire or most of the things mentioned in this regard, it’s a sense of purpose that is needed most. Either you know yourself if you are an advanced student or listen and follow your instructor plan and curriculum, especially if your school has a history of success and the upperbelts in the training room are good. Know what you want to work on and achieve in every session and you will soon find that progress becomes the norm rather than the exception. Time spent just rolling around sparring is fun and it’s fine to do that periodically or on light days, but it does very little to make you better than you were before you walk in the training room. Drilling has a better effect. Going in to a workout knowing what you are trying to achieve and having a simple game plan for it makes a HUGE difference. Working on a particular weakness in your game is a great example of this. When the workout is over, you will have a sense of improvement and a sense of what you you need to do tomorrow. If you continue such workouts over time, you can achieve things that once seemed impossible and you will see a clear difference in your BJJ game.

As far as BJJ Takedowns for self defense go, he are my thoughts on their magnitude. The common sentiment you will hear in BJJ circles is that one of the chief virtues of takedowns for self defense training is that a hard powerful takedown on concrete is a fight ender, In addition, it means you don’t even need to go the ground. There is definitely some truth to this. I have personally seen some fights ended immediately by a hard Judo or Wrestling slam into the ground. The old cliché is that a boxer can only hit with the weight of his hands, but a grappler (with high amplitude takedowns) can hit with the weight of the earth. My experience was that there were mixed results with big slams in street fights. For every time I saw someone incapacitated by a heavy slam, I saw many others get right back and immediately resume fighting. Also, I have seen situations where a hard throw was performed and the person thrown tightly grabbed the person throwing in panic and both participants went hard into the cement with the thrower getting hurt as badly as the person thrown. The truth is, the harder the throw, the more difficult it is to control the landing for both of you. Futhermore, hard throws on cement can be something of a double edge sword. If you are going to throw someone hard and use takedowns as a weapon in itself rather than as merely a means to take someone to the ground, then you will want to use techniques that out your opponent into a hard fall, not both of you. This means you generally ought to favor throwing techniques where you keep both feet on the floor and can retain balance after the throw (for example, a Tai otoshi Judo throw rather than say, uchi mata) Interestingly in the sport of sambo, they award the highest score to takedowns that do exactly this, throw someone with amplitude but where you remain standing over them. You don’t see it too often in competition as it’s difficult to achieve, but it does happen and is a good reflection of the self defense ideal for takedowns. Be realistic however, understand that a hard throw certainly can end a fight immediately, but is not guaranteed. As I said earlier, I’ve seen plenty of people get slammed hard and come right back up swinging. So finally, be ready to follow up appropriately based on the circumstances.

The secret to guard passing in BJJ

BJJ practitioners are always looking for the secret to guard passing in BJJ. As far as guard passing, here are two directions for your game, There are a vast number of ways to pass an opponents guard, but at the end of the day they can be divided into two camps. The first are those passes that focus upon using your mobility to gain a tactical advantage over your opponents legs. The second are those that focus upon rendering your opponents feet and hips and getting passed their immobilized hips. So one is concerned with using your mobility to pass, the other is concerned with restricting the opponents mobility. Toreando (bullfighting) passes are a good example of using your mobility advantage (you are on your feet, opponent is on his back so you should be able to move much faster and more freely than him). Body lock passes (known as KP pass at Savarese BJJ (www.njbjj.com) after UFC Kurt Pellegrino, one of the first people in the US using these passes) would be a good example of passes that shut down your opponents hips and feet and prevent him following your movement as you pass. It’s natural that you should favor one type over the other, but make sure you have at least one of these passes in your “toolbox” (and preferably a few more than that) so that you can play both games to throw off difficult opponents.

Breaking down your opponent in BJJ

Breaking down your opponent in BJJ is one of the “little things” that makes a big difference. If you can break an opponent down or make them stumble, whichever move you choose to perform next will be easy. There are many truly valuable combat skills, but the ability to make your opponent get broken down or stumble at will, which may not seem very useful on the surface but is in fact, arguably among the most useful of them all. In addition, it makes possible to execute so many of the other more well known and glamorous skills. If you can do this it will be much easier to perform the subsequent moves that you use to score points in competition or finish your opponent with. You must develop this ability to the greatest degree possible. It is particularly important when you are grappling in standing position and in situations where you are seated in open guard and your opponent is standing in front of you (though it is important in other common scenarios also). The ability to make your opponent stumble both forward and backwards, as resistance to one direction will set up attacks in the other. Furthermore, you will need to develop good dexterity in your feet as you will be using your feet and legs like hands and arms to reach out and grab and push and pull. If you can make your opponent stumble, you make them defenseless for a quarter of a second, and in BJJ or MMA, quarter of a second can be an awfully long time and make the difference. So work hard on this skill, it will make many of your other skills much easier to apply.

Arm Bar/Triangle combos from spiderweb position

Any BJJ practitioner will see great improvement once they understand the Arm Bar/Triangle combos from spiderweb position dynamic. Many times when you have an arm bar  in the spiderweb psoition, you also have a triangle available. Because, the positioning for arm bars and triangles is such that WHENEVER YOU HAVE ONE, YOU ALMOST ALWAYS HAVE THE OTHER AVAILABLE. Triangles are the better submission because they have the inherent advantage that they are locked around your opponents head and shoulder and hence much tighter. Also, triangles offer the dual benefits of a strangle as well as an arm lock. In addition, you can attack the joints from a triangle as well or even better than you can from a regular armbar position. For these reasons, it is often worth your time to switch your legs from the classic arm bar to a triangle when working for your submission. At little cost you will soon find yourself exerting considerably more control and with more finishing options. Here at Savarese BJJ (www.njbjj.com), we have spent the week working this position. In this picture, Professor Savarese show the proper arm bar depth to attack (elbow deep) that makes escape very unlikely and allows him to choose his next attack in a leisurely fashion. Next time you are in arm bar position, play around with transitions to triangle variations – front, side, rear and reverse – and see what kind of havoc you can create.

Arm Bar/Triangle combos from spiderweb position