Your Jiu-Jitsu set ups

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Your Jiu-Jitsu set ups

Your Jiu-Jitsu set ups are very important to your success. same with setting traps. You are engaged in a sport where your opponent knows most of the moves that you know and also knows the counters to most of those moves. When you reflect on this it can be disconcerting. If this is the case – how the hell does anyone ever win? Well there are many factors but one which is very important is that of setting traps. If opponents have a good sense of awareness of potential danger (they know the same moves you know) then often you have to give them a reason to take a risk. You can for example,
feign vulnerability and this will motivate an opponent to commit to an attack that he might not otherwise have tried. If you present too much danger to a knowledgeable opponent he will always back away and be very difficult to attack, but when you deliberately offer some kind of opportunity or opening – now he will commit in ways that you can exploit. Make sure your game isn’t always about aggressively chasing your opponent down. Add some subtlety to game. Learn to draw opponents in with subterfuge and suddenly opponents who always seemed so difficult to engage with become much easier to defeat

Your Jiu-Jitsu foundation

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Your Jiu-Jitsu foundation

Your Jiu-Jitsu foundation is everything. The great Rickson Gracie used to say “if you you don’t have the proper foundation, the house will fall down, same with your Jiu-Jitsu. ” If you’re going to bear an opponent’s weight, make sure your structure is sound. The fastest way to get exhausted in a match is to carry an opponent’s weight in a mechanically inefficient way. So whenever you have to carry weight, your first step is to get into a position or structure that enables you to carry it efficiently. This will vary according to the scenario. How you carry an opponent’s weight will vary greatly based on whether you’re working in a pin, a takedown, from bottom guard position etc. whichever scenario you’re in, there are efficient ways to carry weight and inefficient, make it your habit to quickly work your way into efficient physical structure so that you don’t exhaust yourself, and as always. Spend as little time as possible in a match carrying an opponents weight anywhere other than on your legs and hips. If you follow these methods, you will watch as your jiu-Jitsu grows, little by little, day by day. For more BJJ tips and techniques, follow us on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/savaresebjj/

Lyndhurst Jiu-Jitsu Academy celebrates 18 years!

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Lyndhurst Jiu-Jitsu Academy celebrates 18 years!

Lyndhurst Jiu-Jitsu Academy celebrates 18 years! Congrats to Savarese Jiu-Jitsu, long considered one of the top Jiu-Jitsu Academies on the East Coast, on the milestone achievement!

Message from Professor Savarese

Today is the 18th Anniversary of the Savarese Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Academy. I always take the morning of this day every year to walk through the doors, drink in the atmosphere and reflect on the journey. I opened this school with nothing but guts. No money, no plan. My family didn’t have the means to help. Thinking about what I know now compared to what I knew then, looking back now, it’s amazing I didn’t go out of business in the first 2 years. I can only laugh at my ignorance. Over these 18 years, I have personally have grown so much as an instructor, a business owner, BJJ practitioner and most importantly, as a person. Opening this Academy (Thanks David Adiv for your constant pushing) was truly the best decision I ever made and I am so thankful for those who have supported me and helped me grow during this journey. And thankful to those who come on this journey every day with me. To know how much we as a team have made a difference in the lives of the people in the room and in our community for years and generations to come is the most rewarding feeling one can have. Lives are changed EVERY DAY here. People become better versions of themselves before our eyes. Many champions have been created on these mats, both on and off the mat. As a white and blue belt, doing something like this seemed like a pipe dream, a goal that seemed almost unattainable but I am proud that it was a goal and dream reached. I would like to thank all my students whose role play an important part in the success of our Academy. I am so proud of the way everyone treats each other and I can honestly say the atmosphere in our Academy is what I am most proud of. Just a group of people who stand by each other every day in pursuit of a bigger picture, leaving their problems and ego at the door and trying to become better martial artists and people every day. Boys have become men, little girls have become women. Families have started because of this place. New Academies to help other people and communities have started because of this place. I am even thankful for the bad times, the students who opted out of this journey with me, because the lessons I learned from those times made me stronger and better. Looking forward to helping others grow on and off the mats for as long as humanly possible. Thanks to all my students for their trust and dedication and to everyone on the ride w me. I truly am grateful. I can honestly say I love where we are right now as a TEAM, w everyone on the same page.
These 3 pics show our journey from the outside of the Original 900 sq ft Academy at 482 Stuyvesant Ave where it all started, a place w a drum set in the office, a door that was so short that in the winter winds of cold would blow through and a place where we constantly put holes in the walls. That is where I became a teacher, had lifelong friends in BJJ travel to start training me w me and holds a special place in my heart.
Next was 500 Stuyvesant w/ the poles, a 2nd floor Academy that was a microcosm for many of our journeys, because it was a place where a lot of us grew and ascended to new heights. It was a truly special and meaningful place for many of my upperbelts and where others got their start.
And lastly, our home, our 5500 sq ft facility at 40 Park Ave. The place I always dreamed we’d someday have.
Looking forward to what the future brings!

Seeing vs doing in Jiu-Jitsu

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Seeing vs doing in Jiu-Jitsu

There is a big difference between seeing vs doing in Jiu-jitsu. Your best learning probably won’t happen when someone shows you something. It’ll happen when you put whatever they show you into practice in a messy, blundering kind of way. The nature of jiu-jitsu is such that there’s always a gap between seeing what to do and then doing it. Furthermore, often that gap is wider than we initially think. We can’t really know that our understanding is wrong until we test it out and see whether it works. Unfortunately, at some point in this process, our fear of failure often kicks in. We forget that the temporary failure we experience when we’re learning is very different than a larger, global failure of our whole approach. Progress in jiu-jitsu works as a cycle where we make mistakes, get a little better, then make more mistakes. It’s possible to set it up so you rarely fail, but do you really want to do that? Playing it safe may mean less risk, but it also means fewer lessons. If you want to get good at BJJ, you have to ‘do’. For more tips, follow us on IG at https://www.instagram.com/savaresebjj/

Sparring with a purpose in BJJ

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Sparring with a purpose in BJJ

This is what I mean when I say sparring with a purpose in BJJ. The vast majority of jiu-jitsu athletes enter every sparring session with a let’s see what happens attitude. Let me tell you something, whenever you enter sparring with a let’s see what happens attitude, you will 100% end up doing the same things you did in all your other previous training sessions you had over the last day, month, year or years. Left to their own devices, BJJ practitioners will always go back to their habits. The idea of progressive training is to create NEW habits, not simply repeat old ones. Change within yourself has to be FORCED, it won’t happen by itself. The best way to make this happen is to have a clear goal(s) when you spar. Usually the goals are very modest – a new grip, a new set up for a favorite move, perhaps a new move you think has potential. Only by bringing in new material and improving old material will you make progress. This is best done by having a notion of what you want to accomplish before you slap hands and commence sparring. Of course there are days where you just want to spar with an open and relaxed mind and have fun seeing what happens – that is fine and healthy. However, make sure a healthy percentage of your sparring sessions involve clear prior goals to prevent them degenerating into more of the same sessions where you walk out the same the same as you walked in the door.

 

Don’t force moves in Jiu-Jitsu

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Don’t force moves in Jiu-Jitsu

Don’t force moves in Jiu-Jitsu! Sometimes, we get tunnel vision in trying to get the move we are looking for. Do you ever latch onto a particular strategy or technique and insist on making it work at any cost? While you can sometimes pull it off, you often end up working more with what you think is going on and less with the actual circumstances before you. Theoretically what you’re doing should work, but suddenly your partner moves out of position, the range or angle is wrong and you wanted isn’t there. You’re working in the past, not the present, rather than change with the moment, you’ve held on too long and are now left to scramble. We have to look at things as they are, as they’re happening, and check up to make sure we are where we think we are. This process, freeing ourselves from the overriding obsessions that block the creative flow, on the mat or anywhere else – is difficult to master but is a big part of the total experience of the training. for more BJJ tips, follow us at https://www.instagram.com/savaresebjj/

Working skills vs flashy skills in Jiu-Jitsu

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Working skills vs flashy skills in Jiu-Jitsu

There is a big difference between working skills vs flashy skills in Jiu-Jitsu. I think it’s fair to say we all have an innate preference for the flashy moves in the art of Jiu Jitsu. Moves that wow a crowd and a spectacular flair to them. The birth of social media made these type of moves and the demand for them even more in the public eye. It seems everyone wants to be the next Joe D’arce. the Renzo Gracie blackbelt who has a widely known move named after him. Certainly these are fun to learn and can occasionally bring great results, but the simple truth is that the vast majority of both your time and your success on the mat will be the result of foundational skills. These are the skills that make the application of the glamor moves possible. You’ll never see guard retention in a highlight reel, but all those spectacular arm bars and triangles and sweeps from guard that do feature on highlight reels would be impossible if you couldn’t hold guard long enough to actually apply them. Think about it in terms of numbers. For every minute of glamor moves you apply you’ll spend twenty minutes in the set up phase. Your training must reflect this. Ask yourself if a given skill “what skills underlie this skill?” Once you figure that out spend much more time on those underlying skills than the surface skill. This is how you build a game with a solid foundation that will work against tough opponents

Scrambling in Jiu-Jitsu

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Scrambling in Jiu-Jitsu

Scrambling in Jiu-Jitsu can be good or bad. It’s a conundrum. Any time you enter into a scramble with an opponent and neither of you has definitive control over the other and one has the threat of gaining advantageous position – you’re going to have to raise your energy expenditure to cope with the situation regardless of whether your the attacker or the defender. As the attacker it’s worth the extra energy expense because of the chance of a score. As the defender it’s worth the energy expenditure because you don’t want to concede a score. The question becomes – at what point do you stop the scramble because it’s costing you too much energy and the probability of a favorable outcome has diminished to a point where it makes more sense to stop scrambling? Its never easy to answer these questions. There are too many variables so each has to be answered on a case by case basis, but one thing can be said in every case – the athlete who can PROLONG A SCRAMBLE while keeping energy expenditure within acceptable limits has a huge advantage in a competitive match. Anyone can pace themselves in a controlled situation, but only the best can do so in a chaotic situation

Controlling the hands in Jiu-Jitsu

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Controlling the hands in Jiu-Jitsu

In Jiu-Jitsu, controlling the hands is one of the best kept secrets. Control your opponents hands and wrists and it’ll be difficult for them to control you. The basis of connection in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu is the HANDS and FEET. We teach this concept often at Savarese Jiu-Jitsu (www.njbjj.com). These concept are true in similar art like Wrestling, freestyle and folkstyle, Judo and MMA. It is through these that we begin to connect to an opponent. we connect in ways that enable us to use the more powerful legs, hips and core to actually move an opponent around. But it all begins with hands and feet. It stands to reason then, that if you can control an opponent’s hands, it will be difficult for him to connect effectively to you.
Best of all is when you can consistently control his hands to shut down his attempts at connection. all at the same whilst at the same time you are able to quickly transition to your own effective grips so that you shut down his offense while enabling your own. When you come out to grapple, start at the the opponents hands and wrists and you’ll negate his offense while setting up your own.
For more tips follow us at https://www.instagram.com/savaresebjj/

BJJ: It’s all in the details

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BJJ: It’s all in the details

It’s a game of details and insights: Sometimes you can work on a move for months with little progress and then a single detail or insight that you pick up, sometimes by accident, sometimes by experimentation and sometimes by instruction, can transform it from mediocrity to excellence. It stands to reason then, that the most valuable asset you can have in this game is a curious and restless mind that constantly seeks knowledge. Without that curiosity you’ll settle wherever you are and accept that level, but when your mind pushes for insight that brings improvement you’ll never be caught on a plateau for long. Do you want to get good at BJJ? Depends on what you mean by “good.” Good enough to understand the general concepts, get decent at positions and learned a few escapes and submissions? About a year to 18 months, going two to three times a week. This would normally put you at about blue belt level, which isn’t bad. Good enough to truly understand set ups, transition chains and to be able to start treating it like an art? About 3 to 5 years. Most people can expect to be around purple belt then. Good enough to be able to teach others, generally understand any position, and have your own game or plan? Around 6 to 8 years. Most people are brown belts around this time. Good enough to be formidable to any person that you face in BJJ? Well, maybe 10 years or so, when you get a black belt. Even then, only a very few become what I’d call “world beaters” or those that can compete at the highest levels. These time frames can vary based on life circumstances, age and natural ability.