Obstacles in BJJ and Life

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Obstacles in BJJ and Life

Obstacles in BJJ and Life. This is the point that causes people to break. As soon as things get hard, that is when people break mentally and often quit whatever to are trying. The greatest basketball player of all time, Michael Jordan once said famously ““Obstacles don’t have to stop you. If you run into a wall, don’t turn around and give up. Figure out how to climb it, go through it, or work around it.â€

Jiu-Jitsu Obstacles

Sometimes when you run into a skilled guard player and it seems nothing you do can get you around their legs, it gets frustrating. How you react to that frustration will determine your success or failure as a guard passer. We all have a natural tendency when frustrated to get the mentality of a ram and just go on butting heads until one drops. Or, we channel our inner track star and try to run around the legs. Don’t get into either of these mindsets. Remember always that it’s always better to go AROUND obstacles rather than THROUGH them – guard passing is no different. No matter how tired and frustrated you get, focus on moving from one side to another. If you feel strong resistance on the left, move to the right and renew the attack and keep working aide to side until you get the breakthrough you seek. Don’t just kept hammering away on one side against a good guard player. That’s a ticket to frustration and eventual failure. If you feel yourself getting frustrated, it’s ok to back off a little and start again. The main thing is to stay on top and work side to side. That alone will usually result in the bottom player working harder than you over time and thus become less effective as fatigue becomes a factor.
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Getting the most out of your BJJ class

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Getting the most out of your BJJ class

Getting the most out of your BJJ class is as important as showing up. Remember – in Jiu-Jitsu, it’s not how much you’ve learned that counts – it’s HOW MUCH CAN YOU RECALL AND PERFORM UNDER STRESS that counts. As such don’t put your emphasis on amount of information but rather upon summary of information. Better to know the two most pertinent details for a given scenario than twenty of lesser importance. Constantly look for ways to filter all the information you receive into summaries that work for you as an individual to recall under pressure. As a teacher I can give a mountain of details but you must actively seek to focus on the ones that are most important for improving your individual performance.

Those critical last few minutes of class: Most people associate the most important part of the class is the sparring section. There is a lot of truth to that – sparring is the single best way to translate knowledge into skill by a landslide. Others will say it’s the drilling section – that is a definitely a fair assertion – drills impart knowledge and provide a valuable first step in converting that knowledge into skill in ways that can make a vast difference in your performance. A few will say it’s the warm up because this provides some level of conditioning and helps reduce injuries that can disrupt progress. There is definitely truth to all those claims. One part of the class that gets no attention but which I strongly emphasize is the post workout review/discussion. This is where we sit down and puzzle out the problems we ran into during the main sparring session. The immense value of this is that IT SETS UP TOMORROWS WORKOUT. Remember that real progress never comes from any one workout – BUT ONLY FROM LONG STRINGS OF WORKOUTS WOVEN TOGETHER THAT BUILD UPON EACH OTHER INCREMENTALLY OVER TIME. By finishing with a resolution of outstanding problems today you set yourself up for improved performance tomorrow – and that’s what it’s all about. So take a few minutes at the end of class every now and then to problem solve in ways that make today’s frustration into tomorrow’s breakthrough – and watch your progress quicken

Self assessment in BJJ

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Self assessment in BJJ

Self assessment in BJJ is an important thing to look at. Every time train in Jiu-Jitsu we get a very clear idea of how we performed because of the uncertain nature of sparring. If your partner is better than you, they will usually submit or dominate you positionally. If your partner is roughly the same level and size it will typically be an exhausting training session without clear result. It’s natural to leave every workout strongly doubting whether you are making any progress at all. This is because as you rise in skill level, everyone around you is rising at almost exactly the same speed. They are equally learning similar techniques and setups so they know most of your attacks. That is why you never really feel like you’re making forward progress. It’s natural that you should feel discouraged by this. no one likes to expend large amounts of time and effort without result. Every so often the BJJ gods will throw a morsel your way. You may be matched against a visitor who doesn’t know your moves and immediately everything feels easier. You might be matched against someone who used to be much better than you but who took time off, had an injury or moved away and now in the rematch you suddenly do much better than ever before. You might learn a new move or gain a new insight that allows you to break through against partners you could not do anything to previously. It’s then that you suddenly realize that despite all your nights of despair and doubt,  you have DEFINITELY been making progress after all. Don’t just have faith in the art of Jiu-Jitsu, have faith in yourself too. It’s almost impossible to train hard and long without making decent progress. Be aware that the very nature of training at your school will often hide this progress from you – so stay the course and learn to check that part of your mind that tells you that you will be permanently static, you won’t be. Understand that the path of BJJ is one of hard work over time where you will often doubt your progress, but where occasional joyful triumphs among a few big failures and a great many average or forgettable sessions will give you hope and direction for the future. You are getting better every day, week, month, year. That is why we make/ ask our students to write yearly goals. You can see how much improvement you made over a year, something that is hard to see every day.

Jiu-Jitsu reveals your character

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Jiu-Jitsu reveals your character

Jiu-Jitsu reveals your character. The legendary basketball coach John Wooden once said “spoSo many claim they love Jiu-Jitsu yet the moment things get tough their love becomes less. In this case you don’t love Jiu-Jitsu, you love the flavor of the month. The beauty of Jiu-Jitsu is the tough days. It challenges our minds, body, and soul. The ability to keep showing up and bettering yourself is what proves your love. We can never give back to Jiu-Jitsu what Jiu-Jitsu gives to us. People are all in when things are going good, but give up at the first signs of adversity on or off the mats. When you have problems off the mat, you should actually train MORE to relieve stress and use the Academy as your sanctuary. Guys/girls quit when they get a new relationship, an injury, or just become excuse machines after for years quoting many school’s no excuses mentality. The ones who come back, good for you.

Women’s highest percentage submission hold vs men

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Women’s highest percentage submission hold vs men

Stats show that women’s highest percentage submission hold vs men is the heelhook. Observations – women sparring men in Jiu-Jitsu: Probably one of the toughest assignments in all of Jiu-Jitsu is for a woman to submit a male who has the same amount of training time and the size and strength disadvantage that is typically found in this scenario. Over many years of observing mixed classes with men and women grappling each other I came to the conclusion that by far the most successful submission hold for women when they take on trained men is the heel hook. Nothing else is even close in my experience. Let me explain this. The strength discrepancy between men and women is much more pronounced in the upper body than lower body. It is particularly pronounced in hand and arm strength. The discrepancy between men and women in lower body strength is far less pronounced. When two men of different size and strength clash I usually favor strangles from the back as the best submission hold for the smaller and weaker fellow – but in the case of women versus men I frequently observe that the big difference in hand/arm strength means that women struggle to win the hand fight that precedes strangulation (the rear triangle works much better for women in this scenario and it is my belief that rear triangle is second best submission for women against men after heel hook). Most of the other classic upper body submissions such as arm bars, Kimura, front triangles run afoul of the arm/upper body strength discrepancy and as such appear to be quite problematic for many females to use against similarly skilled males. Even most leg locks are problematic – knee bars and toe holds require considerable arm and hand strength in application and so have proven difficult to apply in mixed sparring – but the heel hook lets women use their considerable leg strength and dexterity to great effect with relatively little interference from males advantages in hand/arm and upper torso strength – as such I have seen more mixed grappling scenarios in the gym over the years won by heel hooks (especially inside heel hooks) than any other by a very considerable margin. Let both women and men take note – when there is a big strength difference heel hooks are among your best friends!

Passing half guard in BJJ

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Passing half guard in BJJ

Passing the half guard in BJJ can sometimes be a chore. But the secret is pressure! Pressure passing…. the power of half guard. There are many ways to create pressure while passing your opponents guard, but in my opinion half guard passing is the best for pressure for the simple reason that it offers direct control of the opponents head, which creates the strongest forms of pressure. you control the head, you control the body. The ability to exert pressure over time is perhaps the single biggest determinant of success or failure at championship level. Working your way to half guard and getting control of the head gives you what I consider the best pressure passing method in the game. It works equally well in all three areas of sport jiu-jitsu, (gi or no gi) and MMA. Here, our student Dan Czarnecki uses it brilliantly in his double gold medal performance at NJBJJF Tournament.

Takedown philosophy in BJJ

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Takedown philosophy in BJJ

There is a lot to takedown philosophy in BJJ. That is because there is a lot more to the standing game of BJJ than takedowns: When most people think of standing skills in Jiu-Jitsu, they understandably think automatically in terms of takedowns. However, there are many other skills of great importance. Let’s consider takedown defense for example. In BJJ, a successful takedown scores two points in competition. A strong counter to takedown that exposes an opponents back and enables you to secure rear mount will score double that – four points. So clearly, takedown defense is a potentially very profitable skill that gets widely overlooked in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. Let’s look at pulling guard. This is typically seen as a defeatist strategy which intent is to prevent an opponent scoring on you (usually because you believe he has superior takedown skills to you). What if we changed our thinking a little and instead of passively pulling guard, we pulled directly to a sweep from guard? Pulling directly to a guard sweep is no more difficult than pulling guard. Now you can use guard pulling as a mean to score rather than a way to avoid being scored on. Interestingly you will score the same amount (two points) as you would have scored with a takedown. What if an opponent pulls guard on you? Most people just see this as an invitation to play the ground game. What if you saw it as an opportunity to score a quick guard passing off the pull? Now your up three points (more than a takedown) and putting your opponent under real pressure from the start. What about instead of pulling guard you pulled directly to a submission hold? An arm lock, leg lock or strangle? Then the whole damn match would be over! You can see that there are many very potentially lucrative standing skills that get far less attention than they ought to. Perhaps you can among the first to develop these and make them a feature of your game and reap the benefits!

Every submission has an escape in BJJ

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Every submission has an escape in BJJ

Every submission has an escape in BJJ. The key is to identify the problem. Every escape involves a set of movements – but invariably there is ONE movement that does the majority of the work of escape. For example in upper body submission holds from guard involving your legs such as triangle, closed guard arm bar, omoplata etc – most of the early escapes are postural escapes involving your opponents HEAD rising away from you to create distance and this is the core of the escape/defense overall. Once you understand this as the athlete trying to perform the submission it’s all a matter of building increasingly powerful HEAD CONTROL as the basis of your submission game from guard. Focus upon the most pressing problem pays big dividends in Jiu-Jitsu. In a word of ten thousand problems learning to focus on the biggest ones first makes a big difference to your performance. Under stress it’s much easier to solve one bigger problem than a dozen smaller ones simultaneously. Develop a clear idea of what the biggest threat to your success is and attack that threat relentlessly – you will soon notice the difference in your performance

Best BJJ training is sparring tired

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Best BJJ training is sparring tired

The best BJJ training is sparring tired. It’s common to feel utterly exhausted some days in the middle of your sparring rounds. Sometimes you come in feeling fine and have a couple of very tough rounds and feel very fatigued. It’s natural to feel like stopping, maybe taking off a round a two and then starting again. You think this way because you are thinking in terms of winning or losing rounds rounds. If you’re exhausted it’s going to be very difficult to win and quite likely you’ll lose to your next partner. So you take some rounds off and start again when you’ve recovered a little. This not good if you want to play at a competitive level. Doing this means you will never get the experience of performing through exhaustion. Change your mindset. Tell yourself – I’m exhausted – but I will keep going with a lowered set of expectations. Let’s imagine I’m ahead in a tough match and have to protect my lead and not get submitted. This will simulate the skill of operating under great fatigue and duress – a common thing in tough matches. You don’t want the finals of a tough competition to be the first time you do this – your own mind will start to fight against you – learn to tame it in the gym first and it will be much better than trying to learn it in the middle of a big match. Obviously if you are more recreational, older, perhaps not in competition shape, this will not apply as much, but you can still experiment with it to some degree. Remember, you don’t have to stop completely, just lower your goals and keep going – you will learn a lot about yourself in those rounds. In addition, training while tired teaches you to always use your technique, which will come in handy vs larger opponents. Always check our news sections at www.njbjj.com for more advice

Dictating pace in Jiu-Jitsu

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Dictating pace in Jiu-Jitsu

Dictating pace in Jiu-Jitsu is one of the keys to success on the mat. Whatever your opponent wants to do – do the opposite: BJJ can seem like a very complex game at times, but in some ways it is very simple. It is a classic zero-sum game in the sense  what ever is good for one player is by definition bad for the other. If you know what the other guy need in order to perform a given move, you can do pretty damn well by doing the opposite of what he needs. That’s why learning how to attack with a given move often educates you very well in how to defend it, and learning to defend it often makes you better at attacking with it. Whenever you drill a given move, get a feel of what the three main mechanical requirements for its success are – that will give a good insight into what you must do to stop it being used successfully against you in the future.

Whatever the other fellow wants – do the opposite: BJJ can seem like a very complex game at times, but in some ways it is very simple. It is a classic zero-sum game; what ever is good for one player is by definition bad for the other. If you know what the other guy need in order to perform a given move, you can do pretty damn well by doing the opposite of what he needs. That’s why learning how to attack with a given move often educates you very well in how to defend it, and learning to defend it often makes you better at attacking with it. Whenever you drill a given move, get a feel of what the three main mechanical requirements for its success are – that will give a good insight into what you must do to stop it being used successfully against you in the future.