Positional sparring is a fantastic way to sharpen your execution of a technique. Way more important than Free Rolling and that's not just my opinion. It's the opinion of practically every single world champ or Gracie family member I have ever interviewed.
For those not familiar with the term positional sparring: The instructor introduces three triangle fundamental escapes (for instance) then you drilled them in isolation (against progressive resistance) and then you roll, but every roll started from inside your partner's triangle set-up position. This is an excellent way to learn fast and learn well!
Moving upstream is a marketing term. It can easily be explained with the analogy of a river. If you walk past a river and spot a problem (pollution, stagnant water...etc.) you can either address the immediate problem or simply walk upstream trying to understand the origins of the situation at hand.
What does all this have to do with BJJ/grappling? Everything! Prevention is the best solution in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and by moving upstream we solve problems we didn’t even know we had.
Are you getting caught in triangles in the closed guard? Want to learn how to avoid that in the first place? Let’s move upstream step by step:
Don’t let your opponent close their guard around you, and earlier than that…
Don’t leave your arms one in and one out, and earlier than that…
Don’t let your opponent control your head and posture, and earlier than that…
Don’t let your opponent place their foot (feet) on your hip(s) in open guard, and earlier than that…
Don’t let your opponent control your sleeves
The way I see it, the deeper you get into the rabbit hole, the harder it will be to get out and the more likely that you will get caught. Your chances of you getting caught in a triangle are higher if you let them place their foot on your hip than if you use your knees and elbows to control their thighs (even if they manage to control your wrists) and they are higher still if they control your posture (from your head or collar).
The beauty of moving upstream is that if you don’t let them control your sleeves your will avoid triangles, omoplatas, armbars and most sweeps.
Something happened yesterday that reminded me of a BJJ session on side control escape I once had as an early blue belt. We were talking about how incorporating a new technique or concept correctly into one's A-game in jiujitsu takes about 6 months of progressive drilling and sparring.
The fundamentals of side control escapes are:
Recover forearm posture
Get on one side
Strong back foot
Shrimp to create space
Pull guard / Underhook to the knees / Back-and-forth
My partner for the side control drills that day was a strong blue belt with a solid judo background. The only problem was: he didn't want to go side control and just played from scarf hold which, naturally, has different escapes.
After a few goes, I told him that his scarf hold was very solid indeed but we should probably focus on the Side Control drill like everyone else. He gladly obliged.
I was applying all the techniques taught and escaping very regularly. Soon he was getting pretty frustrated and at one point said laughingly: "Liam you're showing me up."
No I'm not, I thought to myself. I'm showing that the techniques work.
When I got on top he couldn't escape. Not even once, even though I was going no more than 20%. Not because My side control is inescapable! But rather because of two things:
Last BJJ / Grappling tips post and the one before talked about how to start the elbow knee escape from mounted position and then how to / when to execute it. In this one we’ll look more at what happens once you’ve escaped: correct conclusion.
Just like the start/approach, the execution of escapes (or any technique) in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu / Grappling involves a number of deep elements:
Just like the start/approach and the execution of escapes (or any technique) in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu / Grappling, the closing stage involves a number of magical and secret elements:
1. Prevent the recovery (e.g. using your inside leg to heavily trap their leg in half guard one you’ve escaped their mount)
2. Settle into your new position (e.g. once you’ve trapped their leg in half guard, start settling into a good half guard by protecting against the cross face, turning on your side and working for the underhook and other postures and pressures)
3. Start working for your next transition (e.g. from that solid half guard, post your inside arm against the inside of their knee, switch your control of their leg to your outside leg and start pulling your inside knee out to full guard)
Once again: If your escapes are not working, before anything else, check the list on the first post of these three.
Last BJJ / Grappling tips post talked about how to start the elbow knee escape from mounted position. In this one I’ll talk about the actual execution of the escapes and in the third post we’ll look more at what happens once you’ve escaped: correct conclusion.
Just like the start/approach, the execution of escapes (or any technique) in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu / Grappling involves a number of deep elements:
1. Recognizing the right time (e.g. escaping your knee under their leg when it has the least weight on it)
2. Recognizing the right angle (e.g. which way to shrimp and where to drive the knee)
3. Moving in one, unified motion (e.g. When executing a bridge-shrimp move, there should be no pause between the end of the bridge and the start of the shrimp)
4. Recognizing a trap or dead-end when you see one (e.g. realising that you turned too far and now they’re taking your back)*
Once again: If your mount escapes are not working, before anything else, check the list on the previous post.
If, however, you are adhering to everything on that list, start looking at the above.
Here are some mount escape-specific examples that may occur once your start/approach is perfect:
1. If you find that sometimes the escape feels easy and light and sometimes heavy and forced, you need to pay more attention to your timing and sensitivity. What Saulo calls the momento.
2. If you feel crowded as you escape, you most likely need to shrimp a little further before you start escaping
The picture below demonstrates that. The hand positioning and the weight distribution are different but the bottom guy’s motion is exactly the same.
3. If you find your escape attempts getting blocked and dissected (your partner keeps catching up with you) with seemingly simple acts of balance recovery, chances are you are moving in a series of disconnected moves rather than one smooth long motion. Once again, Rickson Gracie would tell you that you need to Flow with the Go!
Next time, we’ll investigate element 3: the correct conclusion**.
---------------------------------- *I want to highlight here that if you do everything correctly, you should succeed in the technique the majority of the time. Sometimes people fall into a trap of doing the first technique half-heartedly in anticipation to switch to a counter. This can work but it can also backfire in your face. Always try to make the first technique work. **Once you reach half-guard, you've escaped mount. Getting from Half-guard to full- or any other guard is a great option but not the only option.
Rickson Gracie focuses on teaching escaping mount in his seminars. The escapes traditionally taught are simply the Upa and the Elbow-Knee escapes. Nothing fancy, I hear you say, but who wants fancy escapes? All I want is escapes that work.
For any escape (or BJJ / Grappling technique, for that matter, but we're focusing here on the elbow knee escape) to work, it needs to have 3 elements:
1. The correct start
2. The correct execution
3. The correct conclusion.
This usually the first thing shown and, ironically, the first thing people forget. The correct start involves:
In his fantastic book : Jiu-jitsu University: The Daddy of BJJ books!, Saulo Ribeiro tells a story about his meeting with Helio Gracie. The short of it is: Helio told Saulo that irrespective of the latter’s athletic ability and youth he (Saulo) wouldn’t be able to defeat Helio. Helio didn’t say that he could defeat Saulo: Only that he wouldn’t be defeated. Helio was confident that he would survive!
Before you start looking at escaping from side control (or any position for that matter) ask yourself if you are doing all you need to do to survive in the position:
Are you stopping him from anchoring his weight to you with his arms?
Are you stopping him from controlling your neck?
Are you stopping him from controlling your nearside arm?
Are you stopping him from controlling your farside arm?
Are you stopping him from controlling your hips?
Once you have answered yes to these questions, you should find yourself in a position where you can start bridging and creating space between you and your partner (the most important component of escapes). Follow that bridge with a good shrimping motion to connect your nearside elbow and knee and your more than half way to Freeville!
If you want a better (much!) description and more, I highly recommend Saulo’s book and, of course, all his DVDs. In the meantime, feast your eyes on this backdoor escape from the technical mount that I've been working on for a couple of months. It's demonstrated here by a hero of mine Mr Roy Harris with a much younger Mr Roy Dean/
Helio Gracie is quoted to have said: “Jiu Jitsu is personal efficiency to protect the weaker, which anyone can do. It is the force of leverage against brute force”.
We throw these words around sometimes, whether at the gym, on the BJJ / grappling mat or even in the office. But what do they really mean and are they interchangeable?
Efficiency is using less energy to provide the same level of energy service. Effectiveness means the capability of producing an effect.
In other words, you’re effective if you get the job done but you are only efficient if you do it with less energy.
In BJJ / Grappling, being effective means you escape bad positions, dominate people and tap them with submissions. Being efficient means you don't expend too much energy while doing so*.
The goal in BJJ/Grappling is to, ultimately, be both. But it’s not going to be easy and it’s not going to come overnight!
So where do we start? I believe that the goal initially is to work on your effectiveness, but keeping efficiency in mind. You come to the gym to learn grappling techniques that work (effective). The goal is then to try to do them with less and less energy (efficiency). Once you pass that blue belt stage, I feel it's most beneficial to stop hunting more techniques and focus instead on efficiency with the techniques you already have. Investigate the different ways people with a variety of body shapes and builds perform the same technique and it will add richness and depth to your understanding of these techniques and your efficiency with them.
While most people know that and aim to do it, some confuse the two.
In escapes, preparation is key. You should never let your opponent settle their weight on you in any disadvantageous position such as the side, mount or indeed the knee on belly (sometimes called Knee ride).
Check out the two escapes below from knee on belly by Ralph Gracie black belt and exciting YouTube phenomenon Mr Kurt Osiander. While you watch the second escape (the one where your opponent has already put their knee on your belly / chest) think about why his right hand shoots to control the opponent's left knee?
The way I see it:
1. Both armbar attacks (nearside armbar and farside spinning armbar) need that leg to move around Kurt's head so by controlling it with a frame he successfully blocks against armbar danger.
2. Not to forget that it helps his head slip out from the high lapel control of his opponent's left hand and
3. By keeping that knee at a distance, the opponent can't just simply abandon knee on belly and step over to mount (well not for long anyway as Kurt could slide under that knee to a variety of guard / half guard attack positions)
This is just an example of how you should approach jiu jitsu mentally and strategically. Comparisons between BJJ and chess are thrown left, right and centre but what do they actually mean? After a long conversation with my jiu jitsu instructor Mr David Onuma this Saturday I'm a little clearer on the analogy.
Basically, you want to think ahead*. From any and every BJJ / grappling position, what are your opponent's options and what are yours? What do they need to do to get there and how can you stop them while at the same time facilitating your own positional progress? There are many ways to escape from a bad position, but the best ones are the ones that safely and efficiently take you to an advantageous attacking one. For example, the best sweeps or takedowns are the ones that land you clear of your opponent's guard and safe from any counters.
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*warning. Thinking ahead can only rest on a clear understanding of what's happening now. It is recommended you spend a long time honing your perception and awareness of what you are doing and why and what the opponent is doing and why before you can think about what they plan on doing next. Without this awareness, jiu jitsu attacks and sweeps will always seem to magically catch you by surprise.
I saw this as an extra on one of Roy Harris' BJJ VHS (oh yeah, back in the day!) instructionals. Heel hooks may or may not be part of your game but that doesn't mean you can't take advantage of this transition. It opens doors and presents you with options from an otherwise rubbish place to be (at the bottom of the mount)
Obviously, I'm not suggesting that you seek out mount bottom. As far as the positional heirarchy of BJJ, Mount Bottom really sucks. However, when life hands you lemons...
To re establish guard from side control bottom, we need to:
1. Make space between us and the opponent (By framing, bridging and shrimping)
2. Fill that space with our frame (nearside knee) and then
3. Use that frame to push against and move / pivot our head and shoulders away (to take away the opponent's advantage of being at a 90 degree angle to us). Once we have done that, we...
4. Shrimp to get our legs, knees and feet between us and them, re-establishing guard.
The thing is, when I demonstrate that or teach it during a BJJ session or private, I'm talking to people and explaining the technical details of what and why I'm doing so what should be one smooth continuous motion is sometimes misunderstood as segments or separate moves.
Here, the Part Time Grappler uses the beautiful Live-Love-Fight Ultra light gi to demonstrate.
The same is true for many moves. It's fine to break down a BJJ or grappling move and practice / internalize it in chuncks, but the more you work on it the more you should be moving towards performing it (sweeps from guard, attacks from mount, guard passes...etc.) as one smooth motion.
Whatever belt you are in BJJ*, you should always be aware and working to increase your awareness of where your body parts are. As Mr Miyagi told foolish Daniel-san: "Best Defense Is No Be There".
Whether in BJJ or Submission Grappling, you shouldn't leave your feet in such exposed positions for any length of time. Sure you can go for feet on hips when playing open guard and put your flexed instep next to their waist when going for scissor sweeps, but that's a calculated risk. If you are going to take that risk, you must take the possibility of foot attacks into consideration and therefore dominate your opponent's posture and grips so they can't just wrap your ankle and sit back for a foot lock or heel hook.
Check out this nice fundamental video on foot lock defence. I hope you like it.
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*Foot and leg attacks are not allowed in IBJJF competitions for beginners
To me, the "Jiu" in BJJ is, at least partially, about moving your body around that of your opponent. Frames are what stops the opponent from simply following you around as you move. They are obstacles that you place in the way of your opponent's body to stop or at least restrict his freedom of movement. An example we all recognize is when the arms are used to frame against the hips and / or knees while we escape the mount.
In fact, when the word "frame" is used within BJJ or grappling, people often think of the arms. However, the longer we play this game of jiu jitsu, the less we use the arms and the more we use other body parts to frame*. A great such body part is the knee. Here are a couple of different methods to frame with the knee while you move your body around your opponent's. In particular, these are methods to use the knee frame to extract trapped body parts**.
How do you use your knees, or other body parts, as frames in BJJ and grappling?
I recently went to London on a trip organized by my lovely wife in celebration of my 33rd birthday. Not only had she baked me one of her famous cakes, booked train tickets and a hotel, she had also arranged for several hours of BJJ privates with Royler Gracie black belt and head of EKBJJ Mr Eddie Kone at his London headquarters (and a couple more activities!!).
I humbly borrow this awesome image from Seymour "Meerkatsu" Yang
I resisted the temptation to go submission-mad and asked Eddie to focus on the following areas instead:
BJJ / grappling is nothing if not training alive. What that means in detail is a whole big subject but in short: it has to work against an opponent who's resisting your actions. Aliveness is only part of what makes a BJJ gym what it is, but it is by far the most vital part. Just like you can't make an omelette without eggs, you can't have Brazilian Jiu Jitsu without aliveness.
One of the greatest joys of teaching BJJ fundamentals is when someone uses a technique you just showed them (especially against you) in live competitive sparring. Yesterday's session theme was mount escapes where we covered the elbow knee escape and the upa - bridge - escape. One particular version of the elbow knee escape was against an opponent transitioning from side control to the mount and one our white belts pulled it off against me beautifully when we rolled in the second session. It honestly made me smile like some goofy idiot. I’ve never been happier to get trapped in half guard.
And here is a video of me rolling (ha! if you want to call it that!) with the awesome Mr David Onuma from his seminar at the Labs where I pull off that particular escape at 1:31. Eddie, thank you kindly and I hope this brings a smile to your face too.
Last night's BJJ advanced session saw Martyn cover a couple of guard passes against the butterfly guard. As usual for how we train BJJ, when we do the rolling (Integration) section we start from the position covered so every roll started from one person playing butterfly guard sweeps and attacks while their partner works to pass or submit.
5 minutes left on the clock, just enough time for one last roll. I looked around me and saw one of our sharpest wrestlers. A beast of a blue belt (and a great dude too). I called him over and started from butterfly guard.
Grip fighting. Sweep attempt. Guard pass. Recovery. Turtle. He attempts to swivel to my back. I block. He wraps my body but his arm is too deep. I wrap and sit thru for a reversal. He...flies...over landing on his back with me in an Ura Gatame-esque position.
I, after years and years of trying, finally got one of our best wrestlers onto his back. There was only enough time left on the clock to stabilize side control but little did I care. I flipped him like an over-done pancake and that was all that matters!
Such is the juvenile nature of Moral Victories. The beauty is that the smaller the victory, the sweeter it tastes because it becomes very personal. No one else really cares that for the first time since you started BJJ you survived for a full 4 minute round with a blue belt when to you it means the world. It's a first and that's all that matters.
How about you? Have you had any BJJ / Grappling related Moral Victories lately?
Caleb and Dan of the Fightworks Podcast have been busy lately and not able to produce the weekly Brazilian Jiu Jitsu show. In my search to update my BJJ / Grappling / martial arts knowledge, I've been looking around iTunes for audio material to listen to while I'm on the train to and from work but also to serve as background to my 5-a-week gym visits. I was lucky enough to stumble upon a number of interviews with none less than 7 time world BJJ champion and Nova Uniao black belt Mr Robson Moura.
In the first podcast, Robson talks about, amongst other topics, what he feels BJJ white and brown belts should be focusing their training on respectively. Not every successful competitor makes for a good teacher but I must say judging by Robson's responses I'm very impressed.
In the above clip, Marcelo Garcia (what a legend!) shows the bridge escape from side control (while Kid Pelligro if I'm not mistaken gives us the audio breakdown).
It's a great clip. Marcelo is a great competitor, practitioner and I've heard many describe him as a great man and teacher. Awesome stuff. I have no illusion that he is trying to short change me.
But, If you listen to the description and follow the instructions, you will do something that he himself doesn't do when he actually does the move in full speed at the end of the clip. Can you see it? It's a small contradiction but it's there nonetheless.
Well, here it goes.
At 3.13 the instruction is very clear: Bring your right (near-side) leg and cross it UNDER your left leg to come to your knees. Marcelo then goes on to demonstrate what he means. This instruction is repeated again in both words and actions at 5.01. Everybody with me so far?
The thing is, and here is the thing. In keeping with Brazilian Jiu Jitsu DVD Mantra, the two slow explanations are always followed up with a "and now, in full speed" where the BJJ / Grappling transition, submission or whatever is shown in...full speed. This is what it looks like when done with automation that comes from years and years of practice to perfection. This reflexive action. This is the Shizaaam.
But when Marcelo...ehm...shizaaams, he VERY CLEARLY crosses his left (far-side) leg OVER his right to get to his knees. When performing the move as he would at full speed, Marcelo does the exact opposite of what he just explained, advised and instructed.
Now, there are more ways than one to skin a cat, but he is not showing us two moves, nor does the audio make reference to that. These are two different approaches and if you disagree, go try it with someone on the mat. Crossing under gets you at a 90 degree angle and is more likely to lead to a snake-belly approach (ala Saulo in Jiu Jitsu University and Roy Dean's Blue Belt Requirements) while crossing OVER will most likely put you in a more parallel position closer to their back (ala the Full -speed version above) or even roll them if they stay connect to you (ala Joao Crus).
My Karate sensei once told me: "You have to use your eyes, ears and body to not just learn what you are being taught, but also steal as much knowledge as you can".
Last Monday, one of our up and coming BJJ white belts said to me: why do you place more importance on awareness than on techniques? I was very chuffed to hear that of course (it means somebody is reading this blog). The reason to me is quite simple: I do it because I'm a part timer and you learn, at least, twice as much by working your awareness than when you are hunting particular techniques.
What I mean by that is I don't pay too much attention to memorising exact sequences of limb placement and call them a pass, sweep or submission. Instead, I learn and practice the fundamental postures and pressures that make or break the position and take it from there.
What do I mean when I say that I learn more BJJ faster this way? What I'm referring to is those translatable fundamental postures and pressures. I've said many times that most of what works in e.g. mount will work in guard and Martyn always tries to link ground work to wrestling against the cage wall. So rather than learn 12 ways to pass the open guard I'd rather work on the safe way to approach someone's open guard, the postured that will put them at a relative disadvantage and start feeding them pressures from an advantageous position.
The beautiful thing is, if I lather, rinse and repeat I will quickly end up learning all those aforementioned 12 passes without consciously trying AND those fundamental postures and pressures will translate automatically into better mount escapes and back takes! Double BJJ bonus!
I'm a part time grappler. I've got stuff to do. I'm outta here!
I taught Saturday's No-Gi session at the LABS, covering for Anna. Traditionally, these sessions have a free sparring portion even though some beginners come to them and it's a great chance to roll with complete newbies. I showed two techniques to transition from side control / Reverse Kesa Gatame to mount and the Kimura option if the hand presents itself.
During a roll with a very tall, strong beginner I got to mount using exactly the techniques showed earlier, except he reached up and got me in a headlock. I made sure I thank him after the session and here's why. Only a beginner will do that.
Anyone with a few months of BJJ / Grappling / MMA under their belt will know not to. Which means if you never roll with complete beginners, you'll never work your headlock counters from the mount. Even if you're not training for self-defence, you need to know what to do when someone bigger and stronger puts you in one with full intent to reverse you. Enter Mr Beginner. Thanks!
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