BJJ Branding: Logos and patch design

I studied social marketing* as part of my university degree as marketing and branding always been a passion and in interest of mine. Symbolism is a beautiful and captivating subject and it's easy to get lost and absorbed in possible meanings of shapes and colours, no less so in the world of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu (well, Martial Arts in general). Since starting jiu jitsu, anything that looks like a triangle or a letter "G" will catch my eye just like I was addicted to kanji back in my Karate days.

My old karate school's crest.

I know I'm not alone in this. We become logo hunters. Everyday we are constantly bombarded with shapes, colours and symbols and our eyes and brains have to make sense of it all. I catch myself staring a little too hard and practically testing people's patience but I guess if you don't want the attention maybe don't wear a TapOut top :)

OK Hostel was hardly a great movie
but  the tattoo is very memorable!

BJJ / Grappling Tips: Escape Knee On Belly / Chest

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.

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Liam "The Part Time Grappler" Wandi

Proudly sponsored by Predator Fightwear: Built for the kill and Brutal TShirt: Made By Grapplers For Fighters

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BJJ Tips: How to add to your grappling game? The secret is dedication!

I watched this BudoVideos RolledUp with Vinicius Draculino Magalhaes*. The video is full of fantastic gems as always but towards the end, Budo Jake chats to Brandon Mullins* and Brandon ends up showing Jake a simple, fundamental and very effective move to maintain side control against a bigger and stronger opponent. The move is very short and sweet and I've seen it before on Ryan Hall's fantastic series on the back position but something Brandon said really caught my attention:

"When I wanted to put this move into my game, I think I did it for about 1500 times in about a month. I kept count!"

1,500 times! I once did a 1hr session of just shrimping and it helped my development loads but 15 hundred repetitions in a month? That's fantatic dedication. I will immediately implement that strategy. I will decide on a simple fundamental move and I will do it for a large number over the coming 30 days.

*Brandon "Wolverine" Mullins. 1st degree Black belt under Vinicius Draculino Magalhaes and has hundreds of titles in his career in Gi BJJ, Judo, Wrestling and NOGI Jiu-Jitsu, and being one of the two Americans to win the World NoGI championships two times. Professor Brandon is by far the most accomplished Texan BJJ competitor in history


"A good school is important and good instructor and all that, but the most important thing is the dedication of the student."


Draculina when asked about why he thinks his school has produced such a large number of champions. He's a 4-time Pan American Champion, 1 time no gi pan American champion- 2008, 2 Times Brazilian national champion, 2 Times Silver medalist at the world BJJ championships, MMA lightweight champion in Brazil, Strike Force Feather weight Winner and Abu-Dhabi veteran. Besides these titles held as a competitor and fighter, Professor Vinicius is considered one of the best instructors in the BJJ world. Among his students, you will find world champions, Pan Ams, national BJJ champions, more than 100 Black Belts, MMA and Grappling champions spread all over the World.


From http://www.graciebarratx.com/team_members

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Liam "The Part Time Grappler" Wandi

Proudly sponsored by Predator Fightwear: Built for the kill and Brutal TShirt: Made By Grapplers For Fighters

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BJJ / Grappling Back Take Tips: Successful Armdrags and the way Roger Gracie takes the back

One of the newer BJJ enthusiasts at the Labs comes from a Karate background. The particular style of Karate he had trained featured an important aspect in their sparring called Sabaki.

Sabaki (捌き) simply means management or handling but it's often translated to "movement". The reason I like "management" is because it indicates movement with an intent or purpose. In modern Karate, Sabaki* aims to take you out the opponent's line of fire and into a position where you can attack with less/no chance of getting hit back. I was having a short chat with my new friend and the more we talked about Sabaki the more it reminded me of this article I wrote a couple of years back on taking the back with an armdrag.

BJJ / Grappling Tips: Grips: the 2-on-1 grip

There are many ways to grip in judo, jiu jitsu and wrestling. In fact, Kumi Kata as it's called in Japanese is a science in its own right. Great books and instructional DVDs* have been produced in this subject and I am the least qualified person to teach much about it.

Recently we've been working variations of this particular grip at the Labs: The 2-on-1 grip.

The nice thing about grip fighting is that it's all about posture and frames. You choose a grip thanks to the advantages it affords you over your opponent and once you grip, your forearm and, potentially, your whole arm becomes a lever which you can utilise to move, or move around, your opponent. Have a look at the video below of Marcelo Garcia and how he uses the advantage the 2-on-1 grip gives him: you block one side in a way that works both gi and no gi




and for that exact same reason (grip fighting = leverage and postures) then a good grip from standing is usually, but not always, a good grip on the ground and vice versa. Have a look at this old wrestling video of how the 2-on-1 can be utilised to gain an advantage over an opponent in stand-up wrestling:



One thing I learnt from studying statistics (and mathematics in general) is that in any complex set of maneuovers, the earlier you fix something in the chain, the more rewards you will reap (and less risks you'll find yourself in) in the end which is why I'm paying a lot of attention to the earliest stages of grappling:

1. stance
2. posture
3. movement
4. grip fighting

I'll let you know how it goes.

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Liam "The Part Time Grappler" Wandi

Proudly sponsored by Predator Fightwear: Built for the kill and Brutal TShirt: Made By Grapplers For Fighters

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Silva vs Sonnen and the Evil-ution of Grappling and MMA

Have you watched the Anderson Silva V Chael Sonnen fight on UFC 148? I think everyone and their mother have watched that fight by now. I'm not a dedicated MMA fan but there was so much hype around this one I had to see it so I looked for the fight afterwards and was not disappointed.

Spoiler alert. If you haven't seen the fight yet and don't want me to spoil it, please walk away now (or watch it here)

While we all wait patiently for the awesome Gracie Breakdown by Rener and Ryron, I want to talk a little about the evolution jiu jitsu that was used in this fight.

The first round saw Anderson Silva use beautiful defensive/survival tactics from the bottom. Some have speculated that Anderson Silva may have played the round like that on purpose to tire Chael out or perhaps lull him into a sense of security. I don't know that. What I do know is that Chael tried to hit him effectively the whole round and Anderson's defence was so tight it meant hardly any shots connected and the ones that did caused him no visible damage. I could go on but Rener and Ryron will do it so much better*.

What really caught my eye was Anderson Silva's reluctance to pass Chael’s guard to side or mount. It has been my prediction over the past couple of years that we will be seeing new control positions other than the side, mount, back and knee on belly. I believe that the level of grappling will evolve so much that many of the top fighters will be using a new animal of Ground N' Pound.

My prediction is that the half guard top (in its current variations and new ones that will constantly evolve) will become the new Mecca for striking from the top. It's not that Mount is bad or even that Half Guard is that much better for striking than Mount. It's just that it's easier and faster to learn to strike from Half guard top (or even inside an unscrambled Open guard) against an opponent pinned against the cage wall than it is to methodically pass the guard, mount and maintain the mount. **

I remember reading in the awesome judo book Osaekomi (Judo Masterclass Techniques) by Katsuhiko Kashiwazaki how Kosen Judo (the huge proponents of ground work within Kodokan Judo - the parent art of Gracie Jiu Jitsu) came about and why they focused so much on newaza or ground-work. The book is a fantastic treatise in the holds (Osaekomi) of judo (which are more or less the same fundamental ones of BJJ) but the part I'm referring to explains how Kosen Judo was the type of judo practiced in high-schools and how, with only three years to create judo champions, the instructors focused on getting the match to mat and then working on a variety of holds and pins for the win.

I also remember reading how the art of Wing Chun came about and how the Shaolin nun who invented it basically needed to condense the whole Shaolin Kung Fu curriculum into a speed-course to teach Yim Wing Chun the bare essentials to survive against the thug who wanted to kidnap and, essentially, rape her.

In my opinion, it is fair to assume that the kids trying to get start a financially successful MMA career want to do so as soon as possible and will not have the patience to grow within the arts***. Therefore, I predict that, at least until MMA gets an amateur body that allows fighters to mature before they are fed into the pro-circuits, we will see more and more of this "evil"ution of MMA where new positions will develop based on a transitional, as opposed to, a positional game.

But hey what do I know? I'm just a BJJ purple belt who doesn't even practice MMA so don't take my opinions too seriously.

*If you are a BJJ enthusiast and want to learn the original punch-proof tactics as outlined by Helio Gracie, I highly recommend The Gracie Combatives course. Say what you want about online learning, but Rener and Ryron are excellent teachers and they breakdown BJJ to its core. If you belong to a BJJ gym / academy / dojo why not learn these techniques and practice them with a training partner to supplement you current training?

**Anderson Silva is a BJJ black belt and can pass guard and mount the best of them. He chose not to. GSP is a BJJ black belt, but he was told by Greg Jackson not to pass Dan Hardy’s guard even though he could cut through it like a hot knife thru butter.

***there will always be exceptions to the rule like BJ Penn, GSP, Jon Jones ...etc. who will excel in every facet of the game.

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Liam "The Part Time Grappler" Wandi

Proudly sponsored by Predator Fightwear: Built for the kill and Brutal TShirt: Made By Grapplers For Fighters

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BJJ / Grappling Tips: Comparing Your Skill To Peers. The Danger of Small Samples

Is the earth big or small?

Do you compare your grappling ability to that of your peers on the BJJ mat? Have you ever felt like you (or someone else) are not really worthy of your belt / achievement (irrespective of whether you felt you deserve more or less)?

Spending the last week observing maths teaching at a high school inspired this post. If you are trying to learn a skill and hence dedicated 2-5 hours / week to learning it and the teacher gave you a pop quiz at any random time and you scored say 18 or more out of 30 then you can smile and rest assured that you are learning enough to pass*.

It would be rude of me to come up to you and say that you are not really worthy of your grade or that you should be moved down to a lower-ability group.

Now look at the groups below.  These groups are theoretical representations of how 10 pupils may fare at a test with the maximum result of 30. This means that by most standards a score of 15 is a pass.

How would you feel if you scored 18 and happened to be in group A? How about in group B or C?

Nothing in your own performance has changed. You are still you, the curriculum is still the same, your score is the same and the test is still the same. The only difference is the score of others**.

If you score 18 in group A and compare yourself to others you would probably think that you are the bees-knees. Top three in your class and all that jazz. A proverbial “big” fish in a “small” pond. Meanwhile, an 18 score would probably make you feel like an average student in group C and, ironically, scraping by in group B.

The fact of the matter is that you are learning your chosen skill just fine. There is much danger in comparing yourself to others and, in all honesty, it’s kind of rude. The example above shows that your performance doesn’t change so you are, in essence, simple expressing envy at the success of your peers.

Just like in a classroom where all marking and assessment is done by your teacher, progress assessment in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu should be left to your head instructor. He or she has seen it all. Most good BJJ / grappling instructors have been around and seen a wide variety of students so when they grade*** you they are doing it against the backdrop of a big sea of blues, purples, browns and ultimately black belts.

I understand that it's only human to do this. I am simply suggesting that you catch yourself the next time you do it. Simply smile at yourself and acknowledge what you are doing****.

*we are talking about passing here and not peak performance. An average purple belt and an elite purple belt competitor are two different animals

**if all three groups have the same instructor / teacher, there are questions that can be asked but that’s outside the scope of this article

***or simply give you advice about your performance. Motive for training and personal goals change the game! More on that in a future post
****something I learnt from mindfulness meditation so if you see me smiling on the mat after I get a proper beating you'll now know why

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Liam "The Part Time Grappler" Wandi

Proudly sponsored by Predator Fightwear: Built for the kill and Brutal TShirt: Made By Grapplers For Fighters

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