BJJ / Grappling tips: Jiu-jitsu works, always!

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!

BJJ / Grappling Discussion: Is Your Jiu Jitsu Pure?

A discussion about “Pure Jiu Jitsu” was brought to my attention yesterday. I must admit that the discussion itself didn’t really teach me anything I didn’t already know but it made me think.

The central question raised was: What defines Pure Jiu Jitsu? This situation is not unique if you look at many traditional martial arts. A family member(s) (usually the eldest son or brother or even most senior student) ends up "inheriting" responsibility for the art and feels, in a lot of cases, rightly passionate about preserving what they learnt and inherited. You see this in Karate (Wadokai v wado ryu or even ITF Taekowndo vs the WTF version), Jujutsu (Iwama ryu v Aikikai) and even weapon arts (family-based ryu or schools vs curriculums by the Budokai. I'm not agreeing with it, I'm just saying that it's a natural thing.

If I was to create a system (of any kind) and spent a very long time teaching the ins and outs of it to someone (especially blood related), then they will see my passion for it and may develop a feeling that they need to preserve it after my death, rather than open it up and develop/expand it. That is human. This is not even to mention the perceived financial advantageous of a monopoly!

On the other hand, you will often have a group of people who are more passionate about the art itself and how it can enrich people's lives. They respect what those who created it/discovered it/formulated it did but are more excited by the prospects that the future holds and they realise that for the art/system to thrive and expand, it needs to evolve and stay up-to-date. They form committees and they created federations and they bring in democratic regulations. That too is human and of course welcome.

Which way to go then? Well the beauty of it is that it's up to the instructor, as long as he or she is honest, it all adds to the art and by being honest, I mean honest in all your communication with your students and the public. If you focus on preserving techniques that were meant to deal with a set of circumstances (be it sword attacks, BJJ competition or Vale Tudo) and you tell everyone that that’s your focus then great. If they like it, who’s to stop them/you.

The original question (What defines Pure Jiu Jitsu?) is really just a trap. A trap of attachment and measurement. “Pure” simply implies that something/everything else is “impure” which we have come to feel is something negative, turning the question into, in essence, marketing. The word is not the thing. If you want to know the thing, go roll. Don’t power your way thru, leave your ego outside and flow with the go and you will experience the thing and no one will be able to take it away from you or make it “impure”, whatever the hell that means.

 

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Why do you train Brazilian / Gracie Jiujitsu?

I don't train for the self defence or the sport or the friends. Neither do I do it to get stronger, fitter or lighter.

These are all bonuses.

I train because it makes me feel like this!



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ZHOO ZHITSU IS FOR EVERYONE!

Liam "The Part Time Grappler" Wandi

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

Munoz Ellenberger Gracie: Super Seminar - Problem solving in Jiu Jitsu and Buddhism.

Recently I attended a great mega-seminar with Mark Munoz,Jake Ellenberger, Ryron and Rener Gracie and the gems I left with were invaluable! Not only did the fantastic 4 show great wrestling and jiujitsu moves, they also shared some great pearls of wisdom.

“Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% what you make of it” Mark Munoz

I was very interested in learning some more solid fundamentals of wrestling: stance, movement, pummelling, entries and a takedown or two. In jiujitsu terminology: I wanted to have a few fundamentals of the posture, pressure and possibilities of wrestling (Martin Aedma explains it very well here and below)

BJJ Tips: self defence, what is it? What is this "self" and what are we "defending" it against / from?

Self defence is one of the primary reasons for seeking instruction in a martial art, such as Gracie or Brazilian jiu-jitsu. The problem, however, is that not all teachers of martial arts agree on what self defence actually entails. Rightly or wrongly, some instructors mean "staying safe from punches and other strikes in an altercation".



Others refer to a preset number of scenarios they'll drill such as "escapes against  bear hugs" or "escapes from pins against the wall"



while others go as far as including local / national legal consequences and definitions of "reasonable force".



I think defining the "self" and "defence" will go a long way to help us address this question.*

The Self: What is it?

There are many ways to look at what constitutes self so I will summarise my way of looking at it here:

BJJ Evolution: Why Do You Train?

BJJ is evolving into many, different sports. The various rules dictating this evolution.

I was recently listening to a very funny Swedish podcast (unrelated to BJJ) where they mentioned an international level Swedish athlete from the 1950s and 60s, Gösta Sandberg. Mr Sandberg won my country many international honours, including an Olympic bronze in the Helsingborg games in 1952 and another bronze at the European Championships in1961 so he was very consistent for a long time. The unique thing about him was that he did that in two completely different sports (football and ice-hockey) and was a national team member in a third sport (bandy).

You don't get that many all rounders nowadays. Some, but not many. I find that sad. 

Every person needs to figure out why they do what they do. In our case, we all need to ask ourselves: Why do I do BJJ / grappling?

My reasons are very personal. I started doing Martial Arts to become a super hero. No word of a lie.

It all started with watching David Carradine in "Kung Fu" and wanting to be a Shaolin monk. I was 15. There were no Shaolin schools around where I lived in a small quiet suburb in northern Stockholm, but my highschool had a once a week tai chi chuan course and the best thing was that it finished just in time for me to get home and watch Kwai Chang Caine in "Kung Fu"! Aces!

To me, learning a martial art was an avenue to learn more about myself, body mind and spirit. Taichi changed into Wing Chun kung fu, Taekwondo and later Karate which I stuck with all the way to black belt. After that, I got into jiu jitsu and grappling which I've been doing since 2005.

My goal was and still is to learn how to move. How to handle myself. Fighting, to me, is an avenue, not a goal. But I wanted to learn authentic skills and not scenario-specific. I didn't want to be a competitor or a champion. I wanted to become a super hero.

I can imagine that that was a similar challenge to the allrounders of yesteryear. I can imagine that Mr Sandberg was not satisfied with the simple concepts of winning or losing within the confines of one rule set or another. Rather, he sought to constantly challenge himself to become a better and better version of himself. He couldn't compute the idea that, just because he was wearing his ice-hockey attire and not his football / soccer kit that he should fair any worse. He wasn't a footballer, an ice-hockey player not a bandy player. He was, first and foremost, an athlete.

This is why my goal is the training itself. This is why it's hard to find me in a bad mood on the mat. I get caught all the time. I get pinned, passed and tapped. Every single session. 

Every single session, I achieve my goal: To train. I

In my gi, wearing my belt. I am that super hero. My super power? Intrinsically driven happiness.

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ZHOO ZHITSU IS FOR EVERYONE!

Liam "The Part Time Grappler" Wandi

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

BJJ / Grappling tips: Injury and awareness

I injured my finger today* in BJJ. We were drilling open guard vs passing with full resistance and in the heat of the moment, the ring finger on my left hand bent the wrong way. It hurt. It really flipping hurt!

I quickly got off the mat, screaming and shouting in agony, and got to my locker where I had some ice spray which actually helped a little. A friend saw me and kindly got me a bag of ice which further helped reduce the pain and the swelling. I'll tape it and keep icing it and it should get back to good very soon.

The injury itself isn't really interesting. What interests me is the before and after. This might surprise you but I could see it happen. I knew I was vulnerable today for a number of reasons:

Self defence in BJJ: A different perspective on accident management

Self defence is a very important aspect of training BJJ, grappling, Karate or any of the martial arts. This is something I believe very strongly in, but I feel a lot of readers misunderstand what I mean when I say "self defence".

Mostly, the term "self defence" conjures images of an exaggerated, usually pre-determined, attack from a friendly partner which is then met with a variety of vicious-looking counter-attacks until the bad guy is seemingly neutralised. "If someone attacks you with an overhead knife strike you do this then this then this then this...then you freeze!".

While indeed there are technical aspects to self defence such as clinching (from stand-up and on the ground), blocking (hand on the biceps) and distance management (using the knee shield in guard, reaching mount to neutralise attacker's punches), and these are very much valuable assets if and when drilled against progressive resistance, that's not the part I meant. I call that part "Defending yourself against the intentional acts of others"


I'm mainly referring to defending yourself against:



1. The unintentional acts of others

2. The grip of your ego

3. Your lapses of awareness

BJJ performance and self worth: Catching the ego mid-play.

I recently participated in a nogi submission wrestling interclub competition at The Labs. I was in the "Advanced Category" - open weight division and was promised* at least 2 grappling matches and 2 matches I got. I lost one and won one, both on points. In my first match, my opponent used an armdrag set-up to take me down with a single leg. It's a very nice technique combination. Check out this breakdown of a similar** flow by BJJ black belt Christian Graugart. As I hit the mat I pulled half guard and tried to get something going from there but my opponent's control was very good so by the end of the 5 minutes I lost on points.

Heading into my second match, my opponent seemed HUGE and very powerful. I decided I wasn't going to risk the takedown points again so I pulled half guard, got my grips nice and early, moved him around to feel his base then swept him to his back for the points. He managed somehow to secure closed guard and I started working for the Sao Paulo pass which I almost got before the damn 5 minutes ran out again.

Here is a beautiful demo of the Sao Paulo pass by Roger Gracie black belt Mr Oliver Geddes:



This is all fun and games, but none of it is really that exciting or worth writing home (or a blog post) about. I'm not a BJJ black belt nor a major grappling competitor and whatever I did on that day can be found done a lot better by the experienced BJJ champs out there.

What really made the whole experience rich and interesting for me was my thought process during the first match and how it changed.

Look at the two photos below:

BJJ / Grappling & Martial Arts: The Black Swan Theory and how BJJ changed the world

Royce won not because size and strength, but despite lacking them.

Dr. Nassim Nicholas Taleb is a genius. In his book "The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable" which spent 36 weeks in the New York Times Best-seller List he, amongst many other things, predicted the banking and economic crisis. He warns us about shit that can suddenly come and hit us straight out of left field! He doesn't describe it quite like that, but he refers to it as a Black Swan event. To identifying a Black Swan event he gives these criteria:

1. The event is a surprise (to the observer).
2. The event has a major impact.
3. After its first recording, the event is rationalized by hindsight, as if it could have been expected (e.g., the relevant data were available but not accounted for).

I can give you many examples of Black Swan events but the best one related to grappling and MMA is the first UFC. When skinny ass Royce walked victorious out of the octagon it was 1, a suprise to all observers, 2, it had a major impact and 3. the even started a huge wave of rationalisation. That last one took a while (and in some people's minds still hasn't happened).

Ego and BJJ: What is the Ego? How does this apply to BJJ?

When we enter a BJJ academy we are always told to leave the ego at the door or to kill the ego or buy him a beer or what not. We also often hear (and talk) about how some (completely arbitrary!) measure of ego is necessary to drive us in BJJ but too much (anything more than 17 ounces, I think) ego is bad. The word is thrown around way too much for my liking, both on and off the BJJ mat and don't even get me started on traditional martial arts!

 

What I don't like about all that is that:

 

1. It is assumed that all Brazilian Jiu Jitsu practitioners carry one and the same definition of this "ego" (or another favourite of mine "self") and that we all agree on this definition. People often talk about what it's like to "have an ego" or "train without ego", but no one sits down and defines it
2. It is measured. Badly. As a statistician by schooling and analyst by profession, this bugs me and, as a Buddhist, attaching a value such as guilt to miss-measurement really gets under my skin

 

Ego and BJJ: Don't leave your ego at the door!

I believe that people in the BJJ community who say "leave your ego at the door" when talking about BJJ are either deluding themselves, deluding their students (intentionally or unintentionally) or have a different definition of the ego to me.

I say bring the ego to the mat with you, keeping it under your upmost attention. How else will you understand it and your relationship to it if you're always leaving it at the door? What do you think happens when you step off the mat after the session? It just right back on you like a monkey! Are you any wiser about your ego if you leave it at the door? No! Of course not! You just wasted a wonderful opportunity to examine and understand the ego and your relationship to it by leaving it at the door.

More on this in a (very near) future post.

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BJJ / Grappling and Buddhism: How to get better at BJJ?

How to get better at BJJ? How to stop people from passing my guard and dominating from side control or mount? How do I pass their guard and dominate and submit them? These questions occupy the minds (and hearts) of thousands of BJJ players and grapplers around the world, both professionals and Part Time Grapplers alike.

If you've been reading this blog for a while, you probably know that rather than getting "better" or being "worse" at BJJ / Grappling, I prefer to see training as an end in itself. My goal is not to get better at BJJ. My goal, for the lack of a better word, is to do BJJ. Every time I step onto the mat, boom, goal achieved.

BJJ / Grappling and Buddhism: The Four Noble Truths of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu

Brazilian Jiu Jitsu is something that makes my whole life richer. It, by default, drags you from wherever your chatterbox mind is trying to take you (usually 7 different directions at the same time) and drops you smack bang in the middle of the Here and Now. The more Jiu Jitsu has crept into my life, the more my life has crept into the way I see Jiu Jitsu and behave on the mat. Enter Zen Buddhism.

At the heart of all Buddhism are The Four Noble Truths. One way to interpret these is as 4 frameworks to help understand the world as the Buddha saw it. The Four Noble Truths are:

1. There is suffering in the world

2. The cause of this suffering is attachment

3. The cessation of suffering lies in freedom from attachments

4. The way to free yourself from attachments is thru the Noble 8-fold Path.

BJJ /Grappling Training: An Evolution of Consciousness

Thanks to the technical detail we've been spoiled with, the Labs@Fighting Fit has organically evolved into a physical chess club of sorts. One of the most common phrases I hear on the mat is "of course, that makes sense!". Also, when I look around me after showing small technical adjustments (to quote Rener Gracie "the make it or break it detail") I often catch people smiling, like a light just went on or a veil was pulled off their faces.

Hiding Behind Symbols: A Presidential Example

While I was at the gym not half an hour ago I saw the American president Mr Barack Obama deliver a speach to the Fortune magazine's 2010 "Most Powerful Women Summit." Unfortunately, SkyNews was less interested in the content of the speach and simply wanted to highlight that midway thru it, the presidential seal attached to the podium simply fell off.

The seal, which is a well known symbol and is indeed the official coat of arms of the U.S. presidency, is of course an important symbol of power. It doesn't matter who you are and what you have to say, if you stand behind that symbol, people will pay attention to you and the words coming out of your mouth.

But this is not a post about the power of symbols (although I think I will give that a bash in a future post). When that seal fell, it did not shake Mr Obama's confidence or interrupt his flow.



"That's OK. You all know who I am"

Remember that next time you come to a BJJ class and notice you left your belt at home or, heavens forbid, get caught by someone with less experience than you.



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How Do You Play the BJJ / MMA Game?

I found a short video by Hapkido master Fariborz Azhak where he talks about how to play the game. Which game you may ask.

The way he explains it is that anytime we do something that may involve a risk(such as love, work, school or indeed MMA / BJJ or any other sport) we assume a certain attitude or style, which would put us on one of four quadrants:



First quadrant: playing to lose. "I'm here, but chances are it'll go wrong anyway!"
Second quadrant: playing only when it's fun. "I don't want to do the hard work. I just wanna play!"
Third quadrant: playing not to lose. "Eyes are on me. I better find out what's exactly required not to lose and make sure I hit just that!"
Fourth quadrant: playing to WIN, where he defines WIN: focusing on What’s Important Now.


Do you know what it would be like in each quadrant when: on the training mat, at a comp, at work, in your relationships with people?

If you do know what it'd be like, where do you find yourself spending most of your time*?

It's human nature to first think about others and where we think they'd fit in the quadrant. We like to judge others. I've met many people who've either faked injury to get off the mat or, even worse, sparred out of their comfort zone either technique-wise (beginners jumping for triangles) or attribute-wise (going 200miles an hour in the warm-up and then tell you they're tired throughout the whole session) just to have an excuse.

Where are you, or more accurately, where do you think you are?

*I believe people fluctuate a lot of the time between these states of mind, not just in life but actually from minute to minute. If you love what you do, then all will be well.

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First BJJ / Grappling Session

I remember reading an interview in Ultimate Grappling years ago with Ryron and Rener Gracie where they explain that a beginner should not feel totally exhausted from training the first couple of weeks.

I also remember thinking to myself that that was too soft. I filed it under “marketing” or “McDojoism” but I’ve come to change my mind recently.

I have a passion for the mat. I love stepping into the LABS and seeing my friends’ faces. I love putting the gi on and rolling and drilling. Most importantly, I love the way it makes me feel. Brazilian Jiu Jitsu makes me happy.

I spent an hour last Friday teaching my 14 year old brother the upa escape and a couple of mount maintenance techniques ala Gracie University. I had a great time and so did he (at least he said he did). He worked against progressive and suitable resistance and when I checked on him on Saturday, he wasn’t aching or too exhausted. He is asthmatic so I made a point to check that he was OK.

Yesterday, a completely new guy walked into the LABS. His name is John and it was the first time he'd ever stepped on a mat. Order of the day was Side Control Escapes. Martyn covered all the details of getting to a better survival position before working a number of escapes. He made sure everybody was on the same page and walked around the room correcting details during the drilling portion and ensured the resistance was progressive and suitable. It was an hour of work. Technical work, but work none the less.

I paired with John for the first couple of rounds and then he paired up with another player for the remainder of the session. He worked hard and struggled a little with the new geography, the long-forgotten muscles and the other usual suspects. He did, however, pull off a few moves against the appropriate resistance. What was the most important thing, however, was what he said after he got changed and was heading out of the door:

“See you all on Wednesday”

The magic is in the long-run and I’m in it for the magic.

I thank Allie and my brother for inspiring this post.


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BJJ Comunity: Who Do You Train With?

Last Friday I had an amazing open-mat session with Glyn and Chris, two of our best players. We set the timer on 3 minute rounds and rotated. Needless to say, I got royally owned! To paint you a picture, the highlight of the session was escaping side control a couple of times on each one!

But it wasn't all pain. Half way thru the session, Glyn gave Chris and me 2 gems that I know are going to transform our guard passing skills to another level. Not just that, he actually took the time to explain some of the details and gave us each an opportunity to practice and drill them both on him and on each other while he coached. Now it's important to remember that this was an Open-mat session. Glyn was under no obligation to give us any moves he obviously paid considerable energy and sweat, and possibly cash, to learn and earn. He simply did it because it annoyed him that we couldn't pass his guard. He raised the bar for everyone on the mat.

Towards the end of the session, I showed Chris something goofy and he showed me a butterfly pass that he felt would suit my body type and the way I usually pass. I train with generous, giving people and for that I am very grateful. I know that my level of knowledge is not as high as theirs so when I showed my anti-gravity concept to them, making Glyn say: “Huh, I never thought of it that way!” it gave me hope.


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Dave Meyer Interview - How to Get What You Want in BJJ / Grappling

I listened to a great interview on Stephan Kesting's podcast with Dave Meyer. The interview had several highlights but one point jumped at me that I immediately made a note of it.

Towards the end, Dave says: There are 3 ways of getting what you want in BJJ or life in general. You can either take it, put the opponent in a position where they have to give it to you or put them in a position where they want to give it to you. Dave supports this with a number of BJJ-related examples.

All good. Now the old, goal- oriented, me wanted to say “Ah that's an awesome analogy” and it is, but it assumes a very static, black and white picture of reality.

You are zoned in on ONE thing, negotiating it back and forth with your partner/opponent and hence missing the hundred other ones they are giving you, hell even throwing at you, for free. BJJ / Grappling is not a sequence of frozen pictures but rather a fluid circle or movement.

Examples?

How many times have you worked so hard to go from Side Control to Mount and completely ignored a number of Kimura opportunities the opponent gave you?

How many times have you worked so hard to get your hand or foot inside someone’s very tight and defensive turtle posture, totally ignoring the opportunity to topple them over or stick your far hand in for a clock choke?

Yes you can use the analogy and intently attempt mount expecting the Kimura opportunity, and that’s an excellent way to get it. But how do you think it came about the first time around?

Thru experience. Thru being totally in the moment and just seeing what-happens-if.

This is what I’m suggesting. Write your own book. It’s a lotta fun!

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