Welcome

Welcome. This is the personal blog of Cane Prevost. The blog will be my place on the web to write down my thoughts on teaching and learning the art of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu.

Who am I?
I’m a high school teacher, father, and BJJ coach. I live in Portland Oregon and train at Straight Blast Gym.

What’s this blog for?
This blog will be my place on the web to talk about my experiences in coaching BJJ. I’ll post my new experiences and lessons learned as I continue to evolve as both coach and student. Essentially this will be my training and coaching diary. I plan to blog my way through our entire 20 week BJJ curriculum.

Where am I?
I live in Portland Oregon and coach at Straight Blast Gym. I also teach at The Center for Advanced Learning.

Curriculum Links:

week 1 = open guard offense
week 2 = upright guard offense

week 3 = closed guard offense
week 4 = closed guard defense & opening closed guard

week 5 = open guard defense/ passing and double underhook passing
week 6 = upright guard defense/ passing and butterfly pass
week 7 = crossides top
week 8 = half guard top/ passing

week 9 = half guard bottom
week 10 = headlock & head and arm escapes & offense new post with video here.
week 11 = escapes from crossides New post rethinking the posture here.
week 12 = 1/4 position bottom/ back escapes and back escapes, 3 escapes

week 13 = 1/4 position top
week 14 = back control & attacks
week 15 = back escapes
week 16 = n/s off & def

week 17 = mount off & def
week 18 = knee ride off & def
week 19 = takedowns & stand up defense
week 20 = strategy & gamesmanship- How to Roll

 

Quarter Position Bottom- The 3 Escapes

Worked quarter position bottom last night. I wanted to make the lesson concise and not cover the whole roadmap. My intent was to give students something they could use right away that was effective and easy to remember. I focused on the front zone. That’s the zone from quarter bottom where the top guy is in front to about 45 degrees to either side. I taught 3 escape techniques from there.

For my previous entry on quarter position bottom go here.

Posture

• Keep the other guy in front. This is your best spot to be in. You can use both your hands and have multiple escape routes.
• Go deep. If your head is touching his hip then he can’t attack your neck easily.
• If you can’t go deep then be pulling guard always. Always be pulling guard. This makes the top guy less mobile and prevents him from being able to use his hands as well on you. Since he needs to lift his weight slightly to grab at your neck if you are always threatening guard then he’ll be more tentative.
• Don’t sit still! Move. Always be looking to improve your position.
• Protect your neck.

Pressure

The pressure from here is simply driving forward into the guy and catching the leg. Keep your head on the inside to prevent him from attacking your neck. You’ll either get a leg catch or he’ll sprawl. Either way will present an opportunity for escape.

Possibilities

Turn the Corner

If you are in good posture and driving forward the best objective is to capture one of the top guy’s legs and turn him over. This is the highest percentage move from here. Remember to keep your head inside to protect from attack.

Foot vs. Leg Grab-

Some will tell you to never grab the leg as the top guy can sprawl out. That is partly true. He can sprawl out more easily if you grab the leg instead of the foot. However, the leg is easier to grab and if you hit the move right away then this is usually not a problem. In coaching I like to teach grabbing the leg as I can use one objective for teaching both the turn the corner and the capture the leg move. It simplifies the teaching and learning. Experiment for yourself to see which you like better…

Head is in tight to hip. Reach and grab the leg behind the knee.

An alternative is to grab the foot. Some people like this better as it makes it harder for the top guy to sprawl his leg out. It's harder to get to usually though.

Lift your leg and attach the left shoulder to the thigh. That's the pivot point. Begin to turn the corner and run towards his back.

Scoop the leg to keep him from turning towards you and take the back.

Capture the Leg

This is a high percentage move if you go to it right away. As soon as you land in quarters you drive forward and catch the leg. The longer you wait to try this move the harder it is to hit. Once you suck the leg in so that the knee is touching your chest the top guy is done. He doesn’t have the leverage to sprawl out of it.

Suck the leg in tight to your chest. Keep your head in the center.

Once you suck the leg in tight move it in towards the center line. Then a small shove with your head will turn him over.

Sit Out

The sit out is a great move. I’m old and slow so I have to do it a bit differently than wrestlers do. I don’t do it as a timing move. If I have to beat the other guy to the punch with it I’ll lose more often than I’d like. Instead, I change up a couple of things to make it available as a slower moving technique. This makes it more adaptable to guys who didn’t wrestle in high school.

The sit out is perfect for when the top guy sprawls out so that you can’t get to his leg. Or, if you get a leg but he sprawls out to block it.

The first step os to peek out the side. When you do this your inside arm will lengthen and you'll be able to grab his leg with it. This is crucial because this grab prevents him from spinning to your back. It slows things down for you.

As you bring your inside leg through to the sit out make sure you look towards the ceiling and attach the back of your head to his back. Over exaggerate the sit out motion.

This is a good triple attack series. If you work it consistently and go right away as you land in quarters bottom you’ll spend way less time hanging out there trying to keep the top guy from breaking you down. I didn’t cover pulling guard from this position. It’s always an option though. Any time the top guy removes his weight from your back it’s right there.

Video of  Above Concepts:

 

Cross Sides Bottom Frames and Posture

Rethinking

Last time through the 20 week curriculum I did something completely different for cross sides bottom. I worked some material I had seen from Saolo Ribero. If you look at the page on that material you’ll see that I emphasized using the near hand to block out cross face and the far arm underhook. We worked the material quite a bit. I talked to other guys and my coach about it and came to the conclusion that maybe it wasn’t passing the bullshit test. Still not quite sure about it. I’m guessing that if Saolo saw what I was doing he’d be able to fix it. I couldn’t though. I’m certain I wasn’t understanding something fundamental about the way he does the posture.

Back to the Drawing Board

I went back to the drawing board and looked at what I was doing in my game to address the position. I looked at what worked for me personally. The approach I took this time through was completely different. I found two effective postures and some ways of building frames to get to the postures. I completely changed the way I was teaching using the near arm in bottom. A cool thing is that my friend Priit from Estonia was coming to some similar conclusions in his game at about the same time. The thing that gave me the Aha moment was looking at Saolo’s running man posture. I began to adapt it for use when turning towards AND away from a guy in cross sides bottom. I’ll attempt now to outline some of the posture-

H&H posture

I can’t for the life of me remember what the H stands for in this? Hands, head, hunchback? Anyway, we’ve made one subtle change in the posture that makes all the difference. We used to teach it with the chin tucked in tight. That made sense as tucking the chin is always good BJJ. The problem with this though is it gave the top guy access to a great cross face because it creates space between your head and the mat. What we’ve done now is to place the forehead on the mat and close off that space as much as our flexibility will allow.

• Get up on one hip.
• Back leg makes kickstand to keep you from being pushed back flat.
• Arms line the body.
• Elbows in contact with ribs.
• Head touches the mat.
• Ball up.

If you get this posture before the top guy settles all his weight on you it will be difficult for him to flatten you before you escape. One big problem that beginners have is that they fight to retain guard past the point of no return. The top guy is flattening them out and settling down and they are still trying to pull guard. Instead if they were working to go to this posture they’d be in way better shape. There comes a time in every guard pass when the bottom guy needs to concede the pass and work on building posture to block the cross side position.

Gold Coin Posture

This came to me from Mike Sweeney of Martial Arts Planet. It’s a wonderful and simple idea. It totally transformed my bottom game. It doesn’t look like much but when you apply it consistently you will find huge gains in the leverage you can apply on bottom to escape. So what is this simple idea?

Tuck the bottom elbow in behind your body.

That’s it! Not revolutionary I know but if you try it you’ll be amazed at how well it works from bottom everywhere. Here’s what it looks like.

Notice the bottom elbow is drawn way back behind me here. This gives you way more leverage to roll to quarters. If you get to here the top guy won't be able to stop you.

Being able to consistently build these two postures on bottom is key to having a great escape game from bottom. Remember, escapes are way easier if you put the other guy in a posture deficit first! Why try to escape when you are in a bad posture? That’s too hard. Instead work to build good posture and you’ll find the escapes work much better. Here’s a video of the postures from above. Sorry about the sound quality. I often shoot these off the cuff after class while another class is going on in the background…

H&H and Gold Coin Posture Video

Frames

The other thing I taught this week was building frames from bottom. This is an area that beginners don’t quite understand well. BJJ is a game of space. You are constantly trying to take it away or make more of it. Frames are a way of making space. A frame is  a structure that you build and then move away from. It’s not used to push the other guy away. Typically frames make room for your hips to move. When a guy is crushing you from top a frame can be a life saver. It can make the room you need to move your hips to make better posture or escape. Below is a video of a few frames that I typically build from bottom when the top guy has managed to get me flat.

When to Use Frames

I want to emphasize that it isn’t always wise to use these frames. If your arms are on your chest in a straight jacket posture then to pull them out and let the top guy get chest to chest is not wise. The reason we use frames is because the top guy has already gotten to chest to chest posture. So, if the top guy is chest to chest go ahead and frame away! No reason not to. If your arms are between you and him then it may not be your best move. I’d rather work to build the H & H posture instead as it doesn’t expose your arms to capture.

Framing from Bottom Video

Running Man

I’ll try to make a video of using the running man escape and posture from cross sides bottom. It’s effective in escaping both towards and away from the top guy. It’s applied slightly differently depending on whether or not you are rolling towards or away…. Coming soon… In the meantime here’s Saulo Ribeiro teaching the running man.

 

Head and Arm Escape Revisited

Well, I finally had a chance to shoot a short video on this. Our topic this week is headlock and head and arm escapes. I focused on head and arm escapes. As always with everything I teach I look for some fundamentals. I never like to throw a bunch of techniques at a problem. I’d rather find some simple basics that I can teach that are easy to learn. Thankfully that’s easy to do with the head and arm position. I don’t like it as an offensive position because it’s too limited. You can’t transition out to other positions well and if you can’t dig out the guy’s trapped arm you don’t really have any submissions.

You can view my other post on this position here.

Posture

The posture is simple. You want to get the trapped arm to the mat. That’s your big objective. Nothing else. Once you get your elbow to the mat you can take several escape paths with ease. The video will explain this in more detail. The material on the video is all I teach from this position. I don’t think there really is anything else needed. If you apply the two techniques and the accompanying pressures you should be able to escape consistently.

OK, so I left out the hip heist and the kick over pressure with the legs in the last part of the video. This is what happens when you make your videos off the cuff after class. Here’s a short video showing the lower body pressures.

 

Throw Your Hat in the Ring

I just wrapped up teaching tonight and looked over in the cage and saw a group of purple belts and a tough brown belt working some rounds. They were going at it hard. It was impressive to see. All young and extremely athletic. Scary good and tough. Over on the mat area was a group of white belts who had just finished class with me.  My choice was to stay and roll with the white belts or go over to the cage and take my lumps. I thought for a second or two and then made my way over to the cage. Not that I mind or find myself above rolling with white belts. I do it all the time and it’s a crucial part of my training. I probably learn more from rolling with white belts than with anyone else.

Well, I had a few rounds. I managed to get choked unconscious once and stalemate with everyone else. By the time I was done I felt like I had been mugged. Every minute of every roll was hard. Just one tough grueling roll after another. That’s the nature of BJJ though. The best and worst part of BJJ is that the mat doesn’t lie. When you step on the mat you live and die by what you bring in with you. You are out there naked in a manner of speaking. There are no shortcuts, cheats, or sneaky ways out. It’s brutally honest that way. That’s it’s beauty really. It’s what makes it such a healthy activity and why I love it so much.

The ego is a funny thing though. You’d think that the more experience you get in BJJ the easier it is to supress the ego and not let it get in the way. It doesn’t get easier. At least for me it doesn’t. Especially as you start earning rank. When you tie on a brown belt your ego tells you that you need to be able to destroy everyone purple belt and below. And if you are not very careful that ego idea can paralyze you. The minute you are scared to roll with someone because you don’t know if you can beat them you are dead. You have just effectively put the emergency brakes on your progress.

What then are you to do? You have to throw your hat into the ring and trust that your BJJ will get you through. You may not “win.” You may not tap out the other guy. Your training will take you through and the mat will tell you what you need to know. And, if you are in with the right group of guys you will take your mugging and know that it buys you a millimeter of progress.  You’ll sit on the edge of the mat with chests heaving. Sweat pouring down your face. You’ll slap each other on the back and debrief your games with smiles and laughs. And, you’ll feel good knowing that all you could do is what you did. Throw your hat in the ring and see what happens.

It’s the beautiful surrender of Ju jitsu. You can never predetermine outcomes. You can’t guarantee victory. Character is built not by the victories but by all the tough rolls and taps you encounter along the way. That’s the paradox. Eventually you will have tapped 10,000 times or more. The rolls won’t get any easier. You’ll surrender again and again measuring your progress one millimeter at a time trusting the process.

 

How Do You Measure Progress?

I’ve been thinking about this a bit. The answer of course is ” It depends?” BJJ has a built in process of belt progression to help but largely the process of gauging process is a deeply personal one. I firmly think that establishing your own personal way of measuring your progress in BJJ is essential to long term enjoyment. We naturally move towards measuring, categorizing, testing, and labeling as human beings. It’s how we are built. Here are some ways I’ve measured my progress at different times at the gym:

Belt Progression

This is an external measure. It lets you know that your instructor has measured your skills against a belt level standard and decided that you have the appropriate level  of skills. The advantages of using this system is that it leaves your judgment out of the equation. You don’t have to decide if you are blue belt level etc. Your isntructor lets you know. It’s a nice measure and a reassuring way to know you are making progress.

The downside of this measure is that you don’t get it often enough to gauge day to day progress. If you are lucky you can move up in rank every few years. This is a good way to look at the overall fitness of someone’s game but not the nitty gritty details such as “Does he have a good butterfly guard?” There is a wide range of skill levels at each belt and it’s hard to say that every blue belt does this certain skill set well.

Enjoyment

How is this a measure? It depends on why you are training I guess. If I had to make a list of my top 5 training goals enjoyment would always be in my top 5. One thing I’ve found over the years is that will power alone can get you about a year of training if you are lucky. After that you’d better be enjoying it. The training can be really tough and exhausting so it makes sense that the more you enjoy it the more you are likely to subject yourself to it’s rigors. For me personally when I can’t wait to get into the gym. When I’m thinking of moves and counters and what to teach on my off time, that’s when I know I’m really enjoying it. I’m not interested in making a living from BJJ. Nor do I want to be a world champion. I don’t care to tap out Marcello Garcia. If I wasn’t enjoying it there’d be little real reason for me to do it besides maybe self defense and exercise. The enjoyment factor is a quality of life issue for me. Finding a way to gauge your enjoyment. Or, more importantly finding a way to increase it in your training is vital.

Who Taps Who

This can be a measure. I know that there are guys in the gym that I used to be able to tap easily and at will. Now they are very tough. Some of them I can still tap. Some I can tap rarely. Some not at all anymore. This is certainly a testament to their skill improvement. It’s a valid measure. It shows that the skill gap between them and me has closed in a significant way.

It’s not the best or only measure though. As you gain skill and experience in BJJ the learning curve levels out more. That means it won’t be a quick rise like it was at white belt. This can make it appear that people around you are passing you up. Or that new guys are rapidly making progress towards your game and you are sitting still. If you only use who taps who as a measure it’s easy to draw those kinds of conclusions.

As a blue belt I actually tapped out my instructor a couple of times. As a brown belt I have not. Not even close. If I had used that as a measure then I might conclude that I’m worse as a brown belt than I was as a blue. The other issue is that submissions are only a part of BJJ. In my personal game I’m not too fond of submissions. I’m way more interested in positional work. Sweeps, reversals, hold down positions- those are the things I’m really fond of. It probably means that my sub game isn’t as refined as someone who focuses more on that part of their game.

Who You Don’t Tap To

Not only can you use who you tap as a measure but you can use who you work with and managed to avoid the tap. This is also a good measure. Although I don’t tap out my instructor when we roll I have managed to increase the amount of time I stay alive.

If you think about it the students who have been there longer than you are also getting better. If you can last longer rolling with them consistently then you are making some progress. With higher belts that may be the only way to measure your progress as you aren’t as likely to get a sub.

Positional Dominance

There are times when I roll with a guy and totally dominate position and somehow get subbed in the end. Or, I roll with guys who always beat me but I find myself wrestling in a dominant position more. My instructor taps me out only every time we roll, but I find myself passing his guard more often. I hold top position longer when I get it. A small mistake in rolling can result in a sub but consistent dominating position is the result of skill and not luck. This is a measure that I consistently use to gauge my game. I appreciate it more than I do the who subbed who method.

Game Knowledge

This one is important to me because I teach classes at my gym. I gauge progress personally not just based on performance but also on my understanding of the game. It’s progress for me when I can conceptualize, categorize, name, organize, or otherwise break down the game in a way I couldn’t before. If I can teach it better it’s a measure of progress. Some people don’t care about this and only care about performance on the mat. I appreciate the ability to look at a position and know the pressures, problems, and possibilities that go with it. It helps me to be a better coach and adds to my overall enjoyment of the game.

Competition

I don’t use this method. I don’t like competitions. They aren’t fun for me, and I don’t need them as a measure of progress. Some people use them that way though. Instructors have been known to award a rank promotion to a student after he does well in a tournament. How you perform under pressure is a good measure of your game. If you do well in a tournament in a room full of your peers you can feel pretty good about your game at that level.

Where this measure falls down is that some people are more game ready than others. Some guys roll great in the gym and not so great under pressure at a tourney. Some guys actually work better at a competitive tourney than at the gym. Also, your game is not consistent from day to day. You can have a brilliant day on the mat and the next time you go in nothing is working at all. I think you have to  take tournament wins and losses with a grain of salt. If you consistently win tournaments and are having lots of success then it’s probably a good sign that your game is rocking. One or two tournaments may not be enough to draw broad conclusions however.

Overall Package

In the end I use a combination of these. I find that using one measure exclusively can result in not getting a clear picture of how your game is progressing. Some advice my instructor always gives that I think is golden is to never measure your game by one session at the gym. Everybody has a bad day. It really has to be measured over time with a variety of measures. That’s the only way to really know where your game is.

How much you measure and how often is a personal choice. I think the key is to make the measurement a positive tool and not a negative one. If the measurement tool that you are using is causing you to not enjoy your training or to feel like you aren’t making progress, or makes you train less and with less enthusiasm, then maybe you need to look again at how you measure and when.

Frankly I use the measurement tools that gauge what I value most more than I use the ones that don’t. Who I tapped is not very important. How much I enjoy BJJ is very important. Positional dominance and overall understanding of the game are also important to me personally. I don’t care at all about winning Mundials or any other competition. Rank does matter to me. It’s not paramount but having the external validation of my progress is something that I value. If I were still white belt at this point in my game then I think it would bother me a lot. Moving on to black belt is not something I worry a lot about though because the other measure I use are quite sustaining for me.

 

Guard Passing- The 3 Objectives

Last week’s topic was guard passing. When you think about everything that’s possible to cover in a week of guard passing it’s a bit overwhelming. I’m always looking for simple ways to teach BJJ. Anyone who knows me or reads my blog knows that I like to break things down into simple postures, pressures from the postures and possibilities from the pressure.  That’s essentially how I decided to tackle guard passing.   I threw a bit of a twist in by working the three objectives.My first task was to build a posture. There are a ton of postures you can start from in guard passing. Some of them kneeling postures and some standing postures. Here’s what I decided to use:

Standing Combat Base

Combat Base Posture- from knees. This is the base of the standing combat base posture. It has the same objectives.

I’m sure I didn’t invent this. I did find it though. I saw Saulo Ribero do a similar posture in a video once. I’ve been working

Left hand grabs lapel. Elbow of that hand rests on knee. Left shin pressures his leg. Right hand grabs pants. Right shin in reserve to pressure leg if his foot gets off the ground.

on it for a while. I have been using the standard combat base position from knees for years. I work it with double underhooks quite a bit for guard passing. Recently I’ve been standing up from combat base trying to work some of the same stuff from standing. The standing combat base is my attempt to make combat base work from a standing position. The idea is that if you have a good kneeling combat base this could make a good transition to standing position. This allowed me to open up my game and begin to add standing passes back into my game. I haven’t done much standing guard passing since purple belt. I wanted to come back to that kind of pass with a more methodical posture/pressure base.

The standing combat base is a close range posture. It’s designed to keep the bottom guy from being able to get his feet on you. Both your shins are available to press into his thighs. The collar grip keeps him attached and maintains the correct distance.   Use your shins to press into his legs. This will keep his feet off your body. This is key. If his feet land on your body you need to remove them right away.If you can maintain this position then you can begin to look for the three objectives.

Here you can see the alternative position of the right leg. It moves forward and pins the bottom guy's leg if his foot leaves the ground.

The Three Objectives

I sort of discovered these while planning a lesson on guard passing. I was thinking of ways to simplify it to make it easier to teach. After reviewing a bunch of guard passes I noticed that most all of them could be broken up into three types. Or more correctly, each guard pass had an objective built in that made passing possible. There may be more than three but I decided that three was enough to build a fairly complete passing game. Here they are:

Objective One

Objective one is to get your partner’s leg flat to the mat.  As soon as you see his knee hit the mat you are working to kill it. You can staple it with your hand. You can sit on it. You can put either shin across. In any case, as soon as you get the knee to touch you are killing it right away.

Objective Two

Get both your partner’s knees past center line. As soon as both his knees are on the same side you drop weight on them to keep them from separating again one to each side of center. This often means sprawling on his knees as soon as they cross center.

Objective Three

Get your partner’s knees close together and bear hug them together. This can be accomplished from the top or from underneath if his legs are up in the air.

Passing Simplified

That’s it! Sounds simple but there are dozens and dozens of passes there. As soon as I had students working from a good posture and working only to achieve these three objectives they looked great. Suddenly the room looked like a bunch of brown belts. Great posture everywhere. The struggle by the bottom guy to break the posture was presenting the three objectives all over the place. Since the guys on top only had to look for the three objectives they were able to immediately capitalize on the opportunities as soon as they happened.

Three Objectives as Fundamental

This was a great way to work the fundamental 5 of guard passing. If you work the three objectives and pull one off then you’ve just achieved the first two steps of the 5 point passing game (control the legs, control the hips, lock down the upper body, land your hips, prevent the guard). I managed to work only the first two steps but will cover the other three when I work cross sides top.

Finally, Add Pressure

Only after teaching the three objectives and standing combat base did I introduce pressures. We have a standard set of pressures that comprise just about everything you can do from standing to attack the bottom guy. There are about 8 or so. I won’t go over them here because I didn’t invent them nor did I contribute to them. I taught them after because I wanted students to have a set of objectives to achieve with the pressures. This built a large passing game without showing a single technique. As I watched students use the pressures to get the objectives I saw at least a couple of dozen guard passing techniques happen. One student told me that he knew only one guard passing technique before the lesson. I saw him pull off several during class that night.

No Need to Memorize Techniques

The best part is that students don’t have to memorize techniques. They only need to learn posture, three objectives and a few choice pressures. They don’t need all eight pressures in order to be successful. I think most people will only use about 3 or so.  It’s perfect because guard passing is a fast moving game. Especially standing passes. If you try to apply specific techniques you’ll often find you are too late. The opportunity will only present itself for a split second and will be gone. No time to flip through the catalog of techniques in your head to find the best one. No, guard passing is a pressure game. You push, pull, lift, staple, roll and smash your partner around until you find an objective has presented itself. All you have to do then is react accordingly.

OK, Now Add Techniques

Only after students are comfortable with posture, pressure, and objectives can techniques be taught and not have them actually hinder the guard passing game. Now when a student sees a guard passing technique they can see the objective, the pressure, and the posture present in the technique. They recognize these things immediately so they can put the technique into circulation right away. The student who learns the technique in a vacuum without the posture, pressure, and objective material will have a very hard time pulling off the technique.  Especially against someone who is familiar with defending it. The student schooled in our basics will be able to quickly move to another pressure and find another pass as it presents itself.

 

Closed Guard Top- Posture and Opening the Guard

This week the topic was closed guard top. I decided to work on posture and opening the legs. The most important thing to work on in my opinion was proper posture when in someone’s closed guard. Someone with a good closed guard will use it to get a good attachment to you before opening their legs to finish. From the perspective of the top person we want to establish a good posture to use as a base to work on opening the legs and passing.

Safety Position

The safety position is a fundamental posture from inside someone’s closed guard. It’s just what it’s name implies. It’s a safe place to go when you feel things aren’t going well inside someone’s guard. It’s not a place to launch an attack or pass the guard etc. It’s simply meant as a place to hang out and catch your breath and settle things down a bit before getting back into the game. Here are some key posture points in this position:

• Knees wide and ass low. This gives you good side to side stability. Depending on your flexibility you can get your rear as close as you can to the mat. Some guys can get it to touch the mat. Others have to rest it on their heels. In either case you get it as low as your flexibility will allow.
  

  Knees wide and rear end low.

• Forehead in center of chest. This prevents the bottom guy from sitting up. Use your forehead as a lever.
• Elbows tucked in low. Your elbows should touch the mat if possible and drive down to capture the other guy’s hips. Squeeze them together and feel the hip control.
  

  Elbows down low controlling the hips. Notice the hands lining the body.

• Hands line the body. Line his body with your hands. This will keep him from being able to attack them.
• Common errors in posture include driving the hands up into the arm pits instead of controlling the hips with them.
  

  Be careful of this type of pressure with the arms. It makes you vulnerable to rubber guard aond other arm harvesting attacks. Notice how far the elbows are from the body.

• Another common error is placing the hands on the ground.
  

  Never place your hands on the ground when you are in someone's guard. This sets up kimura and arm harvesting for the bottom guy.

Safety Position Video

Base and Posture

Base and posture is one of those positions in BJJ that everyone needs to know. It’s fundamental in that there is a right and wrong way to do it. The posture is our base from which we keep ourselves safe and launch attacks on our partner’s closed guard. Here are some posture tips for this position:

• Knees wide and ass low. Same as in safety position.
• Hips rotate in and up. You should feel your pelvis lift slightly off the floor. As I always like to say “If it feels a bit naughty then you are doing it right.”
  

  Knees wide, rear low. C shape to back.

• Back make a C curve. Feels like a slouching posture. This makes your upper and lower body a solid unit and helps prevent you from being broken in half at the waist.
• Shoulders hunched and chin up. Look up at the ceiling a bit and watch your partner through the bottom of your eyes.
  

  Shoulders hunched with chin looking up towards the ceiling.

• Elbows inside your partner’s knees. One hand in front and one in back.
• The front hand’s elbow is in the hip to monitor the hip. The hand is just below the rib cage and presses into the ribs when the top guy tries to sit up.
• The rear hand’s job is to monitor the hip and apply downward pressure if the top guy opens his legs.
  

  Close up of grip. The knuckles face down to keep the elbows in. Notice where the left elbow is located on the bottom guy's hip. This is very effective in keeping his hips on the mat.

  

  Different angle of same hand positions.

  

  Open hand version of this concept.

Common errors in posture include:

1. Hands paralell. Keep one hand in front and one in back.
   

   This hand position is problematic as it makes your elbows easier to attack and doesn't make proper frames to keep the bottom guy down.

2. Straight back. Keep it C shaped.
3. Leaning too far forward. You’ll get pulled in and have your posture broken.
4. Leaning too far back. You’ll fall victim to the hip bump sweep.
   

   Notice in this picture that the elbows are not inside the knees. This makes weak frames and exposes the elbows to attack. Not a good idea.

Video of Base and Posture Position

Potential

Here’s a short video of a guard break that I use from this posture. It’s really the only way I open guard anymore. I don’t much like standing to open the guard as it’s not a good idea if the bottom guy is much bigger and stronger than you. This method works great because you don’t expose yourself to sweeps or attacks as much and you are close to safety position should you need it. Sorry for the poor video quality…

Combat Base

Combat base is often a go to position once the guard is broken. I like it as a position for beginners because it does a nice job of taking away the armbar and traingle choke. It also makes sweeps harder to get. The video below shows how I work and coach the position.

Combat Base Posture

Video of Combat Base Position

 

Seated Upright Guard-Butterfly Position

Butterfly Guard Posture

The topic for the week was seated upright guard. I decided to focus on butterfly guard position because it’s so common a position and it’s very versatile. When thinking about how to teach it I had some general ideas to start with. I wanted to teach it as a posture/pressure game. I didn’t want to teach it as a series of high percentage moves. I wanted to build a base of posture where students could first survive comfortably without being passed.

Survive First

Teaching survival first in an offensive position seems counter intuitive at first, but when you look at it deeper you can see the logic in it. As an older guy I’m constantly trying to find a BJJ game that will continue to work for me as I age. I don’t move as fast as I once did and have a hard time keeping up with guys who are 20 years younger than me. One of the things that I do to make it easier is to build an offensive game that isn’t so dependent on speed, timing, or athleticism. In the guard this means being able to survive there as you find your sub or sweep. This is true of butterfly guard as well. I wanted to build a butterfly game where I could hang out and attack when I was ready. Not a butterfly game built on having to constantly attack out of fear of losing position.

Posture Advantage vs. Deficit

The idea is to work on building a posture advantage and putting your partner in a posture deficit. That way you are working a couple of steps ahead when you go for your sub or sweep. The best way to beat a bigger or better guy is to work from a position of superior posture. So, building a good butterfly game is about working on posture and not sweeps or subs. It’s about maintaining or re-establishing good posture when you don’t have it. Prioritizing posture over techniques. This will bear sweeter fruit in the long run because it’s much easier to attack from a position of superior posture.

A Look at the Posture

A Posture-

Your A posture is your best possible posture. It’s the posture you are always trying to achieve and where you want to launch all your attacks. It looks like this:

• Seated upright. Back has a nice C curve. Hips back and shoulders forward.
  

  Pic "borrowed" from the net. Notice the hips back and the head in the pocket. Overhook attachement. I'd scoot my hips a bit farther back than in this pic though.

• Legs at a 90 degree angle. Be sure your feet aren’t too close to your rear. This makes your legs weak. Also, make sure your legs aren’t too straight. This also makes them weak.
• Put your head in the pocket. This is from clinch game. Your head should be below his pressing into his collarbone. Don’t let your head leave his chest.
• You need some sort of attachment. You can use and underhook (my preference), an overhook, or an arm drag.
• This gives you one free arm to use to base, attack, or move your hips.
• To begin the attack from A posture shift your weight to one hip and slide towards the side of the attachment. (To the left on the pic below.)
  

  Good A posture here. Notice the head in the pocket, hips back, 90 degree angle to legs, and attachment.

B Posture-

B posture is not as good as A posture. It’s important to recognize when you are in B posture and work to put yourself back in A posture. You can successfully attack from B posture but you are allowing your partner to make up some of the posture deficit. B posture is the same as A posture but without the head in the pocket.

This is a good posture except the placement of the head. It's no longer in the pocket. Here the butterfly guard player's head is in a more neutral posture.

C Posture-

C posture is to be avoided at all costs. Some people like to play from here but you are allowing the top guy to play from a much better posture. He’s made up most of the posture deficit and can pass easier. You are flat on your back and no longer have a ball shape to your posture. You are mostly defensive here and have to wait for the top guy to move to make anything happen.

Your best bet if you find yourself here is to work to get back to A posture. Trying to sweep or sub here would depend on you having better BJJ than the other guy. I’d rather put myself in a posture advantage and work from that.

Not a good position. If you find yourself here you're better off trying to improve your posture rather than making a sub or sweep happen from here.

Video of Concepts

Basic Concepts

Sweep from Butterfly, Posture Retention, Drills

 

Standup and Throws- You Suck at Takedowns!

OK, I had intended on doing some video and pictures for this post but haven’t managed to do so yet. I’m going to go ahead and publish it and hope that I can get back in sometime and add images and video. Hopefully it still makes some sense without those…

We did standup and throws last week at the gym. I didn’t manage to get any pics or video. I may yet still try to get some though. I did want to post a bit about my approach to the subject. First, I suck at throws. I don’t practice them much at all. Partly because I don’t like practicing them. Partly though because I don’t have ACL ligaments in my knees. They are wobbly at best. I tend to really hurt them if I rotate or twist too hard. Throws can really do me in if I’m not careful. Because of that I have come up with some workarounds. The cool thing is that the workarounds also work for people who suck at throws.

The problem I faced in trying to teach takedowns is that we only allotted one week to takedowns in our 20 week curriculum. That’s not enough to get proficient at takedowns. We are lucky at the gym in that we have clinch classes every week. That way if someone wants to get good at that range they have a weekly class they can go to. That’s what’s really needed in order to get good at takedowns. Because we already have this weekly class it didn’t make sense for me to teach something that goes down in that class. I wanted to teach takedown material that would work for someone who only approached it sporadically or only once per 20 weeks.

So, with that in mind I proceeded to think about what I could teach that was easy to maintain without a whole lot of practice. Something that could be easily taught as well. I broke the lesson down into two categories- Sport Ju Jitsu and Self Defense.

Sport Ju Jitsu

For a simple sport BJJ lesson I decided to first work on takedown defense. We started with posture. I outlined how sport BJJ posture is different from MMA, self defense, and Judo posture. With sport BJJ the most common takedown is the guard pull. It’s just the nature of the sport. If we are going to be effective at takedown strategy for sport BJJ we have to be able to defend the guard pull first and foremost.

Once we can defend the guard pull and have a reasonable takedown defence then we can build a takedown game of our own. I decided to work on sacrifice throws. I picked particular ones that would put you in an open guard bottom if you screwed them up. That way the worst case scenario is that you are playing open guard with good grips against a standing opponent. Not a bad place to be.

Defensive Posture

The effective guard pull depends on one main thing. It requires the guard puller to be squared up on the opponent. If I’m going to pull guard on you I need your hips to be square to mine. The first level of defense to guard pulling then is to work on a posture that keeps your hips angled.

• We worked an angled stance with a lead leg.
• The front hand got a lapel grap. The lapel to grab if you are being defensive is the same side one. That puts you farther away.
• The elbow of the grabbing hand stays bent.
• Move him with your body and not your arm. You are working to never let his hips square up with yours. If you do this you take away much of his ability to throw you or pull guard.
• Your rear hand is used to block his collar grip. Keep moving. Make him constantly work to catch up with you and realign his body to yours. You can grab your own collar to prevent him from grabbing it. Or, you can keep your hand close and push his away when he grabs at your collar.

Takedown- Sacrifice throw.

Get a collar and sleeve grip on one side. Keep your assymetrical stance as you move your opponent. When you are ready to throw pull him in to square up your hips. Insert a butterfly hook and sit close to his feet. You are simply executing a butterfly sweep from here. If you miss the sweep keep your grips and play a spider or butterfly guard. You’ve effectively just pulled guard.

Self Defense

In thinking about what I could teach with regard to self defense in one lesson I had several requirements. I wanted to teach takedowns that were effective in a self defense situation. My requirements were the following:

• No lifting. Throws that involve lifting are not good for self defense. You can’t depend on the size difference allowing you to lift the other guy.
• No giving your back. We don’t want a throw that will cause us to give up our back in the course of executing it. If we mess up a throw like this we’ll be in big trouble.
• No going to our knees or the ground. This eliminates the double and probably the single leg for most people.
• No exposing ourselves to getting hit on the way in. This means no throws that involve us reaching out with our arms while in punching range.
• No athletic throws. Nothing that requires perfect timing. Since we want something that requires little maintainence to be functional we don’t want something where perfect timing is crucial.
• Nothing too detailed. Nothing that requires too much fine motor skills or too many steps. We want something that you could do poorly and still manage to make it work.

This is a big list and rules out much of what people show for self defense. When I looked at the list though one set of takedown techniques seemed to match all my requirements nicely. I decided to work on body locks. In particular I showed front, side, and rear body locks. I taught one simple trip takedown from the body lock. It’s something that takes very little practice, not much timing, no lifting, and general body mechanics instead of fine motor skills.

I went way old school and taught the Gracie shin kick with a tight head cover to get close enough to body lock. The entry is designed to keep you from getting hit. Our objective is to get our forehead on the other guy’s chest. Once there the body lock is our next objective.

A good general body lock has these characteristics-

• Ear to center of chest. Press with the ear.
• Arms wrapped around opponents waist.
• Hip in strongly.

Front Body Lock

Drive into him with your ear. Your arms drive inward and up on his lower back. This should break his posture and force him onto his back. Walk him down to the floor from here.

Side Body Lock

Start from the front body lock position and move to the side. Keep your ear in the center of his chest though. Hip in hard. He’ll want to hit you in the face with his far arm. Grab it and pin it to his body. To trip him down simply place your feet behind his heels and sit on your butt. You should fall right into side mount or full mount. No lifting required.

Gracie Video of Takedown

Cool Old School Gracie Video Instructional- This was their first big tape set. I remember watching this back in the day… Still relevant for self defense.

Rear Body Lock

You get this position from the side body lock. Often it happens when the opponent tries a headlock from side body lock position. Keep your head planted to the center of his back. If he’s a ninja he’ll try to eye poke you! This will also keep you away from his elbows. Trip him by putting your feet behind his heels and fall back. Same as side body lock.

 

How to Roll…

I’ve been thinking a bit about the idea of how to roll with different size and skill levels and still make each roll productive. I’m lucky at my gym to have a huge variety of guys to roll with. I get to roll with brand new beginners, huge athletic guys, advanced BJJ players, and everything in between. My experience is that over the years I’ve developed different ways of rolling depending on who I am rolling with. You can’t change the way your partner rolls but you can change how you adapt and adjust your roll with his. Here’s some of what I find useful for rolling with different types of guys.

This is a bit of an extension of the “Don’t let the tap get in the way” post. It’s part of establishing broader thinking about what happens in the roll an dhow to use it to better your BJJ game effectively. It’s really about rolling with more intent and purpose and aligning that purpose to the situation at hand in a way that makes sense.

Brand New Beginner

With brand new guys I do more “coach rolling” than anything else. I make my moves slow and deliberate. I want them to be able to feel and see what’s happening to them. If I make the game too fast they won’t be able to comprehend it at all. I will use no strength at all. Very relaxed type of rolling. It’s important that when beginners roll with more experienced guys they feel this type of energy. It’s part of how they will learn to relax when they roll. This is “learn by coaching” kind of rolling. BJJ is the art of combining someone Else’s energy with yours to make something new. With brand new beginners I try to use 90% their energy and 10% mine. Here is where I can work that game effectively. That way I’m getting something out of the roll as well.

Strong Athletic New Guy

This is the guy that grunts and groans when you wrestle. He’s out of breath in about 30 seconds. He moves really fast and uses brute force to try to make things happen. This is the dangerous guy. He can hurt you or himself if you aren’t careful. You can not use a playful game against this guy. Maybe if you are Rickson Gracie you can flow around with a guy like this, but the rest of us mortals will have trouble doing that. If he’s playing chess you can’t counter with checkers. You have to essentially meet his game. This doesn’t necessarily mean you have to use brute strength to match his. No, you use Ju  Jitsu. What I usually do is lock them down. Where they are dangerous is in transition. The flailing arms and elbows as they transition will cause trouble. If you lock then down and limit their movement they have less chance to hurt you or them. You want to control their movement and only let them move a bit at a time.  That’s really the key with this guy. Slowing him down to controlled movement.

Been Around a Bit But Still Not as Good as You Guy

This guy has been around long enough that he understands most positions. He’s not usually going to do anything dangerous or stupid. Much of what he does looks like Ju Jitsu. His game is no real match for yours though. This guy is a great training partner. There are a few things that you can work with this guy. Here is where you can work your experimental game. You can work those positions, transitions, subs etc. that you aren’t great at but want to work. It’s perfect because your partner will respond with something that looks like reasonable Ju Jitsu. He’ll most likely give you the right response. His timing may be off. He may not do it quite exactly right. It’s close enough though for you to be able to generalize how the technique might go against someone with more skills. This is not the place to work your A game. Here you should be working your C game. It has the benifit for the other guy of letting him in the game. If you gave him your A game he’d never be able to get in an it would be a useless roll for him. This way both partners get something valuable.

You could also limit yourself to a single sub. Get the same one over and over. This helps the new guy to experience some repetition in his defense and could become a teachable moment for him. You could tell yourself that you will only sub from one position. I went a couple of months only subbing guys from guard bottom. It was great for my game and gave me some new tools. In any case this is your opportunity to expand your game and experiment.

Even Match Guy

Here you are rolling with someone who is an even match. It could be that you have the same experience level. Maybe you are more experienced and he’s bigger. Could be the opposite. With this guy you have the most flexibility in how you roll. The key is that you are both playing the same game. You could do a competitive go-for-the-sub roll. You could do a playful flow roll. You could start slow and gradually build intensity. You could work starting from a particular position over and over. The most important thing is that you have an understanding of what kind of roll you are doing and make sure the other person is playing that game with you.

Better Than You Guy

This is where you can work your A game. You can’t work your experimental stuff here. Nor can you work what you aren’t as good at. He’ll make you pay too much. For example if you are not so good at the half guard and want to work it you won’t be able to with this guy. He’ll simply pass your half guard in 2 seconds. Better to work your half guard with a beginner. What you’ll probably want to work more than anything else is your survival and escape skills. Mostly survival though. If the guy is that much better than you you’ll have plenty of opportunity to survive and some opportunity to escape. May as well practice what you’re given right? Since you’re spending so much time on the bottom you may as well make use of it and practice how to survive. When I roll with my coach this is usually my tact. I’ll play games with it. I’ll tell myself that I won’t let him tap me out  from this particular position. Or I won’t let him tap me out while this particular song is playing. You have to adjust your idea of “winning.” In that circumstance winning for me is making him frustrated in his attempt to get a sub. If I can make him go for his 3rd or 4th attack and not get me with his first then I take it as a small victory.