BjjSkills

When I was filming the BJJ Foundations instructional with Cal MacDonald he brought up a really interesting point…

He said that if you’re in a serious match – a competition or a deathroll at the club – then at a tactical level, jiu-jitsu becomes a zero-sum game.

That means every grip, every hook, and every adjustment of position becomes win-lose.

If you win that exchange, your opponent loses. If he wins, you lose.

Let’s say that you’re on your feet and things are 50-50. Now you secure a slightly better grip on your opponent; things might now be 55-45 in your favour.

Now you have a slightly better chance of getting a takedown or jumping into a submission, and his emphasis should be on getting back to neutral rather than attacking.

Let’s turn things around…

Say that you’re on the bottom of a loose side control.  That’s not great things, so let’s say that the situation is 60-40 in your opponent’s favor.

But now he gets an underhook on your far arm… now it’s 65-35.  His number is going up, yours is going down.

Now he secures a tight crossface and turns your head so you’re looking away from him and the situation is 70-30.

Ooops – you let him collapse your near side arm frame…. now it’s 75-25

He walks his legs towards your hips, folding your legs so they point away from him, making it that much harder for you to reguard… 85-15.

You get the idea!

(Incidentally, this is very similar to Rob Biernacki’s concept of “What’s the score,” where we assign each player one point each for proper base, posture and structure, with the best score you can hope for being 3-0 in your favor).

So if you’re flow rolling, or drilling, or playing certain games, then go ahead and take it easy. Give your opponent the grips he wants, let him progress to a better position, and try to fight your way out.

This can be fun and you’ll learn lots.

But when the chips are down and the rolling is serious, then don’t concede an inch.

Follow the advice of an old Luta Livre coach, Roberto Leitao, who once said, “If I don’t know, I won’t allow“.

Serious jiu-jitsu matches are zero-sum affairs.

Stephan

P.S. BJJ Foundations is without a doubt » Continue Reading.

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The butterfly guard offers your opponent two different types of control that set up his attacks and make it difficult for you to pass his guard.

Screw up even a little bit and you’ll find yourself hoisted into the air and swept or caught in a devastating leglock.

To shut him down and pass his guard you first need to understand the control points he potentially has in butterfly guard…

The first type of control in butterfly guard are the grips, for example, collar ties on your neck, grips on your wrist, the underhook controlling your shoulder, belt grips, the 2-on-1 grip or the armdrag grip.

To deal with his grips you have to handfight, handfight, handfight!  Do not concede superior grips to your opponent because you’ll be giving him a HUGE advantage.

The second type control are his instep hooks between your legs. The insteps are the heavy hitters of the butterfly guard because they lift and off-balance you, as well as making it very hard for you to run around his guard since he can just keep his hooks sticky against the inside of your legs and track you.

Neutralising the Butterfly Hooks

To pass butterfly guard without backing away you have two basic options…

First, you can break any grips and back out. Now that his hooks are detached, getting to a dominant position involves guard passes like the toreando, the kick pass, the knee cut, the leg drag, and submission-based passes usually involving the guillotine or Kimura controls.

Typically, this detach-and-pass approach requires faster, more explosive passing movements.

The second approach is to stay close but use leg pummelling and hip shifts to nullify the effectiveness of his guard.  Since you often can’t see what’s going on with his feet at this close range this approach often requires more sensitivity but less speed, and often results in pressure-based guard passes to get past his legs.

Neutralising the Butterfly Hooks While Staying Close

Let’s focus on three different ways to shut down the effectiveness of his instep hooks without backing all the way out of butterfly guard.

First, you can use a floating approach…

In the floating approach you’ll force your opponent onto his back (i.e. recumbent butterfly guard) and put your weight on his insteps and shins.  Now actively pour arms to  keep your balance, then use a combination of hip shifting, » Continue Reading.

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When I was coming up in jiu-jitsu, there was a guy in class who only went for kneebars.

He was only a whitebelt but in this one move he was a purple belt. In the closed guard he went for kneebars… In someone’s guard, he went for a kneebar… if he was in the turtle position, or on top, or in a scramble: kneebar, kneebar, kneebar.

The problem was, he soon became predictable. All you had to do was defend that one move and his entire game would fall apart.

Now, I’m all in favour of focusing on certain positions for an extended period, such as weeks or even months if necessary. The difference is that the goal here is improvement, NOT just going back to the same well again and again.

Even if Mister Kneebar wanted to build his entire game around the kneebar, he should still have been working on other skills to complement it.

For example, getting good at guard passing or a second submission to set up his main attack (some ‘jabs’ to set up his cross).

We all know someone like that. Someone who had an early success with one technique – a collar choke… the guillotine… one certain guard pass… – and never moved on from there. Years later, he’s still doing the same thing to white belts, but everyone else has figured out his game.

However, achieving a blue belt level of success with one tactic and then failing to move forward is a sign of laziness and stagnation.

I’ve never understood why people spending hundreds of hours on an activity (jiu-jitsu, golf, canoeing, tango dancing, or whatever) don’t make a more concerted effort to get better. I mean, they’re already out there sweating, bleeding and spending the money on the sport, so why don’t they use their brains and the resources available to them to improve?

Don’t just always get on the mat and grind it out, fun as that might be.

Instead, do just a little research, approach the sport just a bit scientifically, and be just a bit more focused in your training so you’re training to improve and NOT just doing the same thing over and over.

Sometimes this’ll result in you developing black belt levels of skill in areas you were already pretty good at, and sometimes you’ll surprise yourself with a whole new game.

The writer Marshall » Continue Reading.

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There’s no way around it, when you first start jiu-jitsu you have to be a bit of a generalist.

You’ve got to learn an escape from side control… an armbar from mount… a sweep from closed guard… a choke from the back… and so on.

What you’re doing with this approach is trying to develop a couple of offensive and defensive options from the top and bottom for each of the major positions on the ground, i.e. guard, side control, knee ride, mount, back, and turtle.

(This approach of filling out your positional matrix on the ground is the topic of my Roadmap for BJJ book, which has been downloaded for free over 100,000 times.)

But eventually, usually around blue or purple belt, it’s best to shift approaches and start becoming a bit more of a specialist.

That DOESN’T mean dedicating your entire life to a position or a technique.

Instead, it means taking a topic (a position, a strategy, or a technique) and going DEEP on it.  Spend about 80% of your disposable training time focused on that topic. 

For that topic, research all your offensive options, all the likely defensive options, and which of those options work best for your body type.

Take advantage of competition footage, asking your instructors for feedback, workshopping with your training partners, studying instructionals, and every other source of information you can think of.

Then you’re going to do a LOT of focused drilling, positional sparring, and targeted games to improve in just that one area.  Then, use your free sparring time to further develop your skills in that one area.

This will help you blast through your plateaus, train with people smaller and less skilled than you, and improve your training partners.

(Even a white belt will get pretty good at armbar defense if all you’re ever going for is armbars and you show him the counters.)

These training blocks can last a week, a month, or even half a year. 

When your progress levels off and your return on training investment diminishes, switch gears, pick a new topic, and repeat.

I’ve used this approach for about 80% of my training these last 30 years in the art. I’m not especially physically gifted, so most of my development can be credited to this approach. 

Some of my areas of » Continue Reading.

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On episode 421 of The Strenuous Life Podcast, I’m joined by three-time IBJJ World medallist James Deirmendjian and elite personal trainer to discuss optimal training methodologies and the science behind strength and conditioning for sport.

We cover hacks to improve recovery, debunk common myths in the Jiu-Jitsu community, and go deep into the need for a more scientific approach to training and nutrition.

You can check it out as Episode 421 of The Strenuous Life Podcast anywhere you get your podcasts, including

Apple Podcasts Spotify Overcast  Player FM Etc.

Or you can stream the audio on this site with this player:

Follow and/or get in touch with James on Instagram (@fight_fit_training)!

Other Resources BJJ Games

BJJ Games, the New Instructional featuring Rob Biernacki

If you want to delve deeper into training methods that maximize results and minimize injuries check out the ground-breaking BJJ Games instructional I did with Rob Biernacki.

BJJ for Old F***s

BJJ for Old ***s – The Guard Passing Game. The newest instructional by Rob Biernacki and Stephan Kesting, available in online and DVD formats here at Grapplearts.com

For more information about the specific techniques and strategies that allow older grapplers to hold their own against young punks check out the two BJJ for Old F***s instructionals.

Perseverance, Life and Death in the Subarctic

Please check out my book, Perseverance, Life and Death in the Subarctic. It’s packed with the resilience lessons I learned while doing a very difficult 42 day solo trip in the Subarctic after a kidney transplant. It’s available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Indigo, or your local bookstore!

Good luck with your training! Stephan Kesting

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