Here's what BJJ will NOT do for you

 

It's always been my dream to open up my own gym.  I'm not in a position to do it just yet, but that doesn't stop me from researching, planning, dreaming, etc.  Every once in awhile I look at BJJ school websites to get an Idea what I want mine to look like someday.

Number one, some of the best gyms I've trained at have had the worst websites.  Barely more than some contact info and a little about the instructor.  The schedule pages were often outdated or broken.  Some websites don't even give you enough info to be able to find the gym.

Some of these guys are top notch instructors, but a lot of people out there will never know it because they take one look of the website and figure that a second rate website equals second rate instruction.

There are also plenty of professional looking websites out there put up by less than professional instructors.  You obviously can't judge an instructor by his website any more than you can judge  a book by it's cover.  That's why I always like to try out all the BJJ schools when I move to a new area before I decide where I want to train long term.

One of the things I've noticed with the snazzier looking websites out there is that they all tend to make similar claims as to the benefits of their particular school and/or martial art.  These claims include but are not limited to:

• Self Defense
• Health
• Fitness
• Weight Loss
• Strength
• Cardio
  
• Flexibility
  
• Self Confidence
• Self Respect
  
• Concentration
• Self Control
  
• Better Grades In School

In short, you will not only learn BJJ.  Their program will turn you into a Zen Buddhist master with a 4.0 GPA, and 6-pack abs while curing everything from baldness to cancer!

Unfortunately it's just not true.  I'm here to tell you that while I've met folks who've made incredible transformations after taking up Jiu Jitsu, I've also met some overweight, and/or out of shape BJJ black belts along the way as well.

Yes, BJJ can help you lose weight.  But it can't do it for you.  If beginning your Jiu Jitsu journey motivates you to make some tweaks to your dietary regimen, then you may find the numbers on your bathroom scale moving in the right direction.  But if you keep on eating Twinkies for breakfast, lunch, and dinner (and second dinner, and second lunch, etc.) then you're probably going to be disappointed.  They say you just can't out exercise a bad diet.  Turns out you can't out Jiu-Jitsu a bad diet either.

Same thing goes for just about every other benefit on that list.  There are folks out there that embody everything on that list, and they're awesome at Jiu Jitsu.  But correlation does not prove causation.  Again, consider the fat, out of shape black belt who will still mop the floor with you come sparring time.

BJJ training will not magically make you lose weight, gain muscle, develop six-pack abs.  It won't make you smarter, or focus or concentrate better per-se.

A BJJ school is a wonderful laboratory for working on those traits.  But you have to make a conscious effort.  It doesn't magically just happen because you come to class.  And any website or marketing that advertises otherwise is... well... quite frankly it's false advertising in my opinion.

If you're thinking about starting BJJ, don't do it for all of the supposed benefits you see on all of those websites out there.  Do it because BJJ is fun!  It's physical chess.  It's a way to test yourself against another human being.  It's a real life video game where brains really can defeat brawn.  Where leverage beats strength, timing beats speed, precision beats power, and hard work beats talent.  The more you play, the better you get.  You get good enough, and you can defeat giants!

If that sounds good to you, then play Jiu Jitsu for Jiu Jitsu's sake.  Maybe it'll motivate you to pick up some of those other benefits along the way.  Maybe it won't.  But I for one think it'll be worth it either way.  

Happy training!

Review: New Wave Jiu Jitsu: A New Philosophy Of Positional Escapes by John Danaher

 

I love my wife...  Let me say that again...  I LOVE my wife!

We just celebrated our anniversary.  16 years baby!  I still remember the first time I saw her.  It feels like it was just yesterday.  I lived on the second floor of an apartment building.  I happened to be looking out the window as she pulled up in her car.  She had one of those white lab coats on.  (She was going through the nursing program at the time.)  Her blonde hair reflecting the Florida sun made sort of a halo effect.  She literally looked like an angel... and then she smiled.  It was love at first sight.

But I digress.  The point is, my beautiful wife who must truly love me seeing as she's put up with my jiu jitsu obsession over the years, gave me John Danaher's new instructional as an anniversary present!  (Thank you Sweetheart!)  So I thought I'd review it here.

The new series is called New Wave Jiu Jitsu: A New Philosophy Of Positional Escapes.  The overall concept behind it is this.  Traditionally when we're trapped on the bottom of a pin, we're content to escape to a neutral position.  Think shrimp and recover guard.  

Danaher believes we can do better.  Instead of escaping to a neutral position, what if we could escape to a dominant position?  Or better yet, a position where we are threatening our opponent with a submission?

What if your opponent has worked hard to sweep you, get on top, pass your guard and mount you, only to end up on the receiving end of a leg entanglement with you threatening a leg lock?  Imagine doing all that work, winding up in what jiu jitsu law says is a dominant position, and getting not just bumped off, but submitted!

That is what Danaher aims to do with this set.  He lays out a game-plan to go from being pinned to being on the attack.  Then he gives you the specific techniques required to accomplish this from your usual pinning positions: mount, rear mount, side control, knee on belly, etc.

Like the rest of his instructionals, he starts out with theory.  He goes into his new philosophy of escapes, what the new game plan is and why.  I suppose you could skip it if you wanted to dive right into the actual techniques, but I've always found his thought process fascinating so I didn't.  There's some good info in there, and he demonstrates a fair bit of the system.  I feel like it primes your brain for what is to come.

The volumes that follow cover escapes from mount, rear mount, knee on belly, side control, turtle, and more.  As advertised, most of the escapes wind up with you in fine attacking position, usually attacking the legs Danaher Death Squad style! .  Others end attacking the arms or neck... but end attacking the legs when your opponent backs out in an attempt to defend their arms and/or neck.

If you already have his leg lock set, I feel like there's enough new material here to justify the purchase.  It is a bit pricey, but there always seems to be another BJJ Fanatics sale right around the corner.

I would say get this one if:

• You want to take your escapes to the next level
• You've been wanting to delve into leg locks, but hesitate to give up position to do so, or
• You're just a huge John Danaher fan.

Chains and Candy

One of my old instructors used to teach in chains.  For instance, he'd teach us the Upa Mount Escape which lands you on top in closed guard. We'd practice it for a few reps. Then he'd show us a guard pass. But we wouldn't just rep the guard pass. We'd do the mount escape followed by the guard pass so it flowed together like one big technique. Then he might add a transition to mount. Then a submission, say straight arm lock from the mount. Then the arm lock escape. These chains would be anywhere from 4 to 7 moves long depending on how quickly everyone was getting each move. 

I always enjoyed learning this way. It helped me see connections. It also helped me to establish an overall sense of flow, and get a better overall picture of the game as a whole. 

One day a buddy of mine (we'll call him Joe) made a comment to our instructor after class. Joe told our instructor he enjoyed the chains, but by the time he got home sometimes the only move he could remember was that first one in the sequence. 

Our instructor smiled. "That is okay Joseph. I will tell you a little secret. The first technique I show you is the only one I really want you learn." 

"But what about all of the other ones? Why would you show them to us if you didn't want us to learn them? I mean, isn't that just a big waste of time? Wouldn't it be better to just focus on the techniques you actually want us to learn?" 

"Ahh, yes. In Brazil it was not uncommon to practice a technique over 50 times. But nobody has the patience for that anymore. You see, if I asked you to drill the move even 20 times you might do it, but you would get bored. After a while, you might even quit my school and go train somewhere else." 

"So instead I have to trick you. I ask you to do the first move a few times. Then after I teach you the second move, you do the first one a few more times because they connect in a chain. Then a few more times with the third, and so on. If someone asks a question and I take a little time to answer it, maybe you get a few more repetitions on top of that."

"All the moves after the first one are like candy.   By the end of the lesson you don't even realize how many times you've practiced that first technique!  You've been so focused on the candy!  If all you remember when you get home is the first move, then I'm happy.  Eventually, when you see that lesson again you'll already know the first move, and maybe then you'll remember the second when you get home."

And he was right.  All the benefits of training those sequences were real.  But until he spelled it out for me, I never realized how many reps of that first technique I was getting in.  I was completely distracted by the candy!

Makes me wonder what other little psychological tricks were being played on me by my instructors over the years...

What's your favorite instructional technique?

Review: The Battle Tested Half Guard by Bernardo Faria

Back when I started training Jiu Jitsu in the late 1990's and early 2000's, everybody was playing closed guard. I was no exception. Most gyms (like many today) started on their knees, and since I wasn't a wrestler I'd just pull guard from the get go. 

It didn't take long before people got really good at stuffing that guard pull. Then any time I tried to pull guard, I'd end up in bottom side control. Which really sucked because I wasn't very good at escaping side control yet. 

While I couldn't pull guard anymore because people were too good at stopping it, I found I was able to pull half guard pretty easily. People didn't view half guard as an offensive position yet back then, at least not at our gym. It was also easy to get to from bad positions like bottom mount and side control.

At first all I could do with my half guard was stop the guard pass. But eventually (with the help of some books and instructional DVDs) I was able to off-balance my opponents, and even sweep once in awhile. While everyone else was playing closed guard, I was racking up hours spent in bottom half guard.

I got pretty good at half guard over the years. Eventually half guard became my go to guard, and a dangerous guard at that. It's a guard that is easy to pull, easy to recover, and easy to maintain

Then this deep half guard thing started becoming popular. I did some research on it and even picked up some DVDs on the subject, but nothing really clicked.  

Then I discovered Bernardo Faria's Battle Tested Half Guard instructional on BJJ Fanatics. My wife Robin got it for me some years back. It really is my favorite half guard instructional of all time. 

 

Let me start by saying what it is not. The Battle Tested Half Guard is not an exhaustive encyclopedia on all things half guard. Bernardo makes this clear up front. He's a big fan of specialization. The idea that you don't need to know every possible technique from every possible position. You just need to know a few techniques from any position you might find yourself in.

That's where this set really shines. Lots of folks these days film a collection of unrelated techniques, and slap a label on it with words like "system" or "blueprint" because they know it'll get people to buy it. Bernardo doesn't do that.

You can't tell from the title, but this is Bernardo Faria's complete half guard system.  And it's a complete system that you can use. Work through the modules. Memorize the techniques. Practice them on a partner. And you will have a fully functional guard that will give the toughest opponents all kinds of wonderful problems. 

He doesn't give you every technique ever invented for half guard. But rather gives you a handfull of techniques from a handfull of half guard positions that all work together like a well oiled machine. He essentially answers every possible what-if-my-opponent-does-this type question within the system.

I love instructional products like this because provided you take the time to memorize and practice the moves, you can snap an entire system onto your existing game in a relatively short period of time.

I watched the DVDs over a weekend and was able to implement the system on Monday. Was I perfect? No. But I was able to sweep most people. And the ones who gave me a harder time? I was able to go back to the DVDs that night and find answers to the problems they were giving me. The next day I was able to sweep the more difficult guys too.

The crux of Bernardo's system revolves around deep half guard and what he calls single leg half guard. He shows you how to get there, what to do from each one of those positions, and how to go back and forth between the two. He shows you what your opponents are going to try to do to beat your half guard, and how to counter each one of those techniques. 

He also has an entire volume full of him sparring from the half guard position. It's narrated by the man himself. So not only do you get to see all of the techniques in action, but you get a glimpse into his thought process. It's also interesting to note that he uses no techniques during the sparring matches that aren't covered in the earlier volumes. It really is everything you need to be successful from half guard.

Once you've digested Bernardo's instruction, it's like you're a mind reader. You know what your opponent is going to try before he trys it. And when he does, you know exactly how to counter it. If you're a blue belt, and you internalize this stuff, you won't make you a black belt in BJJ. But it will make you a feel like a black belt when someone is in your half guard.

Another thing I like about Bernardo's style is you don't have to move like a Marcelo Garcia or anything to pull it off. Bernardo says his style is really good for older guys and I agree. You can be really clunky with it, and it just works. You really don't have to be fast, or strong, or graceful. It's just really simple Jiu-Jitsu that works really well. 

If you've ever been interested in developing a half guard game and didn't know where to look, do yourself a favor. Head on over to BJJ Fanatics and pick up The Battle Tested Half Guard by Bernardo Faria today. It just might make the half guard your new favorite position!

How To Inspire Fear With Your Butt-Scooting!

We don't say bitch or bitches in our household anymore.  It's been replaced with fish or fishes.  

You see, a few years ago we were playing cards. Offering up a fair bit of smack talk.  And our youngest apparently had a pretty good hand. Her brother said something mouthy to her which I can't recall. But then she slammed down her winning hand with authority, looked him dead in the eye and said, "Well drop you... Fish!" (Complete with head jiggle of course.) It was so darn cute that it stuck, and we've been repeating the phrase ever since. 

We're also big fans of  the phrase, "Suck it, Fishes!" The phrase, "Suck it!" of course comes from our favorite family TV show. If you're a fan, I don't need to explain the connection. If not, you probably wouldn't understand.

Connection

Speaking of connections, we went over establishing connection during class tonight. Why the heck would you waste time on that, you might ask. All you've got to do is just reach out and grab the other guy, right? Well, it's not quite that simple.

Have you ever played the old king-of-the-hill style pass or sweep game? One guy sits in the middle of the mat, plays guard and tries to sweep. He's the king of the hill (or the bull in the ring... I've heard it both ways). Everyone else takes turns trying to pass his guard. If the king of the hill gets the sweep he stays in the center and remains king of the hill. If the passer passes, then he becomes the new sweeper (aka king of the hill) and the old sweeper is out.  

Most folks will try to pass standing. This makes sense because it makes you more maneuverable. Standing passes also have a better track record in competition.

Generally speaking, you'll find it's easier to pass and become king of the hill than it is to sweep and remain king of the hill. Part of this is because you get tired after awhile. But the other part is it's generally easier to pass than it is to sweep. This is why we always want to be the guy on top. It's also why we work so much on our sweeps... you know... so we can become the guy on top.

We teach and practice guard passing techniques all the time. We also teach and practice sweeps all the time. But we rarely go over techniques to establish a guard while butt-scooting versus a standing opponent. It's just not that sexy I guess.

The key to butt-scooting offense

Anyhow, the key to remaining king of the hill in this case is to get good at establishing meaningful connections.  No, I'm not talking about networking and relationships.  I'm talking about physical connections. (Get your mind out of the gutter!)

But seriously, connections are key. Whoever establishes useful connections while denying their opponent any useful connections generally wins the exchange. 

Well that sounds well and good, but how do we use that? Here are three things you can go for when you're the butt-scooting king of the hill.

1. A collar grip (I prefer the cross collar)
2. A sleeve grip
3. A grip on the leg

Generally speaking, at least one of these will be open for the taking... unless of course your opponent is running away from you... because they know you're a butt-scooting badass.

The Collar

Say you get good at establishing the cross collar grip. From there you execute a collar drag and take the back or wind up on top of side control. You run that play successfully for awhile, but eventually folks in your gym catch on and start protecting their collar. What to do?

The Sleeve

Well, what are they protecting their collar with? Let's say for the sake of our thought experiment that they protect their collar with their hands. Then you go ahead and grab one of their sleeves. 

Once you control one sleeve, you can extend you leg on that side without worrying about it getting stuffed. You can put your foot in his hip, or establish a De La Riva hook, or a lasso on that side. 

If he grabs your other leg with his free hand, you grab that sleeve with your free hand and kick to pop that grip off. Voilla! You've established two grips on him. He has no grips on you, And from there you can transition to pretty much whatever guard you want.

You run play number two successfully for awhile as well. But eventually folks catch onto that one too. So now they keep their collar and sleeves away from you by standing upright. What to do?

The Leg

Now his ankle is literally ripe for the picking. You grab the ankle with one hand, push into the hip with the other, and get on top once he topples over. 

Of course if you're a leg locker or an X-guard player, there are some great ways to get to the X or Single-Leg X from leg grips as well. But those are a little more difficult to describe so maybe we'll save that one for another post.

Conclusion

So there you have it. Three targets. Collar, sleeve, and leg. 

Once I started using this game plan, my sweeping percentages went way up in pass or sweep games where you start without any connection. 

Put a little time in with this concept yourself, and it won't be long before your training partners will be very wary of engaging your seated guard. The you too can say, "Fear my butt-scoot, Fishes!"

 

Happy training!

- Big Mike

How to get the most out of a private lesson

I had my private Zoom lesson with Dax yesterday. First of all, it was nice to see some of the old gang. He had a couple of guys there to help out. One to be his practice dummy and another to hold the camera. 

Any time you train with Dax you can expect to have your mind blown, and this was no exception.  He went over 18+ techniques near as I can count.  At least a dozen of them were specifically geared toward what he saw on the videos of me sparring. The rest were based on questions that came up over the course of the lesson.

Some of the techniques were things I know I've seen Dax teach in class before, but had forgotten about.  Some I just wasn't ready to pick up the first time around but this time they just clicked into place. Others were completely new. All of them were directly applicable to my game at this point in time.

That's the great thing about private lessons. It's Jiu Jitsu custom designed for you at your particular point on your Jiu Jitsu journey. They're pricey, but so worth it if you can afford them. There's no better way to accelerate your progress.

How do you know you're ready for private lessons?

Some folks say that private lessons really aren't worth it until you reach a certain level. They feel that you have to have a basic understanding of the fundamentals, and some experience applying those fundamentals in sparring before you can fully appreciate the value communicated through private lessons.

Try telling that to the Gracie family. In the original Gracie Academy in Rio de Janeiro in the 1950s, they only taught private lessons for a period of time. A student would come in, there were several instructors, and they only taught private classes. They did this because the order in which you learn techniques can greatly affect how long it takes you to master the art. A student was permitted to join group classes only after they had a firm grasp of the fundamentals. 

They only switched to an all group classes model when they had gained so many students that it was no longer practical to teach them all via private lessons.

Rener Gracie says that, if he could choose the journey for a newer student today, private classes would give them the most amount of comprehension and the greatest understanding of the art in the least amount of time possible.

So the bottom line here is that if you train Jiu Jitsu at any level, you're ready for private lessons.

How do you prepare for a private lesson?

Your instructor will probably ask you what you want to work on.  You should probably have an answer ready for him. You could begin with whatever questions pop into your head, but consider this... What position do you find yourself in the most?  

• On the Back trying to Submit
• Top Mount trying to take the Back or Submit 
• Top Side Control trying to Mount or Submit
• Top Guard trying to Pass
• Bottom Guard trying to Sweep
• Pinned trying to Escape

This is a simplified list of positions, but it'll work for our purposes.  If you're a newbie, you probably don't find yourself mounted on top of your opponents very often.  You probably find yourself pinned good amount of the time.  It doesn't really do you any good to focus on guard passes at this point if you can't even escape a pin, right? The basic idea is this, wherever you find yourself the most during sparring, that's probably what you need to be working on.

When your instructor asks you what you want to work on, you tell him that you find yourself on the bottom of side control more often than not, and just can't seem to escape. Or maybe your escapes and sweeps are fine, but you just can't seem to pass the guard. You get the idea.

Another thing you can do is record footage of you rolling, and send it to your instructor a week in advance. Thanks to this little strategy Dax was able to analyze my game and come ready with some things to work on. This is so much easier to do than it was 20 years ago. If you're reading this blog, chances are you have a cell phone with a camera on it. Just bite the bullet and ask a buddy to record a few of your rolls. 

But wait a minute Big Mike! My instructor watches me every day in class. Shouldn't he already know what I need to work on? Having taught classes for a little while now I've gotta say it's tough to watch all the sparring matches going on at the same time. And that's if I'm not rolling that day for some reason. I've had students come up to me after busy class, ask me how I thought they were doing, and I couldn't even remember who they rolled with. That's why I try to get around to rolling with everyone. But it takes awhile. Your instructor just can't roll with everyone every class. So giving him some tape to watch goes a long way.

Now that I think of it, even if your instructor rolls with you, he can't read your mind. If you're technologically savvy you could narrate the footage of you rolling, explaining to your instructor just what you were thinking at each point during roll. You can point out the mistakes that you notice, what moves you are going for and why so that he has a better idea of which holes in your game are systemic, and which are just brain farts. This can only make your session more productive.

What to do during your lesson

Take notes.  There's nothing worse than paying for an hour of private, personalized instruction, only to forget all of the techniques the day after.

Don't be afraid to drive the lesson to some extent. If you need to see a technique second, third time, don't be afraid to ask. 

If your brain is getting full ask to stop and review what you've learned. I had to do that yesterday myself. After 40 minutes, I was afraid that if I learned one more technique, one of the others was going to fall out of my left ear hole!  So I asked if I could just run through the ones we'd went over so far.  

You could ask to record the session. Your instructor may or may not go for the idea. Not everybody's okay with seeing themselves all over the internet. If your instructor values his privacy, no big deal.  But if he says yes, a video is worth a thousand notes! Just don't be a douchebag and post it on the internet afterwards. At least not without your instructor's permission. You paid for that instruction and the video. The rest of the internet didn't.  

What to do after your lesson

Review your notes. Go through the notes you jotted down during your lesson. This will help keep you from forgetting what you went over.

Add to your notes. If you're like me, you write everything down during a lesson. There's just not enough time. So you write down just enough to remind yourself what you went over. After the lesson go back and fill in the blanks. Add in as many details as you can remember.

Make a clean list of all the techniques you went over. If they have names, use the names your instructor uses. If they don't, make up your own names for them.  

Make flashcards. Write down the name of a technique on a flashcard.  On the other side write down the individual steps of that technique. For example:

Upa Mount Escape

1. Trap the arm
2. Trap the leg
3. Bridge and roll
4. Base and posture

Chair fly all of those techniques at least three times each. In other words, sit down in your favorite, comfy chair, close your eyes, and imagine yourself performing the technique by the numbers. If you get confused or miss a step, check the procedure on the back of your flash card.

Once you get the hang of this, you should be able to go through 10 techniques 3 times each in about 10 minutes. Do this every day for the next 2 weeks and it'll hard-wire them into your brain. After about two weeks you'll have these down. If you haven't been hitting them while rolling in your group classes by that point, you will be soon!

Conclusion

So there you have it.  Big Mike's little guide for getting the most out of your next private lesson. When you feel like you're in a good position to do so, talk to your instructor and schedule that private lesson. I think you'll be glad you did.

Dax Razzano

I've got a private lesson scheduled tomorrow with my old instructor, Dax Razzano.  He's out in Bloomington, Indiana so we're going to do it over Zoom.  Isn't technology amazing by the way?  That would've been pure science fiction back when I was a kid. But I digress.

I'm really excited about my lesson with Dax. I've been moving around every 2-3 years for my entire jiu jitsu career, and never really thought about going back to train with, much less get promoted by one of my old instructors. One gym was just as good as another to me, and home has always been where you hang your hat. But I've been a purple belt for awhile now.  I'm getting that itch to bump it up to the next level. I thought about going up the road to one of the bigger cities and training under one of their black belts. I was talking to Robin about it (my beautiful wife), and she asked me, "If had your choice... If you could get promoted by anyone you wanted, who would it be?"

And that gave me total clarity on the matter. I didn't have to think. It had to be Dax.

 

I've been doing this a long time. Over 20 years. I'm no slouch at this. I'm a big guy. And Dax is little compared to me.  I outweigh him by 80 pounds. And with all that said, he threw me around like a rag doll when I got to Bloomington. Literally. There's still a hole in the wall at Razzano Academy from where he threw me into it! (Don't worry. It was drywall. It didn't hurt, but I did feel bad about the hole I made.)

Dax is a big fan of arm locks, which is perfect for me right now since I'm still on that arm locks only experiment for a little while. Dax just seems to catch arm locks from everywhere. He even catches them from butterfly guard. I know.  I've seen techniques in books and video instructionals where guys catch arm locks from butterfly guard before. But Dax is really the first guy I've rolled with who actually catches them in practice on a regular basis. You really have to watch your arms when you roll with Dax.  

He also has this unique blend of Wrestling, Judo, and Jiu Jitsu that I've yet to encounter anywhere else. He likes to say that any one of those three doesn't make any sense without the other two. And the way he blends those three together is just this beautiful, terrifying thing to behold. It's like watching deadly grappling voodo/black magic!

I recorded some of my rolling sessions on video before my surgery and sent them to him so that he could get a sense of where I'm at.  It's been about a year and a half since I was in Bloomington. He said he thought I looked really good, but that there were a few places where I had some attacks available from mount but just didn't seem to capitalize. I feel like this is where a good coach can really help your game. Can't wait to see what he's got in store for me! 

By the way, if you ever find yourself in Bloomington do yourself a favor, drop by Razzano Academy for a training session, and tell him Big Mike sent you. It's a great place to train, and I promise you won't regret it. While you're at it, you can ask him to show you the hole in the wall. It's still there.  

Happy Training!

- Big Mike