Submission Only

I believe in an omoplata in every household, and an armbar for every child!
Submission only tournaments are the way of the future. The clubs I belong to don’t train for points either, this is because it is empirical fact that jiu jitsu is about tenacious survival and sexy submissions, or get out!

The plastic surgeon has just chopped cartilage from my ear, and implanted some extra breasts, so I’m off the mats for a few weeks. Consequentially I have time and capacity to do other jiu jitsu things!
I put my hand up to help organise a Submission Only tournament for my mates and training partners at Lockdown MMA. The tournament ran this weekend and it was awesome like tonnes of broccoli.

We ran the competition in a round robin format. Round robin makes for a superior first competition too, no stress from complicated rules, and plenty of mat time. Where jiu jitsu tournaments are few and far between, it is important to maximise the competition exposure, round robin is crucial. Submission only creates dynamic matches and encourages grapplers to become better finishers. Double win!

Rules – Keeping it simple
Submission only ends the match
No time limits
No weight divisions
Two divisions, under 2 years and over 2 years grappling
No slams to escape submissions
No neck cranks
No twisting leg attacks (for under 2 years)
No finger or toebars
No gouging or rendering
If a match goes off the mat and the position is distinct, the same position is reset in the middle of the mat, otherwise fighters reset standing
If both players are stalling, the match is reset standing
Modified random round robin draw (draw administration is the trickiest part!)

Average match lengths
Keeping our 2 mats full at all times we ran for roughly 4 1/2 hours and had ~80 matches. Each match lasted on average 6 1/2 minutes, and we had a one monster match of probably 30 minutes and a couple for ~15 minutes.

Keeping the mats full
It took 3 people to operate 1 mat (we had 2 mats operational, so 6 people total):
Referee – Deals with starts, resets, warnings, DQs, announces the upcoming fighters, and the next fighters after that
Draw manager – knows who is fighting next, and records who just won
Mat manager – Gets the next fighters ready and on to the mats as soon as the last match has finished

Submission pornography
Submissions, in your face ears and nose! We started recording the submissions and made a nerdy tally:
19 armbars
11 triangles
7 arm triangles
7 guillotines
7 rear naked choke
6 figure fours
6 kimuras
4 footlocks
2 knee bars
2 achilles lock
1 north/south choke

Unsurprisingly armbars are the king of submissions and triangles a silly second.
More interestingly, triangles were far more common in the over 2 year division than the under 2 year division, otherwise the submission distribution was fairly similar between the two divisions.
Perhaps this provides a definition for the fabled ‘advanced technique’? That a technique is considered advanced when takes longer to learn but is high percentage once learned.

In ze future
It’ll be nice scaling this event up, we could certainly run a bigger competition with enough people running the mats. We could introduce weight clusters too (5 lightest fighters, next 5 lightest…) I’d also like to record better statistics such as individual match timings and position.

Locknrollout

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Getting Better At Jiu Jitsu

Your attributes
Are you flexible, heavy or quick? Study your physical attributes. Work with what you have to create a safety net. Then start developing your lesser attributes. Ultimately leave the safety of your physicality as soon as possible, relying on techniques over physical attributes. Technique multiplies your physical advantages.

Hunt out technique
Be technical, hunt out jiu jitsu that requires little energy and maximises leverage. Study smaller and weaker jiu jitsu players such as Caio Terra and Emily Kwok. If you like a particular movement, look for who else does it well. Look at what they do that is different.

Be analytical
Importantly, when something works, ask your self why? e.g. how has the fulcrum changed? What is going through my opponent’s head in this position? What options are left for my opponent? What other attacks are available?

Visualise the mechanics for a move with simply objects like seesaws, tables, balls, and cylinders. By abstracting your jiu jitsu in this way you will see similar patterns occurring all over your jiu jitsu, the principles that apply in one area of your game may well apply in another part. Mechanical principles I have learned from single leg take downs have improved my leg locks, and gripping techniques from the rubber guard have improved my Kimura.

Learn to wrestle
Start wrestling once or twice a week, this will give you options that most other grapplers can’t access. In some instances a wrestling option is superior to a jiu jitsu one. Wrestling will also improve your power and agility. With the means to take a person down proficiently and safely, wrestling will complete you as a grappler.

Drill to win
Find a drilling partner, and hunt out or create drills that have a small gap between each repetition, drill guard passes and transitions that you find pleasing and fun. Precede to drill the shit out of them. Your partner is active in these drills giving you increasing amounts of grief as you get better at the drill.

I drilled one pass with some team mates for at least 7 hours over 3 weeks, during rolling I’d try to use the pass as often as possible. I’m Jackie Chan at that guard pass now. As a bonus, hard drilling is easier on your body than rolling is.

You must roll
Roll as much as you can without beating yourself up. Roll with the entire spectrum of experience. On people you are better than practice flowing between submissions and positions, try getting in trouble and getting out. Force the lesser skilled opponent into positions that you are drilling, and try them out.

When sparring people you are on par with try to beat them, try to make your new techniques work.

With those who smash you, survive, work on your tenacity, make them work for everything and don’t let them break your spirit.

Attack
When sparring, attack and grind away, be stubborn. Put your opponent under continuous pressure. You are thinking that you will pass their guard at any moment, you will get the submission. Be the person you sets the pace. If they are getting tired, increase the pressure and break your opponent. Be dangerous, always seek out the nearest submission.

Ask for help
If you are asking for feedback, be specific e.g. why do you always sweep me this way? How can I pass your butterfly guard? You keep on escaping my armbar, help? Bob always gets blahplata on me every time, any ideas?

Lastly, remember that in jiu jitsu, much more than speed, power or flexibility, it’s your brain gets the most leverage.

The video above features Ricky ‘The Hybrid’ Lundell, he’s Americas youngest jiu jitsu black belt and the cerebral supercoach behind Frank Mir and Joe Lauzon. He is also a phenomenal wrestler, being selected by wrestling legend Cael Sanderson for the Iowa State University wrestling team.

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Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

This alliteration is catchy, and it’s practical advice for our BJJ.

Reduce a technique into broad concepts
Armbars are about bending elbows the wrong way. Chokes are about stopping blood to the head, or crushing windpipes. Sweeps are about making your opponents base narrow, and tipping them over it. By reducing individual techniques into broad targets, we make them easier to hit during sparring.

Reuse movements you are good at in unfamiliar contexts
I use my physical knowledge of omoplata in my hip roll escapes and tornado sweeps. For me it’s having an omoplata flash light in a dark room of bent limbs. The contrapositive is also valuable: By reusing contexts you are familiar with, while training unfamiliar techniques you will rapidly increase your learning. I blend my wrestling and jiu jitsu, and my ~2 hours of wrestling specific training per week is effectively doubled.

Recycle moves to multiply your attacks
By recycling my single leg takedown I now have a inside single, outside single and a double that I can switch between rapidly, they are all essentially the same move, from a different angle. Marcelo Garcia and Rigan Machado embody the same idea with their take-down systems too. By recycling my basic butterfly sweep, I have an inside hook sweep, and out side hook sweep and a de la riva hook sweep. The oblique benefit with recycling techniques is that if you get better at one of them, you’ll get better at all of them.

As if you needed an excuse to watch Marcelo, he embodies the 3-R’s brilliantly.

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The Perfect Arm Bar

Witness the complete control of Robert Drysdale

In the previous post, I spoke of slowing down your submission attempts to make them more potent. Robert exemplifies potent submissions with superior control.

Here is a perfect armbar

But what makes this armbar so fantastic? It’s the control.

The devil is in the detail

Instead of attempting the finish the armbar from underneath, Robert chooses to sweep Clay to his back first. From on top of Clay he avoids getting stacked. With the increased friction of the mat, it’s harder for Clay to wriggle away. On his back Clay can no longer stand up. Bearing Roberts weight, clay gets worn down.

Robert always maintains his right leg tight under Clays armpit which means Clay can’t shuck the right leg over his head for an escape. Robert keeps the right leg tight by pulling him self into the armpit with Clays arm.

Drysdale opts to use his left elbow to encircle Clays right elbow. With his more powerful right arm free he can either balance himself, strike, or most importantly underhook Clays right knee. By underhooking the Clays right knee he stops Clay from rolling to his knees, or away from Robert for a hitch hikers escape.

Finally Robert always attacks Clays grip at the hand itself, maximizing the leverage of the armbar and nullifying Clays ability to re-grip.

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Slow Down That Sub

If you practice a submission slowly, you will be able to perform it fast. It doesn’t go the other way.

By practicing your submissions slowly while you roll, you will surely prosper.

There are less injuries training will slow subs, because even if you are training hard because there is always time for the tap.

Without explosiveness as a crutch to lean on, you have to develop better control over your opponents. If you can’t execute a sub in super slow motion, you are not good enough at controlling your opponent.

Slower submissions give your opponent more time to escape so they can gain superior defense. Luckily your opponent is your training partner.

Now if you think about it, all aspect of Jiu Jitsu can be improved in similar way. It’s about relying more on the technique, and less on your attributes.

So go and pride yourself on how slow you can pull the trigger and still hit the target.

And for now just enjoy some Dysdale Vs. Marcelo action.

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Seminar Review: Rigan Machado

The Man

This is the third seminar I’ve had with red and black belt Rigan Machado. In his day Rigan was arguably the best grappler in the world, a superior competitor, not only in jiu jitsu but also wrestling, judo and sambo. Rigan is a lion, he’s both laid back and commanding. He has a no nonsense confidence that stems from knowing his stuff, inside out, and upside down.

The seminar was targeted for an advanced audience. With students from all over Australia and New Zealand in attendance. An even mix of blue, purple, brown and black belts. Everybody eager and craving potent Jiu Jitsu.

The Material

Rigans seminars are dense and structured, he covered several techniques, all around the D’arce choke and the open half guard.

D’arce

  • D’arce choke from side control bottom

  • D’arce as defense from single leg

  • D’arce from half guard

  • D’arce from side control top

  • D’arce from stubborn side control top

‘Z-Guard’ or Open half guard

  • A half guard roll over counter to whizzer

  • Deep half guard sweep with bridge

  • Arm drag

The Structure

Rigan demonstrates the techniques, breaking down the technique several times with simple english and a brazilian accent. He stops to point out finer points that he thinks we’ll miss. He talks us through the subtle adjustments he makes. I didn’t have any questions.

We then break up into pairings of people the same size (that most of us pre-organized amongst ourselves). One ‘group A’ and one ‘group B’ member in each team.

We drill out 20 odd receptions as group A while Rigan corrects any errors. If an error is common enough he stops the whole room and demonstrates the correct technique and we resume drilling. He calls switch and Group B gets the same treatment, rep’ing out another 20 or so.

After this stage Rigan breaks out a mildly stressful ‘quick drills’ session. We jog around the room and various speeds, when Rigan yells go, we grab the nearest person to us and we each perform the last learned technique. We do this eight times with various pencil necks and tree trunks.

We repeat this whole process with each new technique, these escalate in complexity but feel easier, each new technique leveraging knowledge from the last.

We are running out of time, the white belt seminar is about to start so we finish with a single ‘quick drills’, and cover every technique in the seminar.

Conclusion

The seminar was thorough, I now have a good understanding of where I went wrong with D’arce chokes in the past. The structure was great with no time for chitter chatter or boredom. The techniques were enjoyable, and the format is great. Clear and detailed instruction. Recommended.

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Become Immune to the Stall

The best way to win a Jiu Jitsu match is with a submission, period. The second best way is superiority over your opponent while seeking a submission. Honest and dynamic Jiu Jitsu is not about points or pins, it’s about catching your opponent in submissions.
Marcelo Garcia (AKA Jesus) and Jean Jacques (AKA Also Jesus) are prime examples of good open Jiu Jitsu, both competitors pushing for submission from everywhere. Be like these people.

Q. What gets in the way of being like a jesus?

A. The Stall.

During a competition, some Jiu Jitsoka will maintain a few reliable positions and stall after gaining an advantage.
These stallers clamp down on you and are afraid to seek any submission that might lose them a position, or risk your escape. They set out on this approach from the get go. They can and do often win this way.
Stalling is a poor mindset but even normally honest grapplers will revert to stalling in the last minute of a match if they are gassed.

Grappler stuck beneath north/south

Oli is stuck :(

It’s inevitable that your wondrous guard will get passed and that you will get swept. To be able to impose your game, you need to build a response to the most stall-able positions:

  • Under mount
  • Under north/south
  • Inside closed guard
  • Back mount
  • Opponent drops into your closed guard to immobilize your hips (a MMA/Wrestling habit)

Expose yourself and improve your immunity. The most obvious method to develop this skill is to start in these positions when you roll and when you restart in-between submissions.

Flexible grappler escapes north/south

Oli is un-stuck :)

Next time you hit the mat; roll onto your back, give up the mount, and offer up your back.

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Drill While Rolling

Long sessions of drilling are boring and can lack meaning, with your partner often half alive. This is probably why people don’t usually drill after class, they prefer to just roll. It’s a shame because drilling done properly is the fastest way to a sharp technique.

Let’s think about drilling in a way that makes it fun, and applicable.

Drill while rolling.

This idea of drilling while rolling works really well with techniques that can flow back to where they started. Omoplatas, armbars, knee ride transitions, catapult sweeps and many other techniques can be practiced this way.

With your less experienced players, don’t grapple to the submission, but drill techniques on them while rolling. If you have a new sweep you are working on; sweep them, roll to guard again, sweep, back to guard. Want ambidextrous submissions? See-saw your arm bars, let them defend, take their other arm, let them defend, take the other arm.

Eventually you will be able to drill these sorts of techniques on your peers while rolling, which is a great gauge of your progress.

This is making your rolling deliberate, by actively drilling while rolling you can quickly improve your timing and smoothness. This method has been key in my various grappling projects and has given me terrific results.

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Gold in Palmy and My Purple Belt

This is a rather proud post for me. I recently competed in a charity grappling event in Palmerston North. The event was huge for a Palmy comp with ~100 competitors. It was also unique in that it had both submission grappling (no-gi) and BJJ in one event. GSW managed a crew of 7 competitors and brought back 8 medals which is a fair haul. I was especially stoked that Kelvin and Rawiri turned up as support, even though they were not competing, a shame because they are deeeadly grapplers!
I scored 4 Golds on the day, and a mention in NZFighters :

Perhaps the award for ‘most resilient’, however, should go to GSW representative Patrick Te Tau, who was on and off the mat around four times in the space of twenty minutes at one stage. Te Tau’s seemingly effortless bottom game lulled numerous opponents into following him down into guard, and it proved costly for the majority. Te Tau ended up taking gold medals in four categories – advanced under-75kg in both gi and no-gi, novice under-75kg no-gi and the absolute no-gi category.

Most resilient, I sound like a weed. Whooop! Also, don’t tell anyone about that novice division ;)


4x Gold!

My best wind-chime impression. Thanks Carlos Augusto Patino Rojas for the picture.

Battle testing
Seven months ago I started looking at my BJJ differently, I was getting caught up in the win and decided that it wasn’t fun any more. This is when I started studying Jiu Jitsu depth first, taking my time to really make a techniques beautiful and see where they take me. I took ownership of them.
During the latest competition I battle tested a bulk of this work and won 10 Matches with 8 submissions! I’d say I nailed over 15 omoplata-to-whatever transitions. It has paid off!

Omoplata with a half lapel nelson for the finish


Purple belt
I was awarded my Purple belt the week following, an event catalysed by the competition. It feels pretty damn special. Much better than winning any competition. For the record it was exacty four year ago I started my BJJ journey, when I received this in my inbox:

Thanks for taking the time to register for the lessons through the
G.S.W. Martial Arts website. I’ve placed your name in our inquiries
book and your free classes are waiting for you!

Which is rather fortunate, because I was looking for a place to start kung fu…

Pretty farking stoked right now :)


A massive thank you to my sweaty GSW family, I don’t think there are any of you I don’t roll with. You are all tops. Thank you Geoff Grant for supplying us with the best tuition, connecting us with the best exponents (Rigan Machado, John Will, and Robert Drysdale), and most importantly the GSW atmosphere.

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Paying Off Your Jiu Jitsu Debt

I reckon we all want to get better at BJJ. You might want to be the Ultimate-Fighter-Of-The-Universe, or the Best-Guy-On-Mat-To-Roll-With. But essentially, when your jiu jitsu is getting better the more fun you have on the mat.

Woe is me
Unfortunately, getting better is full of ups and downs :( . Our expectations lead us to beat ourselves up. We over-try and over-train to try and meet our goals. This behaviour ends up getting the better of us, it’s called plateauing and it turns burly grapplers into depressed babies.

How your weaknesses on the mat are like debt?
Let’s think of getting better at jiu jitsu like paying off multiple debts, your debt is all the jiu jitsu that you are not good at yet. Because the positions and movements in our BJJ language can be strung together in an infinite number of ways, you have a very, very large debt. When you pay off a debt, you have more freedom and feel better. Just as learning an escape from mount gives you the freedom to lose position without the fear of getting stuck under mount.

A major cause of plateauing is not knowing how to reduce your BJJ debt.
The common advice in this situation is to pick your biggest weakness and work on it. I think this is generally poor advice. It is far too difficult mentally and physically to train this way all of the time. Following this advice compounds the stink feeling of not knowing what to improve with a giant dose of YOU SUCK AT NORTH SOUTH ESCAPES…

Chinese Steve Is The Debt Collector

Chinese Steve is the Debt-collector


A different approach to choosing what to learn
There is a better way to pay off debt called The Debt-snowball Method. To quote from wikipedia…

The debt-snowball method of debt repayment is a form of debt management that is most often applied to repaying revolving credit — such as credit cards. Under the method, extra cash is dedicated to paying debts with the smallest amount owed[...] The primary benefit of the smallest-balance plan is the psychological benefit of seeing results sooner.

Apply this to your jiu jitsu by choosing a fun and easy skill to work on (a small debt) the next time you decide what to work on. For example: Make your 3rd best sweep into your very best sweep, only finish with chokes from mount, or learn to Omoplata! Stick with it until you get bored, pick off another debt and let the good times roll.

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