Do you have these 24? If not get to work!

This was an awesome email by Stephan Kesting of beginningbjj.com that i wanted to share with you. It will help you a lot with your gameplan design, which if you are battling with, this will definately get you started!
Ive been doing Jiu-jitsu now for 12 years and I constantly realise more and more just how important the fundamentals are, and having a well rounded game before starting to specialise in any positions.
Enjoy this email and check out www.beginningbjj.com for some great resources from Mr.Kesting.


Early in your BJJ development you should be a generalist. This means developing basic skills in ALL areas of BJJ. (Eventually you'll probably specialize a little bit more, but that comes much later, usually around purple belt).

So for now you need to make sure that you're covering all your bases. You really don't want there to be severely underdeveloped areas of your game!

One way to figure out whether there are major holes in your game is to use a checklist like the one below.

Try ranking these positions in order of how much you know about them:

• Closed guard
• Open guard
• Half guard
• Side mount
• Knee mount
• Full mount
• Rear mount

This ordered list then becomes a handy tool to decide which techniques to practice, and what positions you should start your sparring in.

Remember, usually you make your fastest progress by working your weakest area!

Another, somewhat more analytical approach, is to subdivide these positions even further. Lets split each of the above positions into three technical areas:

1. Submissions from that position.
2. Transitions from the position to an even better position.
3. Escapes/guard passes if you're caught in that position.
   

When we take consider those three types of skills for each of the major positions, we end up with 24 skill sets:

1. Closed guard submissions
2. Closed guard passes
3. Closed guard sweeps
4. Open guard submissions
5. Open guard passes
6. Open guard sweeps
7. Half guard submissions
8. Half guard passes
9. Half guard sweeps
10. Side mount submissions
11. Side mount transitions
12. Side mount escapes
13. Knee mount submissions
14. Knee mount transitions
15. Knee mount escapes
16. Full mount submissions
17. Full mount transitions
18. Full mount escapes
19. Rear mount submissions
20. Rear mount transitions
21. Rear mount escapes
22. Turtle submissions
23. Turtle transitions
24. Turtle escapes

Now I don't normally assign homework, but I want you to try this. Go down that list again and figure out if you know at least two techniques for each area.

To be able to flow and spar and play and feel comfortable on the ground you need to have at least a few good options for each one of the above 24 areas.

This approach also helps you identify areas for improvement.

Hypothetically, let's say that you know 17 different sweeps from the open guard, but you're completely lost when you get stuck in the half guard.

Question for you: if that's the case, should you work on more open guard techniques, or spend some quality time on the half guard?

I bet you just answered the question yourself! Stephan Kesting
www.beginningBJJ.com