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

Stability Ball for BJJ-part 2

The original Physio Ball Master-Circus Charlie.

Here is part 2 of the physio ball instructional by Roberto.
Hope youve been working on the basics in part1 as this one builds on those basics moves.
The intro is great too where he reminds us that we are using the ball as an adjunct to our bjj training so not to get too carried away with the ball and learning tons of fancy tricks!
Enjoy and train hard!
Micah

Sorry for the gap in posts!

"When Science and Art
Embrace — looking at the stars,
Knowing God is real "

Laura Ann Atkinson
11.03 am
6th of July 2009

Have a great weekend,
Micah :-)

Courage

There are times that test our courage; the first time you stepped on the mat, your first competition.

There are times that test our character: accepting wins and losses with equal measures of humility and grace.

There are times that take all our courage and character.

the word Samurai, literally means "to serve." For over 500 years, the Samurai served as warrior knights for the nobility.

Over hundreds of years of battle, a code of honor was developed, called Bushido. "Bushi" for warrior, "do" for way. This way of the warrior centered on: courage, benevolence, and wisdom.

The Samurai believed knowledge must be assimilated in the mind and shown in the character – to know and to act are one and the same.

We should try to apply these principles of courage and character to our lives.

It will give you a new certainty and calmness of purpose. Train jiu-jitsu for you – for your love of the sport.

Not for gold medals, not for instructors’s approval - for you.

I know that sometimes you have to dig down deep to find your courage.

Because for an athlete, the very worst thing is to know that you gave it your all, and your all was not enough.

Facing down that fear of injury and fear of failure takes courage. And that kind of courage can take you a long way in life.

But practicing courage in the small moments, in everyday acts and decisions prepares you for the time that you will have to face down your fear.

We don’t normally think of the Samurai being afraid. But there were times when young knights would ride into battle, hearts pounding and knees trembling. And yet, they rode ahead with the brave ones. And as they fought in battle after battle, eventually their minds would settle and they would become strong, praiseworthy knights, not so different from those who were naturally brave.

And so it can be with you. Because courage is in each of you, in the strength of your character.

We are locked into battle together. Sometimes it feels like we are battling each other.

We draw up alliances with loyalties thicker than blood and we nurse old grudges with photographic memories.

But we are locked in battle together fighting apathy, obesity and drug use.

We are locked in battle together fighting for discipline, respect and tradition.

We have all been knocked down. It takes time to heal. But as an instructor told me long ago, there is a difference between pain and injury.

You must never tap out. You must get back up and keep fighting.

It will take courage.

But it is possible. And it is in you.

Have a great weekend.

Micah

Stability Ball for BJJ 1

Part 1 of an excellent series on using the physio ball for BJJ by Roberto Torralbas. He explains applications for the various exercises with a partner and breaks it down really well. (a common trait with Master Lloyd trained students)
Give this a try for a couple of minutes before or after your training this week and Ill get part 2 up next week.
Have a great Friday,
Micah

The Good Fight

This is a bit of a long read for a blog but a worthwhile one. I came across this in a passage by the author Paulo Coelho, I got a lot out of this. It may seem a bit preachy initialy but Jiu-jitsu is a great reflection of our lives and there are elements in both that reflect each other and I find myself learning so much about myself every time I step onto the mat.

"Men can never stop dreaming. Dreams are the food of the soul, just as food is to the body. In our existence we often see our dreams come undone, yet it is necessary to go on dreaming, otherwise our soul dies and Agape does not penetrate it. Agape is universal love, the love which is greater and more important than “liking” someone. In his famous sermon on dreams, Martin Luther King reminds us of the fact that Jesus asked us to love our enemies, not to like them. This greater love is what drives us to go on fighting in spite of everything, to keep faith and joy, and to fight the Good Fight.

The Good Fight is the one we wage because our heart asks for it. In heroic times, when the apostles went out into the world to preach the Gospel, or in the days of the knights errant, things were easier: there was a lot of territory to travel, and a lot of things to do. Nowadays, however, the world has changed and the Good Fight has been moved from the battle fields to within us.

The Good Fight is the one we wage on behalf of our dreams. When they explode in us with all their might – in our youth – we have a great deal of courage, but we still have not learned to fight. After much effort we eventually learn to fight, and then we no longer have the same courage to fight. This makes us turn against ourselves and we start fighting and becoming our own worst enemy. We say that our dreams were childish, difficult to make come true, or the fruit of our ignorance of the realities of life. We kill our dreams because we are afraid of fighting the Good Fight.

The first symptom that we are killing our dreams is lack of time. The busiest people I have known in my life had time for everything. Those who did nothing were always tired and could hardly cope with the little work they had to do, always complaining that the day was too short. In fact, they were afraid of fighting the Good Fight.

The second symptom of the death of our dreams are our certainties. Because we do not want to see life as a great adventure to be lived, we begin to feel that we are wise, fair and correct in what little we ask of our existence. We look beyond the walls of our day-to-day life and hear the noise of spears clashing, feel the smell of sweat and gun-powder, see the great defeats and the faces of warriors thirsty for victory. But we never perceive the joy, the immense joy in the heart of those who are fighting, because for them it does not matter who wins or loses, what matters only is to fight the Good Fight.

Finally, the third symptom of the death of our dreams is peace. Life becomes a Sunday afternoon, not asking too much of us and not asking more than what we want to give. So we feel that we are “mature”, leave aside the “fantasies of childhood” and guarantee our personal and professional success. We are surprised when someone our age says they still want this or that out of life. But deep in our heart we know that what has happened is that we gave up fighting for our dreams, fighting the Good Fight.

When we give up our dreams and find peace, we enjoy a period of tranquility. But our dead dreams begin to rot inside us and infest the whole atmosphere we live in. We start acting cruel towards those around us, and eventually begin to direct this cruelty towards ourselves. Sickness and psychoses appear. What we wanted to avoid in fighting – disappointment and defeat – becomes the only legacy of our cowardice. And one fine day the dead and rotten dreams make the air difficult to breathe and then we want to die, we want death to free us from our certainties, from our worries, and from that terrible Sunday-afternoon peace."

2009 is almost half way done already! To avoid all the above have a serious think about what you still want to achieve or do, on and off the mat and go for it!

Micah

Feeling Jiu-jitsu

"If you think, you are late. If you are late, you use strength. If you use strength, you tire. And if you tire, you die."
Saulo Ribeiro