Thursday (03/29) No-Gi Class Guillotine Sweeps

Guillotine + Sweep, get it?? Never mind. Since we worked the guillotine on Tuesday I thought it important to follow up with a few techniques if your having trouble finishing your guillotine. Remember, it's not just a submission it's at dynamic position. (That was very Stephan Kesting wasn't it)

First lets take a look at a sweep you can easily execute if your opponent is trying to use stack pressure to defend the guillotine. I know the video shows the sweep from standing but don't discount this technique from the knees as well you just need to hip out to create a little space to circle the foor inside.

One of the things I noticed early on when trying to execute this technique was the placement of your lifting hook and the outside leg are very important. Make sure your outside leg is pushing straight out to break the posture and ensure your pass. If you are having trouble remember that you should be aiming the leg right in the middle of your opponents quad in between the knee and hip. Also make sure that you put your lifting hook near the same position on the inside of the leg. Finally, when you come up on top your arm should still be in a great position to finish the mounted guillotine. If you lose the submission in the roll just ensure you secure the position and prevent the reversal.

Now lets take a look at a little different technique from the butterfly guard. Last night guys seemed to have a little less trouble executing this technique especially after I went through it by the numbers. Let's look at the video first.

So this is a second super easy technique if you are going for the guillotine and you opponent drives in on you. I noticed that it works exceptionally well when you have the arm-in guillotine set up. Remember to take your opponent to the corner and that when going for the sweep to fall towards the head onto your shoulder not flat to your back. The guillotine should still be your main focus so if your opponent resists the sweep you are still in a great position to finish the submission.

Finally I worked a series chaining the sweeps together. I started with the set up from butterfly guard and attempted to work the sweep to mount. When my opponent  pressured in and tried to prevent the sweep I circled one leg out and executed the first sweep or finished the submission. When rolling I was able to finish either the sweep or submission just about every time I was in position. There were a few things I found drastically increased my success rate.

1. Set up the guillotine-with either technique you will need to set up the guillotine with every intention of finishing. This means grabbing the chin and putting the shoulder high on the head. 
2. Create space & angles-when attempting the first sweep make sure you are creating enough space for yourself to circle a leg in to get the lifting hook. On the second make sure you are taking your opponent to the angle to get them off balance.
3. Fall to the shoulder-going to your back makes it easy to defend and puts you in a bad spot to finish the submission.
4. Plan for more than one reaction-always be prepared to turn for the submission, switch your sweep, or just attempt the same sweep a second time. Your effectiveness on the first attempt may have a lot to do with your opponents reaction, after that it is just a matter of how fast you can counter and attack.

As always if there are questions or clarifications please leave them in the comments section and don't forget to follow me on Twitter and Like me on Facebook. Also for my technique blogs I'm putting together YouTube playlists for the impatient or literacy challenged. Check them out at Thejonesjiujitsu channel on YouTube. I'll see you on the mats.

Thursday (03/27) No-Gi Class Guilotine Submissions

In a previous class I covered using the modified guillotine to get a little more submission bang for your squeeze buck. (See what I did there?) Anyway, I have noticed that there are quite a few of you out there that are still afraid to throw the guillotine on and work for the submission. So, here is a little update for you. I've got arm in, arm out, half guard, full guard, and a special bonus technique qued  up and ready to go.

Lets start with your basic arm in and arm out goose neck guillotines as shown by Eric Schaffer. It's a bit of a long video but it's fantastic with the detail. You will notice that this guillotine is a little bit of a departure from the old school guillotine in that your are not driving the forearm under the head all the way to ensure that you can get your squeeze as tight as possible. Instead, he is cupping the chin and turning the head towards his body. Also when he goes for his finish he is really hipping out to the side in his half guard. This is going to be very important for those trying to finish the guillotine with the arm in or while your opponent is reaching high over the shoulder to defend.  

Now that we have the finer points of the set up and finish down lets take a look at a little different set up with Marcello Garcia. The guillotine starts right at the 1:40 mark, don't worry about the sweep in the beginning (but extra credit for anyone that can pull this off tonight).

The same concepts he shows from the butterfly can be applied to the full guard guillotine. The main points I took away from this set up were ensuring that you get your opponent down by the hips breaking the posture and then slipping the hand under the chin. I also love the tip about raising the elbow to ensure that he doesn't force your back down and block the guillotine. 

As always there are a few keys you can use to make your guillotine a much higher percentage move: 

1. Break your opponents posture-whether through a shot, pulling them into closed guard, or using your butter fly hooks. Your opponent should be positioned below your waist with your hips giving you a pivot point.
2. Secure the chin-turn the chin towards your rib cage to exposing the broad side of the neck for you to attack.
3. Crunch in-make sure that you crunch in instead of pulling straight back to secure your finish.

Bonus: We may not have time for this one tonight but what the hell lets take a look anywho. A little variation on the guillotine, a guillotine to sweep to mount. Be sure to watch a couple of times because I know I was distracted by Ricardo Almeda's New Yorker/Brazilian accent the first few times I heard it. Not to mention that he goes through the technique very quickly.

  

Be sure that you first get the iron hook on one arm and control the head. Second you need to make the kick out to get the angle for the sweep. Finally roll back and elevate your hook to finish the sweep. I'm not going to worry about covering the mounted guillotine now, I'll be happy to see some of you guys rip these off to get sweep and mount points.

As always if there are questions or clarifications please leave them in the comments section and don't forget to follow me on Twitter and Like me on Facebook. Also for my technique blogs I'm putting together YouTube playlists when possible. Check them out at Thejonesjiujitsu channel on YouTube. I'll see you on the mats.

Thursday (03/22) No-Gi Class Guard Sweep to Gift Wrap with Submissions

As you may have guessed from the graphic we went over the flower/waiter/easy sweep last night. This yet another example of everything that's old in jiu-jitsu being new again. Three names for the same sweep. We also went over using the arm that is trapped in the sweep to attack with submissions from the the "gift wrap" position. So to get us started I have a video of the basic sweep to gift wrap.

This is a very basic sweep that most people who have been training for a little while should have some experience with. There are a few keys that I like to emphasize to make your odds of success increase with this technique. 

1. You must break the posture-From your guard you should always be breaking your opponents posture and trying to force his arm across the body.
2. Shift the hip to the open side-If you are not threatening the back you wont be able to get the reaction you need from your opponent. Always hip out and at least make a grab for the back to get your opponent to push back in.
3. Side crunch to grab the leg-When going for your under hook on the leg you need to grab deep and bring the knee to your ear. 
4. Twist the hips-Remember to imagine bringing the nearside knee up into the arm pit while using the outside leg to chop your opponents base out.
5. Keep the arm secured-If the arm comes back across the body your opponent may base out and block your sweep. Also if the arm doesn't stay pinched to the chest you will lose the gift wrap and have to reset once you get to mount to start your offense. 

So now that we have our sweep with the arm trapped we can move on to our attacks. As you saw in the first video taking the back from the gift wrap position is as easy as pulling down on the arm across the face to turn your opponent onto his side and pulling him into your back control.  This is first attack we showed.

Second you can take the armbar from the gift wrap.

Pay close attention to the beginning of the video as after the transition he goes more into finishing the armbar than the set up. Just remember to the shin tight into the arm pit and keep the head pinned to the ground on your switch to the armbar. The leg across the chest is only necessary if your opponent is trying to roll out of your armbar. If your set up was tight the shin in the armpit should be sufficient to get the finish.

Third, the gift wrap is and excellent set up for a head and arm triangle.

He doesn't explicitly start in the gift wrap but it is a very easy transition from the gift wrap to the head and arm triangle. Just remember that when applying pressure for the finish you are bringing the forearm and shoulder together not squeezing the elbows together like you finish a rear naked choke.

Finally we have the kimura from gift wrap. I have covered the kimura and kimura to armbar in previous posts so please check those out if you need a little refresher. I couldn't find a good video of the switch from gift wrap to kimura and I am too lazy to make one (this should be incentive for more of you to make it into no-gi classes) so here is another video on the kimura and kimura to armbar transition. 

Again you are going to keep you gift wrap up into the mount, get your wrist control and reposition so you are sitting on your opponents ear and work for your finish.

Remember the sweep and transition is the key. If you cant secure the mount with the gift wrap position you are not going to be able to lock down any of these submissions. As I always say the submission is completed in the set up not the finish.

As always if there are questions or clarifications please leave them in the comments section and don't forget to follow me on Twitter and Like me on Facebook. I'll see you on the mats.

A Game Of Millimeters

If you can't identify the two men in the picture above I don't know that we can be friends anymore. Anywho on to more relevant conversation, anyone who has rolled with me or been in a class I have taught knows I like to harp on the fact that jiu-jitsu is a game of millimeters. The margins between performing a successful technique and totally blowing it are razor thin. Often the difference between success and failure comes down to position and timing. With such thin margins there are a few factors you can employ to help ensure that you are attempting quality techniques at the right time. The right tool for the right task as my Pappy would say. (I don't have a Pappy nor would he say that.)

Gunnar Nelson vs. Jeff Monson image via nelson.is

One of the techniques I us is to think of submissions and transitions like counting cards. For those with no idea how card counting works, basically it is the practice of remembering what cards have been dealt from the deck and using this information to determine if you have a favorable chance of winning a given hand. It’s not a one shot way to win every time but it is a system that over time gives you an advantage over the house. In grappling you have to remember your opponent’s reactions to your techniques and counter those accordingly. One technique I have been having a ton of success recently is a kimura to straight armbar submission series. This all comes off of testing my opponent’s reactions to me trying to finish the kimura from north south or side control. If I get into position for my kimura and my opponent protects by moving his hand to his chest or leg I have multiple options. If he keeps the arm pinned to his side I know the odds of a kimura or armbar are low and I need to change strategy. If I can pull the elbow away from the body I know that my odds of finishing an arm based submission increase drastically. As soon as the elbow comes away from the body more than once I start working my kimura and armbar variations galore. The success of these techniques is determined largely by determining if I have a favorable set up for the technique.

Image via manbeater.wordpress.com

This brings me to the second aspect of any jiu-jitsu technique, the set up. I’m sure every grappler has had the experience of attempting to catch an opponent in a guillotine and losing it. You feel the excitement as your opponents head slips into the pocket and you know you have the kill shot as soon as you can clamp down on that neck. You synch it up under the chin and go for broke trying to separate his head from his body. But, alas something is so very wrong, he doesn’t tap. You decide the best course of action is to give it the old squeeze treatment. All you have to do apply enough pressure, but he still isn’t tapping. Finally with limp forearms and spent biceps you feel his head pop out and now he is trying to pass your guard. All you can think is what happened? How did he get out of that? My squeeze is impregnable! The answer to these questions more often than not is that the submission was blown before you started.

With chokes, armbars, or any other submission your number one concern should always be your position. One thing Coach Foster has always stressed to me is submission through position. You can not submit an opponent if you do not establish the appropriate body position before hand. Whether it’s getting the forearm under the chin on a guillotine or making sure your hips are tight to the shoulder on an armbar moving to the finish position without establishing these basic steps along the way will cause you to lose the submission. In my grappling I have taken the approach that submissions are finished in the setup. This has caused me to abandon submissions far more often than I execute them but it has also allowed me to retain dominate positions longer and my finish percentage is much better than my old machine gun style of throwing submission after submission hoping something would stick.

Image via graciejiujitsufabioleopoldonews.com

There are very few absolutes in grappling, anytime we try to establish hard and fast rules about body positioning or technique the next great black belt comes along with a style that flies in the face of convention.  I guarantee that one thing will always be true, in a sport that is determined by subtle measures of dominance, the athlete with better fundamentals and a better vision of the match will prevail. When transitioning, attacking, or escaping the athlete that goes through the proper steps to execute a technique without getting in a hurry or trying to skip to the end will win the match.

As always if there are questions or clarifications please leave them in the comments section and don't forget to follow me on Twitter and Like me on Facebook. Good luck and hopfully I'll see you on the mat.

Water Around The Rock

Well it's been a week since I posted anything so to keep this thing active I suppose I need to write something. My personal health issues aside I have been busy at work and keeping up my active training schedule of jiu-jitsu five days a week while attempting to be some sort of decent father/husband. Needless to say things have been a little busy as of late. But this is no reason to neglect you dear reader, so without further ado, my personal musings from the past week.

I have been spending a ton of time working with the guys at T-Town MMA getting ready for the upcoming Revolution Tournament coming up on the 17th of this month (more information on the tournament here). Somehow, I seem to have become the de facto warm up guy at the gym. In classes I either teach or am participating in I end up running the warm ups. Anyone that trained at Fosters back in the karate school days will remember that Jeff B used to own this position. Jeff would put you through some of the toughest workouts I can think of. On more than one occasion I was sent flying towards the trash can at the edge of the mat trying to keep as much of my lunch inside as possible. Ahh the good old days...but I digress. I don't mind running warm-ups at all, I feel like any experience I can get running a class at this point is a good thing. I have been using this time to both help guys develop a basic level of conditioning as well as get their muscles a little fatigued prior to drilling and rolling. The feeling of having to rely on technique instead of brute strength to execute moves is vital when going into competition.

The calm before the storm

The other coaches and I have been warning the guys constantly that they are going to feel an adrenalin dump and to be prepared to have rubber arms 30 seconds in to their first match. It happens to all but the most seasoned competitors. The stress of not wanting to go out and get rolled up and smashed on in front of all your family, friends, and coaches forces new competitors into a fight or flight reflex. To assert themselves in a match lots of grapplers try to prove they are stronger and can out muscle their opponent or they decide to sit back and only worry about countering what their opponent attempts to do. Both of the strategies are wrong for so many reasons, one your wasting lots of energy tensing muscles when you decide to have a battle of strength with your opponent. Two, you can lose focus on being mobile and ready to attack by trying to force a technique and then it becomes a total battle of strength.Finally if you constantly concerned with what your opponent is opponent is attempting to do you are not focusing on the things you need to do to win.

Mid-White Belt Melee

The advice I have given all the guys over the past couple weeks has been to trust your training. Being a veteran I understand what it is like to be tested at the highest levels. I also know that when you are truly being tested the one thing that will stay with you is the muscle memory and  the things you have drilled over and over in training. Certainly competition grappling is a less extreme example of combat but the same fundamentals apply. In jiu-jitsu as in war you have to be adaptable, aware of your enemies actions, and willing to take all necessary steps to win.One of the most common sayings in bjj is "you must be water around the rock". It's simple beautiful and completely true. Water is mailable, water will take up any space large enough for a single molecule to pass through, and it moves around obstacles with ease. Water is also unrelenting it's nearly impossible to dam its flow, it is heavy to carry, and in sufficient quantities it is deadly. This is the advice I give to all new competitors be water around the rock and trust your training. How very master Yoda of me!

As always if there are questions or clarifications please leave them in the comments section and don't forget to follow me on Twitter and Like me on Facebook. Good luck and hopfully I'll see you on the mat.

Tuesday (02/28) No-Gi Class Mounted Armbars

One of my favorite techniques is the armbar from mount. It's a great technique for a couple of reasons. One is that I love the mount, no matter how you get there you always get points for it and it's a position you can use to rest. Two, once your in mount the only thing your opponent can do is try to escape. No jiu-jitsu players are ever comfortable being mounted. This discomfort can lead to lots of mistakes that you can capitalize on. The mounted armbar is a quick and easy high percentage way to end a match, as long as it is executed correctly. We will start with a video of the basic armbar from the mount.

So this video does a good job of highlighting some of the basic tenants of the mounted armbar. You need to get into a high mount position with your knees under the arm pits to execute any sort of offense. Notice that throughout the technique the hips stay tight to your opponent. Second you need to trap the arm and get it away from the body. This becomes much easier when your opponent attempts to post their hands on your chest or belly. Finally you must keep the hips tight and have the the arm trapped before sitting back for the finish. I like to make sure that I am actually sitting on my opponent before I lay back for the finish. We won't be doing this specific armbar today but it is a good set up for the technique we will be doing.

More commonly your opponent will know that once they are mounted they are in deep trouble. Often they will pull their arms in tight and you will have to do a little more maneuvering to get the arm isolated for the armbar. This is where the armbar from "S" mount comes in. The next video lays out the "S" mounted armbar in fantastic detail.

Notice that with the "S" Mounted armbar you are using your hips like a wedge to pry the arm away from the body. Also note that you need to squeeze the foot to the knee during the set up. This step will keep the elbows up and the arms isolated. Finally again you have to make sure that the leg gets in front of the face before you sit back for the armbar or you will lose it completely. So your keys to the "S" mount armbar are...

1. Move into you offensive mount-I thought about including a video of Bas Rutten talking about proper mount position but decided that would be too many videos. But know that before you are going to attack anything you need to move your hips up on the chest. Never sit down on the hips, that is just asking to be reversed.
2. Keep the hips low-if possible the hips should never leave contact with your opponents body. Hopping, jumping, or diving for a position or limb will just get you reversed instead of getting you closer to a submission.
3. Force the elbows up-part of the reason for moving up the body is to free the elbow and put you in a good position to take control of the arm.
4. Pinch the foot to the knee in "S" mount-don't let guys maneuver out of your "S" mount. A vital part of making sure that you keep control of your opponents arm is to keep the "S" of the "S" mount pinched tight around the shoulders and head.
5. Sit on your opponent- when the leg comes over the face you are not sitting back at the same time. The leg comes over you sit on the side and shoulder while you make sure you have the correct arm position. Only after this is complete do you sit back for the finish.
6. Thumbs up for the win-as with all armbars knees are pinched together and the thumb should be pointed up for the finish.

Bonus Advanced Maneuver - when your opponent protects the arm you are attacking they leave the other arm out and susceptible to attack. The last video shows a quick and easy way to attack the opposite arm when it becomes available. Just a quick shift of the hips and you wont have to worry about breaking grips or hand fighting.

As always if there are questions or clarifications please leave them in the comments section and don't forget to follow me on Twitter and Like me on Facebook. I'll see you on the mats.

Hooray, I just got tapped!

Let it be said from the beginning I don't like tapping. I do it on a regular basis, but much like vegetables, jogging, and listening to NPR I don't have have to like it. Tapping has never given me that warm feeling I get from escapes, advancing position, or sinking one of my increasingly spars submissions. (Why do white belts have to get better? At least humor me, I'm old and lazy) No tapping just makes me think, "Damn it, damn it, damn it!!! I knew I shouldn't have let him get the hook in but what was the worst that could happen?"Well apparently the worst that could happen is being chocked out with your own arm. The question becomes, if I despise submitting so much why do I continue to put myself in positions where it is likely to happen? The answer is simple, because it makes me better.

In my opinion, there are two chief benefits to being submitted. The most obvious benefit is that you learn not to do the same thing that got you submitted last time. After so many times being submitted for the same thing eventually you learn. Never look at being submitted as the end of a sequence but instead view it as part of the process of rolling. If you view it as the end of a roll then there is nothing more to be done but if you view it as part of the process there is always something to improve in the next roll.

The second, less obvious, benefit to being submitted is that it means you are pushing past your current abilities and knowledge level. I don't usually get submitted when playing a purely defensive game. If I pull all my limbs in, tuck my chin, and let you sit in mount we can be there all day before you find a submission. When I get caught it usually comes when I am attempting to pass, or moving to sweep, or attempting submissions from less dominate positions. I was committed to moving out of my comfort zone and sometimes that just isn't going to to work on the first try.  You have to be willing to try things that aren't go to work to find which techniques are going to work for you.

Tapping may never feel good, it may never seem motivating, and it most definitely never feels like an uplifting experience but it doesn't have to be a set back. It can be a marker on the road when you are beyond being submitted by basic submission set ups. It can mean that you are trying to move beyond your comfort zone. Just remember that a single submission is not the end of your journey just another bend in the road.

As always if there are questions or ccomments please leave them in the comments section and don't forget to follow me on Twitter and Like me on Facebook. I'll see you on the mats.