There and Back

A journey. A return. Probably tired.

Month: August 2023

  • How to Stand and Where to Put Your Hands in No Gi BJJ

    I love finding gems and free stuff on the internet. Especially if they help me with real life.

    After finding free BJJ instructionals online (hint: go to Bilibili(dot)com, which is a video sharing site from China, and search for “jiu jitsu”, you’re welcome), I came across this beauty: Wrestling for Jiu Jitsu: Complete 40-Part Series (Full BJJ Instructional).

    I downloaded it from a video-ripping site and was super pumped! But then while searching for the instructors name, found out that this wreslting for BJJ instrictional is actually already FREE on YOUTUBE.

    I started taking some notes, and I’ll share them with your today.

    Notes from Wrestling for Jiu Jitsu Instructional by Dom Anderson

    You want to have your…

    1. Head up
    2. Neck stiff
    3. Back Straight
    4. Legs bent
    5. Arms down by your feet or Arms on your opponent

    Head up and Neck Stiff

    The body goes where the head goes. If you keep your head up and neck stiff, even if your opponent does tie up with you, it wont really effect your movement.

    Back straight and Legs bent

    A lot of people like to go for shots. If your opponent goes for a shot they won’t be able to finish if your legs and posture are low. For your stance, keep your legs in a squared-up posture, or one leg slightly forward, the leg forward is the leg you’ll shoot with.

    Arms down by your feet or Arms on your opponent

    Keep your arms down by your knees as close as possible. Don’t put your arms above you or your elbows in and close to your chest.

    Where do I put my hands?

    In your stance, whichever leg you have slightly forward, reach across to your opponent with the opposite hand and put it on their shoulder. Right leg forward, left hand on their same side shoulder. They call this a “cross grip.” If your right leg is forward and you put your right hand on their shoulder, you open yourself up to being taken down and other attacks. So remember: whichever leg you lead with, do a cross grip with the other hand and place it on their shoulder.

    Your hand that isn’t on their shoulder, you can put it behind their head and tie up, or go for same side under-hook.

    Cross grip with Collar Tie up

    YES

    NO

    If you do a cross grip tie up and go ear-to-ear, you give your opponent an equal opportunity to control you. If you stay head-to-head with your opponent, you can follow them wherever they go.

    Instead of going ear-to-ear, stand firm with head-on-head, like this…

    The sequence goes…

    1. Cross grip
    2. Grab the back of their head
    3. Go head-to-head

    That’s all the notes I have at the moment. But I’ll be sure to share more of them when I go through the rest of the video. It was too good not to share right away!

    If you have any other tips for Stand-up or Hand fighting for BJJ, let us know.

    PS: I recently wrote a post called “Lex VS GSP and Why Reaching-in is a Bad Idea” and I shared GSP’s idea of getting closer to your opponent using your feet and not reaching in, like this…

    But the video by Dom Anderson uses a different approach with wrestling. Both seem like a good idea to try and learn and figure out which works. Unless I completely misunderstood GSP and I’m totally wrong, it could happen, I’m a blue belt and I’m still trying to parse through all this new info. It’s like I’m relearning all my old wrestling again for the first time.

    Anyways, see you on the mats.

  • Open Mat Reflections – Saturday August 19, 2023

    A two stripe white belt said I had the best role yet with him, again. I was on his back for four minutes. That’s got to be some kind of record for me.

    __________

    Another fellow blue belt and I fought hard. I had an arm triangle locked in for about 4 and a half minutes. My arm, the one around the back of his shoulders, was complete Jell-O at the end of the roll, it’s still sore. He didn’t tap. I’ll give him that he’s tough as nails.

    __________

    I barely survived against a two striped black belt. He caught me in a nasty triangle.

    I also barely survived against a few striped purple belt. He also caught me in a nasty triangle.

    _________

    Some younger guys were doing No Gi in the corner of the mat so I ripped off my gi top and asked if any of them wanted to dance.

    Here are some A.I. Generated Images created by Adobe Firefly using the prompt “Blue man in a Jiu Jitsu gi ripping his shirt open yelling”

  • Open Mat Reflections – Saturday August 12, 2023

    I realized something today at open mat: the more tired I am and exhausted I am the less I roll with technique. I roll sloppy and end up getting submitted.

    That’s what happened today at open mat. But let’s back it up a bit.

    I’m definitely getting better at holding positions. For example, staying on top or keeping my pressure on while pinning and not getting swept as much. Another example is I got in Mount on a higher striped blue belt and I don’t think I’ve ever got mount on him, so that’s a win for me.

    I also did some good takedowns during some nogi rolls today, but got caught in some guillotines on the way but kept wrestling and got the takedown. Keep the pressure on I guess.

    I also have been focusing on guard passing instead of guard pulling, this is what I did when I first started my bjj journey. Good to be back at it. Now that I think about it, almost everyone I rolled with today, started in guard while I started standing so at least I know I’ll get lots of practice with passing.

    Now remember what I was saying at the beginning, when I roll tired I roll sloppy, well my last roll of the day was like that. After some bad hand fighting by me, my partner got a good rear naked choke on me and I tapped. I was glad to be honest because I was exhausted. But this is good for me. This is good training for me because I got a competition coming up at the end of September and the more rolls I do the better I get and the better prepared I’ll be for that competition. That’s the plan anyway.

  • Lex VS GSP and Why Reaching-in is a Bad Idea

    Lex Fridman, world renowned robot A.I. turned popular podcaster, recently trained with MMA hall of famer Georges St-Pierre.

    He recored them grappling a bit and also conducted a short intrview on the mats as well.

    “Here’s a video of @GeorgesStPierre and I training & discussing jiu jitsu and MMA, including @TeamKhabib and the fight between @elonmusk and Zuck. This was fun!” (Link to post)

    Click on image to go to the post as Twitter doesn’t allow other sites to embed tweets anymore.

    Lex asked GSP if he had any advice to give him about his technique. GSP had some valuable insight that I thought would aslo be good for me too.

    Here is a transcript I took of GSP giving Lex some advice.

    LEX: “Any advice?”

    GSP: “Well, it’s actually pretty good. Standing position I think sometime you reach a little bit too much…”

    GSP: “So if you reach out to me, (Lex reaches out) it’s easy for me to take a good position…”

    GSP: “…or, reach out to me (Lex reaches out again), I can probably climb back on you.

    GSP: “So what I would suggest is don’t reach and get closer with your feet before you seek contact with me. So don’t go here (GSP is leaning in and puts his hands on Lex’s shoulders)

    GSP: “Go closer.”

    They then both start doing close up hand fighting and grapple for a few minutes. Then GSP catches Lex with a head and arm choke (aka arm triangle).

    I replayed back the sequence a few times because I thought it was a good critique and technique. While I was in the kitchen, I tried it on my wife because I found it so fascinating of a concept. Don’t reach. I remember hearing that back in the day for wrestling, not to reach while taking a shot for a single or double leg. But the ‘not reaching’ concept for stand-up hand fighting makes sense.

    It also reminds me of how Greco Roman wrestlers approach each other when grappling stand-up. Their arms and elbows are tucked in,

    Olympic Men’s Greco Roman 85kg Gold Medal – August, 2016

    I’ll be sure to give this a try at the next No Gi class I attend and see if it works.