Jiu jitsu brotherhood wisdom

"To maximize your potential as a jiu-jitsoka, it’s not enough to just head to class every day and go through the motions. You need to approach your training from several angles.

I have a particular system which has worked for my students and I. It’s called the A.C.T. Model. This stands for Attribute Maximization, Conceptual Understanding, Technical Knowledge. This article will provide a general overview of this model. " -

Very interesting concept from Nicolas Gregoriades who has just stuck it up on his website: Jiu jitsu brotherhood (goto the link to read the whole article) . Ive mentioned Nic on here before and I quite like his cerebral approach to the complex problem of grappling. I think Ill hit him up for a private lesson one day just to get a better insight into his way of thinking,which may or may not be for me. I tend to think quite alot about BJJ and Ive often found it as much as a hinderence as an advantage.

Matt Benyon over at Martial farts has been churning up some super awesome hyper mega material that makes me want to headbut a horse with creative jealousy. Go there, buy his shit and support him so I can be regularly entertained and inspired.

Havnt been able to train as much as Id like due to Woking (where I live) roadworks which add another 20 mins onto my journey and make me late for my train. I dont want to ride there on the motorcycle because itll end up being a one way ticket to a private with helio. Its getting lighter though so perhaps soon.

Now thats more like it

Finally got in a good solid week of training, around 7.5 hours including a private I had with Andy. Felt quite achey at the end of it but felt it was definitely a good start to 2010.

Private wise I didnt cover anything really specific just some niggling things:

• Keeping them flat on their back when passing (turns out this was alot more important than I gave it credit for).
• A tighter omoplata sweep ( I was getting the sweep but not keeping the position).
• Knee on pressure (Break the habit of planting the foot on the ground)
• Side control shrimping towards opponent (Ive been going the other way and its been working but it wont in the future.)
• A bjj version of Baz Lurhmans "wear sunscreen", its gonna be awesome.

With a few rolls inbetween for good measure. I put this into practise following the next sessions and even though quite small adjustments to stuff I was already doing it made a considerable difference I felt. Especially the first one, I felt I was limiting their ability to move considerably.

I got raped in the no gi class, by pretty much everyone. My no gi really does suck. Was good to see Ryan back as I love our mad scramble fests, high lights were him getting a scissor takedown. Then trying it again where I imagined to jump and sit on on him like a balance ball. Then he got me in a banana split/crotch ripper. It was an hour and a half of pure sparring pretty much from many positions.

The no gi class did help teach me a good lesson about wrestling though, as Ive been very complacent with just turtling and moving from there, but as people have improved that shit just doesnt fly anymore. Way to much effort now. So my new strategy was to stay on top and give them impression I wasnt gonna pull guard, once I stuff their attempts to get on top most people seem to switch to a bottom game (path of least resistance I guess). I should add that some people have the EXACT same idea...and are better wrestlers than me. Ive been using alot of guard recently so getting back to a proactive passing style felt good.

Future thoughts are on more passing and sweeps. Got alot more to write about but Im gonna split it into a few posts.

Tapping 10 000 times on the road to blackbelt

Just found this interesting youtube vid, I normally dislike submissions 101 but Keith Owen is bonafide blackbelt. I mention it here to further highlight the importance of tapping.



Let me know what you think.