The Martial Arts Thread

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I just found and listened to this interview. And I came to a surprising conclusion...

If this is catch wrestling, I've been a catch wrestler at heart ever since I joined HEMA. Funny, that:tongue:!

OK, but that was just for fun. We have spoken about this kind of things quite a few times already! Your Martial Arts Animator doesn't want to bore you (and Friend Computer said that would be a bad thing to do:angel:).

So instead, I'd like a discussion about something else today... listen to this as well, especially towards the end.

So...we all need to get in the mental range for doing the job. That much is self-evident to anyone who's been in a fight (or who has ever frozen at the start of one, we don't judge...:grin:).
But what can this mental state be?
According to a Belorussian practitioner (who claims to be a psychologist, though there were some issues with his qualifications) there are at least three possible mental states. OK, I might be mixing up some stuff.

Anger. "Go amok", "berserk state", whatever you call it..."kill them all and take no prisoners". That's often too much for a combat sport, since the mind tends to forget what the rules say, especially if there's a perceived (real or not) rules-breakage from the other side - leading to stuff like Tyson biting an ear off. He claimed afterwards that his opponent has been headbutting him. Also, reportedly, practitioners of this mental state might develop anger management issues...:shade: If you're wondering what that would look like, check the reports for the Boxers' Rebellion in China (also: not recommended against guns!)

"Fake it until you make it". Imagining yourself to be something else, like a huge grizzly, a terminator...not recommended without psychologic help - from a guru who knows how, for example, or from actual psychiatrists!

Absolute spontaneity. The hardest to achieve, yet the least threatening to your psyche (reportedly). You just act as you're taught, reacting spontaneously. Also known as "mizu no kokoro" and "flow state"...but really, it's all about the same thing. Alas, it seems to be only available to people who've been trained for the specific kind of conflict that they're having, and feel absolute security (and, reportedly, being "one with everything around"). A variation of it is "leaving yourself to be the instrument of the Lord", where the user literally lets the Lord do his will and he's just fighting to the best of his ability. Reportedly practiced in some monotheistic schools.

So, do you know of any other mental states? Yes, not many people have ever encountered the second one, but it obviously exists as well. (I remember a report from someone kinda-using it in self-defense training to show a normal suburban woman what she is already capable of: he gave her a rubber knife and told her to imagine that she is a Native American woman, and the man in front of her is a soldier who was planning to kill her and her kids afterwards. Reportedly, the man got demolished and was lucky he had protectors on).

Read a book by a martial artist who did alot of door work; cannot at this point remember the details, but he argued against martial artists learning to react rather than respond. He described the distinction as you are still making choices - the training gives you enough of an edge that you can then decide on your best next step.

I guess as it would usually be trained vs untrained, the extra decision time would not hamper a quicker response and allow you to pick less deadly force.

Certainly in sparring (not a deadly environment) my blocks are instinctive but my attacks feel like choices.
 
Read a book by a martial artist who did alot of door work; cannot at this point remember the details, but he argued against martial artists learning to react rather than respond. He described the distinction as you are still making choices - the training gives you enough of an edge that you can then decide on your best next step.

I guess as it would usually be trained vs untrained, the extra decision time would not hamper a quicker response and allow you to pick less deadly force.

Certainly in sparring (not a deadly environment) my blocks are instinctive but my attacks feel like choices.
I believe that getting to respond rather than react is a combination of "feel" (the information you get from contact with the opponent, not something mystical) and mindset. It's the mindset that you have to train for, and then you start noticing the "allowed" moves much faster, while choosing to omit the unsuitable ones.
I.e. when doing door work, you'd focus on escorting people out safely, so focusing on control, pins and the like. Granted, that might be somewhat different in seedier drinking places...:grin:

Also, I was today a case example for what happens when you combine RPGs and martial arts. Why, you ask?
Well, I got to train with a Brazilian guy who was doing BJJ...and he had started doing it in Bulgaria. So I'm his senior in both age and BJJ experience, though he's done other sports before and is thus much fitter.
So what was my reaction, what do you think?
Why, it was "this is meta on so many levels, it might as well have been the result of spending metapoints for a reality edit":angel:!
 
The training part of Jigoku day is over:thumbsup:.
I actually liked the kickboxing part, especially the kicks - he does them by raising the knee up and then "entering into" the strike (I'm not sure how to explain that even in Bulgarian, though). That was my first time getting to this class.
The punches I didn't like so much, but I liked some of those as well. He's not following boxing doctrine blindly, and actually allows you to stop hooks by "active framing"...:angel:
Bottom line, I'd do that again. It's a special class for BJJ players, so it's only once a week.
Then the BJJ (no-gi) started with an interval of about 90 seconds of rest. Yep, I wrote "seconds"...I skipped the running part of the warm-up because we'd done that already, and I was warmed up anyway. Then I did everything else until the free rolling. Then I only managed a single roll...but that one was with a guy who had defeated me soundly in prior times!
This time, I actually used the lessons learned literally last night by Sergei Beloglazov's instructional, and other wrestling instructionals. I'm no wrestler, but those just tend to "click" with me, and what Mr. Beloglazov was talking about, when it comes to single legs, simply worked.
This got me the upper position. I didn't manage to get out of his half guard... but I managed to avoid all the sweeps, and submitted him via Americana/ude-gatame...he tapped out 10 seconds before the roll ended.
As a bonus, the guy showed me after that what I was doing wrong when trying to free the leg he had trapped in half guard. I need to try that next time:grin:! He also said that I've obviously been learning, which felt nice.

BTW, I probably had energy to get another roll in. But while I was resting (I'd decided to rest for one of the rolls, then roll again) we started discussing conditioning with a more experienced guy (who's also older than me, for a change:shade:). It went on for a while, and then I realized I've cooled down.
So I decided to cut it there and not risk an injury. After all, it was around 13:30, and I'd started training at 10:40, so it was about time to call it a day.
I just had lunch, too, and am about to head to work now. So it's still a long day, but so far, I'm happy with everything except for the interactions with the wife. Ah well, that's a different story, and hopefully I shall never tell it!
 
Asen, if you can, you might want to pick up some training in Aikido. (I would push Kokikai, but any would help). I think you would find the kicks and punches we are taught (mostly so we can simulate others attacking us... so we can use the deflects, sweeps, throws, and such) to be more to your liking and fit your style (as you are basically a judoka).
 
Asen, if you can, you might want to pick up some training in Aikido. (I would push Kokikai, but any would help). I think you would find the kicks and punches we are taught (mostly so we can simulate others attacking us... so we can use the deflects, sweeps, throws, and such) to be more to your liking and fit your style (as you are basically a judoka).
After some googling of the name: Sounds promising, but I doubt I could find Kokikai in Bulgaria. And I've never seen any Aikido style here that teaches any kind of atemi. (As I commented recently on YT, "despite Morihei Ueshiba writing clearly that Aikido is 90% atemi").
So, while that's not a bad idea, I don't think it's feasible. According to the info I could find, the closest Kokikai dojo is in Berlin:shade:!
Maybe Yoshinkan, but those are hard to find, too. Mostly, I find Aikikai, and there atemi is "something those other (and bad) people are doing to you so you could employ Aikido":grin:!

Also, I'm not really a judoka. God only knows what I count as, at this moment, maybe a practitioner of Smasha*...but practicing a Judo-derived style for a year does not a judoka make, even if we didn't have to "overwrite" a lot of other training to get there. (In my book, it takes longer for someone to be considered a representative of any style).
As an additional example, my most successful takedown/sweep/control** techniques today were all based on the single leg. And I used a couple moves inspired by the wrestling "Turk ride", some sprawling when he tried to get to my outside/support leg, and by the principle of all the Nelsons (which is "use leverage on his spine to manipulate his whole body" as I understand it). I also used an ude gatame to get a submission, which is also very popular in catch wrestling.
So am I a wrestler? Not even close, either, any wrestler would put me to shame if I tried to wrestle according to wrestling rules!
Don't get me wrong. If some day some wrestler or judoka tells me, after seeing me grapple, that I count as a wrestler or judoka, I'd be honoured:thumbsup:! The reason I'm rejecting it is because I don't think I merit either name, as I don't even know the basics of either. I know some moves from literally dozens of styles, though, but that's no style...unless we call it "Asen's style". (Admittedly, I'm trying to get them to work according to common principles, and for all possible situations I might find myself in. If I manage that, it would be worth talking about my personal style. As it is now, though, it's best described as "somewhat sophisticated brawling with grappling"...which is what Smasha is:tongue:).

OTOH, now that we are speaking of it, a judo dojo that actually studies the atemi found in the style would be pretty cool, if I could find one (and might fit better with my way of moving than kick-boxing based moves).
Maybe I should look into that, too...but I haven't heard of traditional judo dojos. Granted, if they're like most traditional places, they'd not be advertising, so...maybe?

Either way, M MoonHunter that was though-provoking, so thank you for the recommendation!

*The martial art of GURPS orcs and half-orcs...:devil:
**I've mentioned it before in this thread that I make no real distinction between throws/takedowns and sweeps. I'm starting to think of some guard passes as being based on the same principles, though the connection is way more remote there.
 
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As my brief time in Jeet Kun Do taught me. "Your Kung Fu is not my Kung Fu". You need to take techniques and strategies that fit your personality and body.

I was a very different kind of fencer, as I was more inclined to fighting in the round and doing saber. (In short, I was a shortswordsman who did better with Rapier and Main Gauche or cloak than I was as a sport fencer.) That came all my other martial arts training. I did find out I was a better at Kenjitsu (and Kenjitsu with two blades - long and short) than I was at Kendo. (Kempo, Aikido, and Western Archery round out my combat skill point expenditures.)

Unless your goal is to "master" a fighting art, you will "franken-style" taking techniques and strategies from every combat art you practice or are properly exposed to.

After all it is Green Belt Syndrome. Are you here to score points in a tourney or win in the alley?
 
As my brief time in Jeet Kun Do taught me. "Your Kung Fu is not my Kung Fu". You need to take techniques and strategies that fit your personality and body.

I was a very different kind of fencer, as I was more inclined to fighting in the round and doing saber. (In short, I was a shortswordsman who did better with Rapier and Main Gauche or cloak than I was as a sport fencer.) That came all my other martial arts training. I did find out I was a better at Kenjitsu (and Kenjitsu with two blades - long and short) than I was at Kendo. (Kempo, Aikido, and Western Archery round out my combat skill point expenditures.)

Unless your goal is to "master" a fighting art, you will "franken-style" taking techniques and strategies from every combat art you practice or are properly exposed to.

After all it is Green Belt Syndrome. Are you here to score points in a tourney or win in the alley?
I agree completely, and that's exactly what I've been doing:thumbsup:!

Also, I'm there to get fitter/stronger, to have fun, because the kids train it as well, and yes - if necessary, to survive in a dark alley...but I'd strongly prefer to avoid the damn place to begin with:grin:!
 
Read a book by a martial artist who did alot of door work; cannot at this point remember the details, but he argued against martial artists learning to react rather than respond. He described the distinction as you are still making choices - the training gives you enough of an edge that you can then decide on your best next step.

I guess as it would usually be trained vs untrained, the extra decision time would not hamper a quicker response and allow you to pick less deadly force.

Certainly in sparring (not a deadly environment) my blocks are instinctive but my attacks feel like choices.

This is interesting. It is possible I misunderstand the two terms, but if I do understand them, I can connect to that idea. I think I tend to think of this as being conscious of what is happening. It sounds very basic and simple but I find it is so easy to get confused when you are going against a fully resisting opponent, and you can fall into the 'just trying to survive' mindset, where you aren't calm enough to see all the opportunities available to you. For me, it really became about slowing my mind down and relaxing so I can things like where the person's guard has openings, what their habits are when do X or Y, and also seizing on an opportunity the moment it presents itself. If I am not calm, I tend to lose my ability to 'respond' and instead 'react' which feels more like being a step behind the entire time. And usually the times where it is hardest to be calm are when you are most uncomfortable, intimidated, afraid, physically being hurt. Again for me this is mostly in a sport context, but I think there is value here as you expose yourself to more intense sparring, you learn to remain calm and weather the storm so you can think more clearly and respond more intelligently. For example the first time a person starts landing combinations with bad intent on you, it is alarming, your instinct is to get out of the situation as fast as possible, and sometimes following that instinct just leads to being hit with more ferocious and well placed combos because the person has full control of the situation and you don't. But if you stay calm, and just accept what is happening, you realize small things like "if I just move forward and put pressure on them, I can regain control" or "there is an opening right down their center body" and you can formulate some sense of what you should be doing after this as well (i.e. hitting the center body, then hitting their head if their guard drops). You are making decisions in real time, so aren't planning out a sequence of 8 moves but you can feel what options open up with each step if that makes sense. Again this is from a full contact sparring perspective but I like this distinction you are making if I understand it.
 
This is interesting. It is possible I misunderstand the two terms, but if I do understand them, I can connect to that idea. I think I tend to think of this as being conscious of what is happening. It sounds very basic and simple but I find it is so easy to get confused when you are going against a fully resisting opponent, and you can fall into the 'just trying to survive' mindset, where you aren't calm enough to see all the opportunities available to you. For me, it really became about slowing my mind down and relaxing so I can things like where the person's guard has openings, what their habits are when do X or Y, and also seizing on an opportunity the moment it presents itself. If I am not calm, I tend to lose my ability to 'respond' and instead 'react' which feels more like being a step behind the entire time. And usually the times where it is hardest to be calm are when you are most uncomfortable, intimidated, afraid, physically being hurt. Again for me this is mostly in a sport context, but I think there is value here as you expose yourself to more intense sparring, you learn to remain calm and weather the storm so you can think more clearly and respond more intelligently. For example the first time a person starts landing combinations with bad intent on you, it is alarming, your instinct is to get out of the situation as fast as possible, and sometimes following that instinct just leads to being hit with more ferocious and well placed combos because the person has full control of the situation and you don't. But if you stay calm, and just accept what is happening, you realize small things like "if I just move forward and put pressure on them, I can regain control" or "there is an opening right down their center body" and you can formulate some sense of what you should be doing after this as well (i.e. hitting the center body, then hitting their head if their guard drops). You are making decisions in real time, so aren't planning out a sequence of 8 moves but you can feel what options open up with each step if that makes sense. Again this is from a full contact sparring perspective but I like this distinction you are making if I understand it.
I think that's a really great elaboration of what I put forward (from the book).

I guess trained reactions let you block/dodge without (much) thought and then maintaining mental composure under fire lets you be more 'strategic'.

Cus D'amato (Tysons trainer) was big on getting fighters to be used to fear, so that it would pump them up rather than losing control.

In Ali's (ghosted) auto biography he talks about training to get hit hard/knocked out so that he could recover more easily from that - the famous rope a dope tactic. He claimed to have blacked out on more than one occasion in the Foreman fight (from punches) but that the ropes and training meant he held on and came back. Clearly not the most sustainable way to train...
 
Cus D'amato (Tysons trainer) was big on getting fighters to be used to fear, so that it would pump them up rather than losing control.

Norman Mailer used to talk similarly about courage (in the context of forcing yourself into situations where you know you are going to be affraid and uncomfortable) and how he felt it was important. I remember reading this about Cus D'amato in Teddy Atlas' book and I think it makes a lot of sense. It is a lot easier said than done, because the fear you feel in martial arts and in combat sports is based on something very real that is happening to you. There were a few times instructors helped me get over this. One of the best pieces of advice I got was a trainer who said something like "Remind yourself this is fighting, and you are going to get hurt, so you might as well accept that it is going to happen". That same instructor after I had been badly knocked out at a competition said to me (and it sounded a lot more empathetic and compassionate than the words alone do here) "Well, you have basically experienced the worst thing that can happen so now you don't haven't worry about it anymore" (meaning I now knew what to expect, it wasn't an unknown to me). And another trainer got me to snap into the moment by speaking to me while I was taking very heavy combinations in hard sparring. It was less about the words but more about him getting me to realize the combinations were not dropping me and I needed to relax and do something that gave me control. I think all that stuff ties to fear, and I think a lot of times in martial arts discussions, because its embarrassing and people often feel the need to conceal their fear from others, it is something we don't bring up or don't really address. But it is crucial to overcome it and get used to that feeling. For me the state I need to be in to deal with fear is calm. If I'm calm, I can react accordingly. And part of being calm is not worrying about the consequences of what is happening, which is difficult to get your brain to do (because ironically the worrying about that is making you perform less well and therefore take more punishment)

At the same time, this can be taken to an extreme where people are just learning how to take a beating. And I think that is where you need to balance exposing people to fear with lighter contact sessions where you feel comfortable trying out different things.
 
I have very little or nothing to add to BedrockBrendan BedrockBrendan 's post. I mean, I was going to add "just don't take it to an extreme", but he finished with exactly that...:grin:

So let me look at fear in a broader perspective.
One of the best advice that I've heard is Marc Macyoung's "expect to get cut is a lie". To clarify, yes, you should be mentally ready for it happening! That's actually the better option.
But expecting it assumes waiting for it to happen. Your goal is to prevent it, if you can avoid even a single cut, so much the better. But the goal is to prevent it from happening again, and again, and again, and to get stabbed as well along the way...knives tend to kill messily:shade:.
So, don't expect to get cut. Beware that you probably will, but if it happens, it should happen while you're taking measures to prevent the guy from being able to continue doing it. And it must not stop your counter-measures (which includes taking it on less dangerous parts of your anatomy if possible, taking a slash to the neck is a no-no...), because otherwise, you're just giving him free reign to repeat:thumbsup:.
I think you could just replace "get cut" with "get punched" in the above. Or "get kicked", or "get grabbed", because we don't choose what the opponent is doing (within the rules, if any...hopefully).

So what are your takeaways from the above?
Mines were very simple: first, you must have a plan for countermeasures no matter what the opponent is doing. Second, you must be ready that taking some if what he's doing might be inevitable, but you must minimize the effect as much as possible, and withstand what you didn't manage to prevent. Third, the sooner it's over, the less damage you're going to suffer.
As an addendum to the #3, stats in boxing were showing a couple of years ago that the then-champ takes less significant punches per round than the #1 contender...despite the champ being an offensive fighter, and the contender a defensive one. So find the right mix of defense and attack for you, but you are going to be doing both, usually at the same time. (Opening yourself to an attack as you're attacking is...perilous. So is waiting for an opponent's attack, even if you're drawing it. If you want it all safe, find a different game, maybe pinball).

Really, you can see the above in combat sports as well. Except there it's about getting the fight to the range where you feel most confident. For boxers that might be about getting to an in-fight or preventing one. For kick-boxers, keeping the kicking range or getting to punching range (or clinch). For sambo, Kudo karate and MMA players it's about kicking vs punching (and possibly vs clinch) vs ground...but it's all the same for the master of strategy - we're talking about imposing your game or being imposed one:grin:!
Case in point: at one time that I remember there were very few successful strikers in MMA, because the strikers usually didn't have decent grappling and as soon as they got taken down, it was lights out for them.
Nowadays, brawl-and-sprawl fighters are back in strength. The difference? As any MMA mag would tell you, "they've learned how to prevent being taken down and how to survive the ground well enough to be able to get back up".
But that's the specifics. What they've really done is the simple "they've found a decent plan for countermeasures to avoid being taken out of their range of expertise", IMO.
(And of course, then you get someone like Khabib who just proves to them that their countermeasures aren't good enough to prevent him from carrying out his plan and imposing his game...but that's part of the game, too).
 
That is a good post. I would agree you definitely shouldn't use a lessening of fear of something in martial arts as an excuse for not protecting yourself. That is also very important. You can get hurt very badly, even in a sport, if you aren't taking the idea of protecting yourself at all times seriously (and it is one of the few concepts that feels almost sacred in most competitive fight sports). When my instructor was telling us that we had to stop being afraid of getting hurt, he was saying that because people were being overly cautious and not accepting something that is inevitable if you are training and competing. It was more about getting people to take the necessary risks in order to win.

A good example of the kind of fear I am talking about is if you see two new and unskilled fighters thrown in a ring together. They often turn their head away when they are hit, the keep their body back and reach real far to strike. You have to train yourself to move towards the person you are fighting and move into places where you might get hit, so you can get in a good tactical position.

Another example of what I am talking about is when people first start training they are sometimes afraid to be hit at all because they don't know what it feels like. You have to experience getting punched in the head so you know your own ability to withstand it, and so you understand you don't have to panic when it happens. But it would definitely be entirely reckless to just endure head punches without trying to evade them, parry or block, simply because you've learned to be unafraid.

Also some fear is useful. You should be afraid of head trauma over time. You should be afraid of certain types of injuries. You should be afraid of someone dying in the ring (and be aware of what to look for with head injuries). And you should also be afraid of causing those things.

Range is very interesting. I think it is a whole topic on its own. I think it is useful to get accustomed to a variety of ranges. Especially since, even inside the same style, you may have to adjust your range if you are going against someone taller or shorter than you
 
That is a good post. I would agree you definitely shouldn't use a lessening of fear of something in martial arts as an excuse for not protecting yourself. That is also very important. You can get hurt very badly, even in a sport, if you aren't taking the idea of protecting yourself at all times seriously (and it is one of the few concepts that feels almost sacred in most competitive fight sports). When my instructor was telling us that we had to stop being afraid of getting hurt, he was saying that because people were being overly cautious and not accepting something that is inevitable if you are training and competing. It was more about getting people to take the necessary risks in order to win.

A good example of the kind of fear I am talking about is if you see two new and unskilled fighters thrown in a ring together. They often turn their head away when they are hit, the keep their body back and reach real far to strike. You have to train yourself to move towards the person you are fighting and move into places where you might get hit, so you can get in a good tactical position.

Another example of what I am talking about is when people first start training they are sometimes afraid to be hit at all because they don't know what it feels like. You have to experience getting punched in the head so you know your own ability to withstand it, and so you understand you don't have to panic when it happens. But it would definitely be entirely reckless to just endure head punches without trying to evade them, parry or block, simply because you've learned to be unafraid.

Also some fear is useful. You should be afraid of head trauma over time. You should be afraid of certain types of injuries. You should be afraid of someone dying in the ring (and be aware of what to look for with head injuries). And you should also be afraid of causing those things.

Range is very interesting. I think it is a whole topic on its own. I think it is useful to get accustomed to a variety of ranges. Especially since, even inside the same style, you may have to adjust your range if you are going against someone taller or shorter than you
Yeah, all of this. Taking hits just because you can is not a smart idea!
Now, it might be necessary at times - say, in order to continue an offense - but I would say it means you should have had a better plan to begin with. Like, if you're getting him at the right moment, he shouldn't be able to counter! That's called kyo in Japanese arts, or "moment of vulnerability", or the name that I prefer, "empty time" (that last one is fencing-inspired, but it means a moment when the opponent can't do any move for some reason, and it's like punching/throwing/cutting down a dummy:thumbsup:).
...see, that's really what I was trying to do with my "grappling combat system for RPGs", too. The whole idea is to emphasize that you don't have to wait for those empty times, you can create them:angel:.


Fun fact, I did kick-boxing and BJJ today, again. The Kick-boxing trainer was different, but was again a guy who's done all kind of striking arts (kudo and kick-boxing included, but probably not limited to...) and was broad-minded enough to not be bothered by me starting in southpaw stance despite being right-handed, and then switching the guard all the time.
He also recognised my moveset as "totally kung-fu based", which was a surprise. A lot of people have misidentified it as muay thai or kick-boxing based over the years, including some kung-fu guys:tongue:!
I have only good words for their kicks, too. First time someone other than a JKD guy knows and appreciates the ura geri:shock:!

In BJJ, I was partnered (by height and weight, he was probably the heaviest of the newbies) with a 16-years old today who had all of two weeks of practice. He obviously intended to use strength and the vigor of youth (he made that clear even during the drilling). So it was really down to me demonstrating him the benefits of old age, patience, and craft.
Thus, I put a bit of heart in keeping him down (which I tend to avoid with less strong newbies)...meaning that he got submitted twice, once with a weird kimura from half-escaped kesa-gatame, and once with an accidental lock which happened somehow as I was trying to get to an arm triangle from mount. I still don't know how that last one happened:grin:!
I had just created an empty time for him, and was trying to capitalize on it. Ah well, sometimes the moves just happen!
 
Trained with a relatively new guy today, again (he had 3-4 months). He obviously liked it, because he asked me for explanation, and then asked a second roll. I obliged him, of course.
I also submitted him with kimuras and americanas a couple of times, and worked on my guard pass, since he wanted to work on his guard - and, though he didn't say it, he obviously wanted to work on his hip bump sweep (which I countered via framing him) and his triangle from the guard. I am, however, probably the worst person among the newbies to work a triangle on: until I learned the over-under guard pass, my main guard pass was "invite him to try and triangle you, then pass while defending":shade:.
Please note, the over-under guard pass actually opens you for a triangle (you have one hand inside his legs while in his guard, which is how the triangle begins), but also makes it harder to finish it...well, unless you can triangle someone while your knees are being taken to your own nose. I have yet to meet such a person among the white belts, though.
So the fun part was that he was trying to triangle me, while I was harping on and on "unbalance me, unbalance me, unbalance me, then try the triangle". I suspect Fenris-77 Fenris-77 would laugh when he reads this part...
But each time, he tried, didn't unbalance me nearly enough if at all (halfhearted attempts do that), then moved back to trying and triangling me.
Which was setting up my passes, of course. Ah well, at some point I just started passing him each time he tried that.

Only bad part was, I had to warn him not to try and lock people's fingers. I think he just forgot that this is against the rules of the gym, but I made sure he remembers that by wristlocking him as a counter.
Now, wristlocks are something I've been avoiding in BJJ rolls, though it seems they're not illegal, just frowned upon... but I still know how to do them. Years ago I actually learned them as a counter to someone trying to break my fingers. So people that are just trying to lock them and not to break them (or lacking the skill to break them fast)? Well, wristlock incoming!
Seriously, people, I am big on the "train to fight without rules"...but you can't train for this by actually fighting without rules (unless you're Musashi, and you're not:thumbsup:). Some safety measures are going to be in place, so you'd still have rules. You might be using protectors and avoiding the unprotected parts, you might be using anything without protectors but stopping it, you might be using some things and avoiding others. In fact, my current conclusion is that you should switch between the different options! But regardless, breaking those rules you agreed upon is a big no-no for me...because it can lead to pretty serious damage.

Back to my grappling, it seems my main arsenal looks like this now: everything is based around the kimura/americana, the deep half guard/x guard, and the single leg. I use a single leg as a throw at the beginning, as a sweep when someone tries to apply a front headlock/guillotine, as a sweep from butterfly guard, and as a sweep after someone puts me on my back (I get an underhook on his near hand*, then use it to get to my knees, and go for the single leg). If I can't get the underhook, I keep a two-on-one on his far hand, aiming to pull him over my head...and maybe get to the single leg. Seeing a pattern?
On the other side, if I can't get to the single, I aim to switch the grip to a kimura grip (I'll let you guess why) or to get to a deep half guard or x-guard. Deep half/x-guard is also where I go if the opponent is passing my half guard or butterfly guard.
I seldom use kimuras from the bottom, because I'm going for the sweep, but I've had some success with them lately from the top. I guess I should work on my kimura from the bottom, too...but once I unbalance somebody, I prefer to take the position.
Two avenues I should explore are using a guillotine as a sweep from butterfly guard or guard, and using a shoulder crank threat to go for the back from bottom position. They seemed very nice the last few days.

*It's basically always him. Only one woman has ever wanted to roll with me. I'm obviously too heavy for them, which is totally true...and it saves me time writing "he or she":tongue:!
 
Okay, I posted this over in Post a piece of art you could write a campaign about.

One of my first martial arts instructors (Kempo) would have us do a training session in street clothes every few weeks. Upon occasion, he would have us "dress up" in "disposable finest". Because if you were going to be jumped in the real world, odds on it would be when you were in a different from your usual area doing things different from normal. So every combat art since then (JKD, Aikido, fencing, and archery) I tend to flaunt uniform code and do practice now and again in normal(ish) clothes. (In Aikido, the instructor actually thought it was a good idea.)

Actually, he was not a uniform fanatic, so except for upper belt tests, the class uniform slowly became t-shirt and sweats (ideally white top and black sweats).

Oh in Fencing, One Halloween I did a ren fair costume (as did a friend and we took it out onto the campus). Not exactly street clothes, but it worked. One learned to be very good on their guard as there was no padding to protect you from a hit.

Thoughts?
 
Clothing is a tricky issue, and street wear isn't ONE thing...
There's the whole "gi vs no-gi" for starters...which unquestionably changes the arsenal and the tactics.
In gi vs no-gi: what handles do you have? How easy it is to keep a grip that restrains the other side's movement? How long is the grip you have going to last? How easy it is for the other side to do that to you and how easy is it to slip out - and how long would it take you to do so?
Until you free yourself, you're basically in kyo/empty time. In other words, you're a punchbag:shade:.
Even if you're not a grappler, you have to account at least for a) the opportunity your clothes give to the opponent and 2) how restrictive your clothing might be on your usual moves (less of an issue if you're not a kicker, but even some circular strikes, like hooks, might be impeded).
I'm not talking pencil skirts, here. Even formal men suits can do that. Don't ask me how I know it...:grin:
So here's the thing: street wear isn't ONE thing. In many places it's at least four things: a cold weather option, a hot weather option, and a formal occasion option, and a sandbeach wear option...yes, conflicts do arise on beaches. And no, I'm not excluding average weather, but it usually is close enough to one of the other options.
Thus, discarding the sandbeach option because nobody really trains for it (and it's often close enough to hot weather clothing) you really have three options: comfortable clothes that give you enough handles, comfortable clothes that don't facilitate gripping, and uncomfortable, restrictive clothes which you wear because reasons (and probably don't want to ruin, if possible).
I don't know how to train for the last one (unless you're fine ruining an actual suit for the sake of training). But gi and no-gi/rashguards seem like the best approximation for the other two. I'd strongly advise against training with a naked torso because rashes are a thing and it's a thing that spreads:devil:!
So, please don't. Rashguards are named that for a reason, and a very good one! Besides, unless you're doing MMA, it's an unlikely scenario.

BTW, fighting naked and in grease would result in much less decisive grappling, because it's easier to slip out. Stop laughing, guys: when you sweat in light clothes, like in summer, you could as well be naked and in grease! And it was a training method for pankratiasts...
But naked and in sand would make it easier to keep your grip.
OTOH, people would hesitate much less to close in and grapple if they can get out more easily. Especially if they need to buy time, like to recover from a shocking strike. So again, it has follow-up effects for strikers as well.

One other thing: training no-gi teaches you to play with a bigger emphasis on speed and explosive strength, precisely because you can't take your time via technique...which some argue is much closer to fighting. The same people also tend to argue that you should focus on no-gi grips because you can always apply those.
All true, but if you wear heavier clothing a good part of the year, you should also train in a gi (which is much closer to a suit, except more durable for economic reasons). Otherwise if you get caught by someone who knows how to use your "gi" against you, you're toast.
Also, even light clothing can be used. I might not be able to control you by grabbing the hem of your t-shirt...but I can lift it over your head to obscure your vision (and tie up your hands to a degree), thus granting myself a hefty dose of kyo/empty time. Can you spell "headkick"?
Yeah, headkicks become a surprisingly street-efficient move once you do that - especially if you're also wearing hard shoes:tongue:!

I would add "and if people in your country wear light clothing a significant portion of the time, they're going to be used to fighting with speed and explosiveness, and less grappling - conversely, you can find rather good "gi grapplers" where heavier clothing is worn". So keep that in mind when accounting for the kind of attacks you're most likely to face. (I call it "AsenRG's geographic role for Cuban Boxing vs Viking Wrestling"...:gunslinger:)

So, do you train in street clothes, gi, or no-gi? My answer is "yes".

And then we get to shoes, gloves and accessories. That is going to be a follow-up post!
 
I like harping on how gloves change punching towards hammerfists, palms, elbows, and bottom-three-knuckles alignment (and the "bent-wrist upper two knuckles" set-up that I'm yet to try in a fight). OTOH, ungloved punches to the body work way better.

Well, that's all true IMO...but I also have other reasons to adopt palm strikes to the head as my primary tool: those are less aggressive when caught on camera. So I strongly prefer them, and only learn punches a) to be able to deal with them, b) to feed them to friends who are training with me (possibly with competition in mind) and c) to practice power generation without people looking at me weird.
So that's all I'm going to say regarding gloves.

Let's move to shoes.
Simply put, wearing or not wearing shoes changes how you step. And as any striker knows, contact with the ground is vital for power generation. So make yourself a favour and do train in shoes. Even light shoes is better. But try out those heavy winter shoes you got recently, too...:grin:
Furthermore, they change how you move the leg. A weight at the end of your leg transforms it in something much closer to "ball on a chain" and a hard shoe makes kicking with the toes much more viable. In fact, it makes it outright devastating even before the option for metal-tipped shoes kicks in (pun intended:devil:).
And then...keep in mind it also changes how you defend with your legs and how your opponent is going to kick. So if you're practicing to counter shin kicks and the opponent is aiming for a "toes of the shoe" kick, the distance might be unfamiliar.
What is worse, one of the few opponents that have been taught to "block" kicks with the sole of the shoe would be outright devastating. Really, I almost broke a guy's shin with this move - and the guy had trained Kyokushin, so his shin was conditioned to the highest standards!
So by all means, put some protectors on (really - see above!) and spar a bit with heavy shoes, trying the above moves.

And last but not least, accessories. What do you wear? I'm not saying "wear only what doesn't impede your fighting abilities", I'm saying you should learn which ones can be turned against you and how to defend that.
All piercings can be plucked out, accidentally or not. By all means, if you have genital piercings...don't fucking fight! A kick to the unmentionables might even kill you by bloodloss! (That's the only case where I'd advise you to restrict your choice of accessories for the likelihood of getting in a fight).
Long nails can get broken or be used as a weapon by you. Long hair can be used to control or even strangle you. A purse can be used to entangle you. A heavier bag can be used as a shield...and as a HEMA guy, let me tell you: shields are weapons!
Even a mobile phone can be used as a fist load or to smash it against a guy's head.
And so on and so forth. Look critically at every part of your daily attire, other than your underwear and parts of your body, and think how it could impact a fight (or impact you during a fight - it might even cut you, see "piercings", above).
Also, if you wear weapons, ask yourself: can you deploy them fast enough to put them to use? Can you deploy them without them being taken out? Can they be taken away from you once a fight gets up close? Can you use them legally for the most likely situations?

Follow-up post delivered, now it's up to you guys to comment:thumbsup:!
 
For the above posts, I (and you:tongue:) must thank Lyoto Machida himself for reminding me, via Youtube, of the name "kyo". I'd first met the concept itself in a book on Hatsumi Masaaki's nin-jutsu style. (Then I met it in a book on Zen and swordsmanship, I was reading those in the order I obtained them:grin:).

Also, I went to practice today with the idea to work on my takedowns and sweeps, the transition from side control to submission, and possibly my D'Arce choke and hand scissors choke. In reality, I ended up working on my sweeps, escapes from bottom positions, and surviving in bottom position...because most of my rolling was with a blue belt (I managed to get a round and a half, of which the full round was with him...the half round was after a guy who was resting decided he can go on for some more). When there's exactly 9 guys in the gym, someone's bound to end up missing a round here and there.
On the other hand, he didn't manage to submit me. In fact, I kept the upper position for quite a bit of time (after I obtained it via the expedient method of surviving his guilloting choke and getting on top while he was trying to strangle me:evil:). My only pass didn't work on him, though...and he did manage to sweep me after some time.
Mind you, this is actually a rather nice result, because he's the one that managed to submit me 5 times in two rolls, circa the beginning of the year. Not allowing a single clear loss is much better!
Of course, I'm not yet at the point where I can hope to submit him. Don't know if we'd get there at all, if he keeps training, I'm unlikely to improve faster than him after the initial period...during which I am probably improving faster, because I get sharp increases in both conditioning and skill, while he was already in pretty good shape. As we all know, RL has a tendency to work with gradually increasing costs of marginal improvement, a.k.a. quadratic advancement:thumsup:!
OTOH, unless he plateaus (which I don't actually wish him, it sucks), I don't see myself catching up any time soon. Which is also fine - he's a nice "upper belt"!
 
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Today, I did go to MA practice again...finally! Due to work and family, the last time was Tuesday, but then the next one should be tomorrow.
So, kick-boxing and BJJ back-to-back, which I've started calling "Jigoku day".
The KB was fun, though we mostly did punches, which I'm less of a fan of:shade:.

But then we ended up with light sparring with the trainer (maybe at 30% power), which was fun. Of course, due to the fact that we're training in the BJJ gym (and the KB trainer is a purple or brown belt, I think) the sparring allowed light strikes only, but takedowns were very much on the menu.
The head instructor of the gym was practicing with us this time, and as you can guess, his sparring was really focused on taking people to the ground. Groundwork was limited by time, though, because we're assuming the opponent is trying to get up, there - MMA style, in other words.
I played in my typical "straight forward, or forward and to the side" style. I'm really bothered by the fact that I ended up kneeing him in the groin, though. I thought his elbow was there, so didn't bother stopping it, just left it as a light strike to impede a possible counter with that hand...turned out that the elbow was a bit to the side:thumbsup:!
Ah well, I promised to buy him a beer in apology...though he left before me, so another day:grin:.

On the BJJ practice, I did all four rolls, which hadn't happened for quite a while. Let's hope that this means my fitness improving, and not me slacking off!
Well, I did them with the guy from before, who's been training for his second week...but he seemed to like rolling with me, since he kept offering "let's roll again".
Fun fact, he wanted to do more free rolling, while I preferred doing it more like a free drill. For example, once I got the mount (he had me in half guard, but I used my other leg to free myself), I offered him to return to guard. He answered "no, let's continue".
Well, I submitted him in answer, but I don't know if he realized the advantages of the more conditional rolling from that result. It was like the 4th or 5th time for the day, so I suspect he just thought "another tap".
What can I say? My kimuras and americanas are getting more and more dangerous against new white belts:angel:!

I'm also working on a new guard pass to complement my over-under one. The new pass I learned from an instructional - shocking, I know...:tongue:
So I call it "Billy Robinson's Superman's Pass". See, I learned by an instructional of Jesse Marez (named "Hybrid Grappling", though it really should be watched after the one on catch wrestling Nelsons that Marez is starring in), and he has indeed trained with the late Billy Robinson...who had taught him that move for passing guards ("bottom scissors" in catch terms) in BJJ competitions!
But the explanation was great and concise, and the key move is really "get your hands forward and fly like Superman". So I officially christened it "Billy Robinson's Superman's Pass", and applied it successfully today.
Well, the advantage in experience was strongly favouring me, but I can at least try it on someone more experienced as well!

Of course, I explained both my passes to the new guy, and went through the uppa escape (i.e. escape from mount) with him again. He complained it hadn't been working on me.
I actually don't know why, but I suspect he didn't isolate my hand properly...because I don't remember defending the uppa. He did bridge a lot, yes, but that's not exactly the same! For the uppa, you isolate one hand, the leg on the same side, and bridge towards that side.
Either he didn't do it properly, though, or I'd posted with my other hand and didn't register it. We shall never know:shade:.
If I see him tomorrow as well, I'll tell him to combine it with another escape which is done exactly "when the uppa doesn't work".
 
As a note, yesterday was the day I hit a compression knee lock for the first time. Forgot to mention that one.

Today, we worked a kimura to hammerlock combo. My drilling partner was amazed when I told him I've been doing the hammerlock for 37 years now, but it's true. It was the first move I was shown - at the age of 4, by older kids (some of the Bigger Brothers - yes, we have a word that translates to that - were as old as 10, I believe:angel:). Back then, it was called "the militia agent's* grip" for obvious reasons.

Today, I played two rolls/rounds** with a guy 4 years older than me, who has joined last week. I tried to show him what to do and what to avoid, and noted that handfighting with him was a whole lot harder than with any other newbie I've met in this school.
He's done Wing Chun and Escrima before, so that was easily explainable. Well, my fencing, general "touch-fight" training and BJJ prevailed, but it was hard and actually disputed:thumbsup:!
I'm not going to brag about defeating him, that's pretty much expected (3 practice sessions vs over 100 for a year, on top of being younger...even if he was heavier, gimme a break, that's not in the same league)!
I can and will, however, brag about showing him the importance of kuzushi and gradually getting into a better position (I was starting on the bottom every time, either in butterfly, or full guard - precisely because my full guard is my weakest position...well, it was still good enough against him, but it made me work more).
I can also brag about not gripping the leg he told me has had knee surgery relatively recently. Well, he told me that after I grabbed it the first time. After that, I stopped the roll every time I had a grip on this leg, and told him "wait, let me get to your other side so I could get the same grip on the other leg".
So, I'm overall rather happy about these two rolls. And he made me work for the points, too.
Then I played with a younger guy with more experience than me. He only submitted me once, by a leg triangle. It was obviously his specialty move, and since I got out of his first attempt at a triangle, and managed to get him in side control twice (though he re-guarded), I can claim that I'm improving nonetheless.
Again, losing is much easier to take in grappling. My head ain't ringing right now:grin:!
The only bad news from this roll is that both my attempts at the Billy Robinson's Superman's Pass were unsuccessful. That said, neither did the over-under work. He is a good guard player indeed - both my passes were achieved when he was opening his guard and going for a submission.
And that's, of course, precisely why I want to play more with him if I get the chance:shade:! My guard-passing, which is my weakest area (after keeping a closed full guard) needs improvement.



*Before 1989 we had "militia", which was later renamed to "police". So this was a Bulgarian cop's move at the time of the Communist regime...and today in the USA, the hammerlock is still called "cop's move", too, and obviously has been called it for decades. Funny how things are similar on different continents with no contact for at least 50 years, isn't it?
**Except a roll is 6 minutes.
 
So, on the no gi thing, my answer is it depends. Shit like tshirts obviously aren't going to cut it, and even light jackets are suboptimal if they're too loose or too fragile. My personal take is to abandon Gi grips and go with neck and underarm hooks to leverage throwing, woth some wrist control mixed in fornother goodies. Ive actually spent some significant time translating judo throws into no-gi versions, mostly for shits and giggles.
 
So, on the no gi thing, my answer is it depends. Shit like tshirts obviously aren't going to cut it, and even light jackets are suboptimal if they're too loose or too fragile. My personal take is to abandon Gi grips and go with neck and underarm hooks to leverage throwing, woth some wrist control mixed in fornother goodies. Ive actually spent some significant time translating judo throws into no-gi versions, mostly for shits and giggles.
I tend to prefer neck grips and underhooks/overhooks almost reflexively, but that's probably due to the fact that I was taught to grip that way long, long ago. I guess my first trainers weren't fans of learning different ways to grip people depending on their clothing? (That's also been the logic of many other BJJ practitioners). But regardless of the reasons, I've noted that I'm using no-gi grips instinctively...

OTOH, gi-based grips are kinda easier to retain (no-gi gets notoriously slippery), so that is an advantage and I'm trying to learn those as well.

And of course, various judoka who have been competing in MMA, from Karo Parisiyan (sp?) and Fedor Emelianenko to Rick Hawn and Satoshi Ishii have used judo throws without a gi. So we know it works...

Fun fact: One of the first grips I've been taught was actually a nelson/reverse underhook combo. I've seldom managed to pull it in sparring, but if I manage to, it would grant extreme control.
 
I've been giving martial arts a rest for the last couple of days. So I've got nothing to add to this thread, but thought that some of you might be surprised to learn it:grin:!
Thus, this post was born:shade:.
 
Also, to stir up some discussion, here's a quote from George Saint-Pierre.
“There is a difference between a fighter and a martial artist. A fighter is training for a purpose: He has a fight. I’m a martial artist. I don’t train for a fight. I train for myself. I’m training all the time. My goal is perfection. But I will never reach perfection.”

Amusingly, a lot of us here are martial artists...just not professional ones. But we all train for perfection, precisely because we are not professionals,
Thus, there is no incoming fight to pressure us, and we mostly live in decent countries where the odds of being assaulted aren't that high (my apologies to those of you who live in a high-crime city:shade:). And of course, martial arts should be strictly your back-up choice for modern self-defense. (Awareness, escape, deescalation, weapons all come before - only if you screw all of the above, then you apply martial arts...probably to be able to get to a weapon).

Which, as another plus side, means that "we actually have our whole lives to get it right", as I recently told to the "senior newbie" in our gym (he's about 45 years old, as mentioned above:thumbsup:)!
Now...does that make us superior to pro fighters? Not in any way - a pro is going to mope the floor with almost any of us (I can only speak about myself, of course, and I can't think of a pro I'd stand a decent chance against) - but we have a higher chance to keep doing what we're doing well into old age. So we'd probably derive more satisfaction from it.

So...stay on the True And Noble Path, my friends, and have fun along the way (yup, pun intended:grin:)!
 
Moving this from the fitness thread...:thumbsup:
There's a similar setup at this gym. Yeah, the "flow rolling" seems to be a very good way to practice, and what I and the other white-belt did yesterday. However, both of us just remembered fragments of the techniques, so it wasn't much bjj techniques to work with yet. :tongue: After all, yesterday was my third class.

It was a good workout for me, however, I'm guessing I will get more out of the flow rolling when I have had a few more technique classes behind me.
Yes, that's a problem. But generally if you're flow rolling, you could ask each other whether what you're doing is working as expected.

Also, if you'd like an advice, focus on escapes and playing from the bottom first, including guard/half guard retention, as well as sweeps.
Reasoning: you're likely to spend a lot of time on the bottom, it might be hard to retain the guard even against other white belts, and it's better if one successful pass doesn't mean you spend the rest of the roll on the bottom of a side control or mount.
So, in the words of Sun Tzu, learn how to make yourself invincible, first, then start watching out whether the opponent is giving you an opportunity to defeat him:gunslinger:!

...but the other reasoning is thus: those are also the easiest to drill, because everyone is trying to get you in a position where you have to use them:grin:! (As I was explaining recently to a boy at the gym, anyone who takes mount on me obviously wants me to use the uppa escape).
So, with the other newbie, you could easily drill them. Start out in side control, do the escape. Then the one who got on top gets side control. After the next escape, he takes the mount, the other uses uppa. Thus he gets on top, and takes mount...
Easy-peasy, and if you can get out from under his weight without him resisting, you're doing something right. There might be details, but you can add them later, when you start resisting each other.

Yes, that's not flow rolling, it's conditional rolling (like one-step sparring, two-and-three-step sparring, and so on:tongue:). Those two should be your mainstay, I believe...and they are what I'd be doing 80% of the time if it depended solely on me:angel:!

Also, if you've trained in classical (i.e. self-defense oriented) martial arts, you might want to look into different submissions than those that are most popular. The rear naked/hadaka jime, as well as the kimura, americana and straight armlock are a few options that are familiar to most of us who've been practicing self-defense moves...but in BJJ schools it seems they insist on teaching you leg triangle/sankaku jime and leg armbar/juji gatame first.
For the record, those are the two moves I've still never managed to pull in rolling. They just seem unnatural to me, unlike the above:shade:!

And one last thing, if you've tried doing something and it didn't work, or if you tried something and it seemed too strength-dependent...there are worse options than looking at a clip or two in youtube (especially if you know the right channels).
 
I went to kick-boxing and BJJ today. No issues detected with the shoulder, though I did limit the free rolling to one round, and that with a total newbie (the former Wing Chun guy who was there for his fourth practice).
And I even choked him out with the same hand (well, he's old enough to not try and withstand a choke, so it wasn't a really rigorous choke:shade:).

However, the thing that is worth noting is that I did apply a choke that nobody in the gym except me seemed to have seen: the reverse arm triangle/breaststroke choke:grin:!
I can't explain it better than the guy I learned it from, so I'm not going to try...



And yes, I'd learned it from that video (I suspect Fenris-77 Fenris-77 and L Lundgren are going to love the nose pinch:angel:).

To clarify, I'd never tried it before, never even drilled it...but the guy tried to guillotine me, then tried to sweep me (I was helping him work on his butterfly guard, but he goes straight for submissions instead of going for the traditional hook sweep), so I had to move backwards to the side control/across body position. And I noticed that as I did that, my hand was almost in the perfect position now, and his hand already was where I needed it.
So I put my hand where it had to be, and squeezed. He learned something new today, and amusingly, so did a couple of our coloured belts - to whom I showed the above video.

Bottom line, people who tell me I can't learn stuff from books or video are full of themselves:shade:!
 
Mune Gatame is essentially that choke without the arm across the throat, and I have instructed a variant where you leave the arm across the throat because that's where it ended up. Funny, I had no idea it was a named choke. The nose pinching is hilarious.
 
Mune Gatame is essentially that choke without the arm across the throat, and I have instructed a variant where you leave the arm across the throat because that's where it ended up. Funny, I had no idea it was a named choke. The nose pinching is hilarious.
Well, without the hand, we just call Mune Gatame "side control/across side". I didn't know the Judo name until today!
Here's side control in an extremel short version if anyone needs reference (the same guy has a 55-minutes instructional on holding side control in the same channel if anyone is curious:angel:).

BTW, it's really great that you've discovered "leaving the hand" (and the subsequent choke) on your own! It supports my theory that in grappling, all moves are bound to be discovered sooner or later if you explore (and in all martial arts, but exploring is just so much easier in grappling):grin:!

For the record, to the best of my knowledge that move comes from catch. I know for sure that Stephen Kesting has been studying with Erik Paulson, so he might have learned it from him.
Doesn't really matter, other than as a bit of trivia - I like catch submissions, and strive to learn the ones that are legal in our gym... We actually disallow only neck and spine cranks (and only when they're the "main" submission, a combo of crank and a choke is fine), though you need to get special permission by the head coach in order to use knee cranks (like the heel hook and toe hold) - but it's not hard to obtain, and it's more about him being sure you're not going to apply any submission move sharply.
I think I've received the permission already, but I don't really care. I'm simply not going for leg locks yet - upper body attacks have lots of potential I have yet to uncover:shade:!

BTW, other highlights from today: the KB trainer said my boxing hook is decent (despite my shoulder). I wonder what he'd think if he knew I've never been shown how to use a hook, including how to put power behind it.
Yes, really. I extrapolated it from the way I've been taught to use elbows. Now, that is something I've been taught - the second "form" I learned was called "The 8 Elbows", and you should take that literally:tongue:!
We also discussed knee strikes with him. He is showing us three main ones - the straight "stabbing", inwards round and swinging knees as seen in MT. So I used a lull to ask him "are you planning to show them the outwards round knee and the drop knee".
He looked at me kinda surprised and I clarified that knees and elbows have always been my favourites. Turned out he believes the outwards knee doesn't pack enough firepower, and the drop knee I meant was, to him, more of a variant of the low-kick. (Though he liked my variation, and agreed that it would work for its intended purpose - which is to straighten the leg on top of delivering some damage).
I didn't bother asking him about the "scratching" knee, because that one is nasty, and needs a lot more control than what the newbies in the gym have - and everyone else in that group is totally new to striking:thumbsup:!
 
Yeah, I find that both throws and grappling (and striking to an extent) are more of a very interesting continuum or spectrum than discrete techniques. With some experience and practice I find that one intuitively goes for the 'in between' move when on finds oneself in an 'in between' position. That's where things get interesting IMO.
 
Yeah, I find that both throws and grappling (and striking to an extent) are more of a very interesting continuum or spectrum than discrete techniques. With some experience and practice I find that one intuitively goes for the 'in between' move when on finds oneself in an 'in between' position. That's where things get interesting IMO.
One addition only: and weapons, too:thumbsup:!
 
Back to AsenRG blogging: I managed to perform my first deliberate* back-take today, and to take single leg x guard (not regular X guard, which I've used before). My Achilles lock is also improving - the guy we were drilling with started tapping before I could lie on my shoulder...which is the usual procedure, followed by bridging. Obviously my grip was good enough for him to tap...and I know that guy, he's a lot lighter than me, but he's tough!

Come to think if it, if Hector had known that move, Troy might have survived:tongue:! Quick, someone should write some fanfiction about this!

The funny part is, I didn't manage to do anything from the back. Why? Well, I was so surpised at the move working** that I started to check and double-check my control points, and didn't think to lock a submission:grin:!

On a more positive note, the older guy (I keep training with him) has added kimuras to his attempts to guillotine me. He almost succeeded with one kimura, but I locked my hand under my thigh and used gravity to keep me on top of my hand. I keep telling him that submissions usually don't work after your guard has been passed already. Some day he's going to listen to it.
Also, I finally remembered to tell him that he should pester the higher belts to show him the guillotine sweep. I mean, he always tries to take a guillotine when I start passing, but he doesn't manage to strangle me with it (because I can defend it even with equal partners, most of the time, sometimes even with more experienced ones). However, the guillotine*** is also a position, not just a submission - when you have a submission's grip, you have a very good grip, or else you couldn't submit anyone (after all, all submissions are about isolating a part of the body, preventing it from moving in any undesirable direction, and then applying single- or omni-directional pressure:angel:)!
Most submission defenses don't free you from the grip immediately, they prevent it first from squeezing the throat...
Thus, if he learns to sweep via guillotines, he might up his current abilities quite a bit. Same for kimuras and hip bump sweeps...and I guess a scissor sweep (or a back take) would work just fine using a kimura grip, too!
We'll see. I am going to feed him ideas, and he can explore them or not, as he likes. On that note, I should also tell him to start on BCAA, if he hasn't already.

*I.e. as opposed to "because my partner made a mistake, like turtling and not stopping me from turning towards his back".
**For the record, I used the butterfly/hook guard back take. You stretch him out with two butterfly hooks, lift him up, then remove just one hook and he turns his back to you while falling.
***Like the kimura, the triangle and pretty much any submission worth using.
 
OK, let's talk about flowcharts. No, I'm not in the wrong thread, why are you asking:smile:?

So while partially-sick, I'm thinking about my standing grappling, which needs more work...:wink:
It might be harder to do that in BJJ, but again, I'm starting to get it, I think. In my estimates, I'm roughly where I was with my guard passing a few months ago. (Back then my guard passing worked best when someone tried to triangle me. My current "standing system" works best when someone tries to pull me into a guillotine...during which I'm doing my best to single leg* him. Trends? What trends:shock:?)

At the moment, I've been thinking of weaponizing Chael Sonnen's system as detailed in "Gangster grappling" instructional. The name aside**, it's a good one.
It's based on three moves: unbalance a guy forward and pull him into a guillotine/front headlock (which ties with a sweet backtake/achieving side control and might have an option to get a D'Arce or Anaconda choke, though he isn't showing the Anaconda), have him resist the unbalancing and use a Hip Lift/Metzger takedown, or if he defends that by pushing you off, use a slide-by to get to his back, or use an inside trip.
Or, if he starts by pushing you, start with slide-by.
And you can work the system "backwards", too, moving in the opposite direction of the flowchart.
So basically I have five moves to practice on my dummy. Unbalancing to headlock, headlock to backtake, hip lift, slide by, inside trip. Should be doable.
And, importantly, I don't need to give up my "current system". If this one fails, odds are I'd be in a headlock already...which is where my current system starts!

And all of that brings me to the flowcharts. I love the "flowchart" expression of combat options!
For those unfamiliar with how that would look like, here's a random example from the net. You could find others, or make your own for different arts and systems.
For the record, I don't even know what a lot of these names mean. I even suspect, without any reason, that "gubber guard" and "wormoplata" aren't things I'd be able or willing to use...at least at the moment. But it's what makes this such a nice example.

More than that, when learning new stuff, I always try to find how to fit it into my mental flowchart. When encountering a new combat situation, I start mapping a flowchart of it.
But Chael Sonnen's system has one advantage which I find to be crucial: you can always start with the same move. I suspect this should be the slide-by. (Addendum: for me, because my opponents in rolls tend to try and lock their hands. Charlie Sonnen actually recommends starting with either the unbalancing forward to guillotine/front headlock, and switching to the hip lift, or vice versa! The slide-by comes in if thd opponent locks his hands, but as I said, a lot of guts Iexpect to face are going to do that...)

And yes, I find it absolutely vital to be able to do start with one thing, or one of two - and preferably with the same movement, with the opponent determining which one happens. Why? No decision steps gives you "an initiative bonus"! If you can get there faster, even if your opponent defends the move, you can be progressing on your flowchart.
Especially is the (not shown above, but should be above one of the connecting lines) relevant part of your flowchart reads "if he defends in that particular way..." and it connects to a technique which gives you advantage:gunslinger:.
As an example, the Kimura System (David Avellan) is like that. You're trying to get a grip with your same-name hand over and around his shoulder. That's it. From there, you start with combining the hip bump sweep and kimura from guard, or taking him down using the kimura from standing, and so on.
But it's basically the same move.
The whole of Wing Chun starts with this, tool, AFAICT, though I'm not a Wing Chun guy by any means! But from what I've been told, you just use a vertical fist strike for the first move. If it lands, great, if it's parried, you start chi sao. (I'm not sure what these guys do if it's dodged, but probably the answer is along the lines of "throw another"...which might be why boxers don't think highly of Wing Chun's applicability).
In HEMA, this move was for me the fully predictable forehand diagonal cut. Which can be used in attack or even as a defense...so it's my most highly unified system. (That is what made Mythras so palatable to me: you attack or defend, and depending on the results of the dice, you might end up at the same place, at an advantage, or at disadvantage. That's closely mapped by the way the dice fall in Mythras - although the system doesn't use any kind of flowchart.
Amusingly, the only system that I know uses an actual flowchart is Spellbound Kingdoms. Though Aftermath might be there as well, I haven't had the time to actually read it by myself).



*My single leg sucked until I watched Sergei Beloglazov's instructional. Then I started hitting it. It was a combination of finally understanding the angle, and being inspired by his sheer determination to get the other guy down and pinned. That latter part is all too easy to miss in BJJ, precisely because so many BJJ players are efficient from the bottom. OTOH, for wrestlers it's strictly an inferior position where the other guy can pin them, ending the match. So you can say that Beloglazov inspired me to start imposing on others to play the bottom game, technical details aside...:tongue:
And it's not like I didn't know the detail about angles. I simply was trying to do without them, probably subconsciously. And people are still telling me you can't actually learn anything from video...yeah, right.
**The only purpose the "gangster" part of the name serves is a branding one, AFAICT: Chael Sonnen likes presenting himself as a gangsta guy who's fought a lot. While I can believe his claims (or not, or not care), I don't see anything "gangster-like" in the system. Unless he has something about using a knife during the grappling that I've failed to notice!
OTOH, the branding purpose is actually fine, if it gets him more people buying it. After all, RL gangsters are all about making money, too...:grin:
Me? I don't care whether he was a RL gangster or not, I don't care whether he's as good a fighter as he believes himself to be, what I care about is that his system makes a lot of sense and he explains it with a lot of enthusiasm and in an easy to remember manner. I cannot stress how important that last part is, but it is:shade:.
 
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Well, I added a clarification or two to the above post (near the slide-by and the single choice for first move), but overall today is a day where I can quietly meditate on the reasons why many martial artists were also known as healers as well:shade:.
 
Well, I added a clarification or two to the above post (near the slide-by and the single choice for first move), but overall today is a day where I can quietly meditate on the reasons why many martial artists were also known as healers as well:shade:.
Just to clarify, the reason IMO is "so you could be in recovery less time and recover more fully, wounds are going to happen":thumbsup:. I liked the character in the Mortal Kombat series who said he's learned to heal people by fixing his own wounds...though even back then I winced at the thought of how many lingering injuries this guy has got.
But then, today I listened at Tom DeBlass listing how many injuries and operations he has sustained (the 4 commotios weren't the worst part) in 39 years of life. Injuries are bound to be a part of all martial arts.
And in a way, Conan is so good at fighting precisely because he's got Constitution 18 and survived and recovered from enough fights to be able to learn better:grin:. (He's got the mental advantage as well).
OTOH, I learned some interesting exercises from his "BJJ after 40" DVDs. I plan to put them to the test, too, especially his isometric exercises (his claim was "you'd see tangible results in two weeks" if you do that).


OK, now...what to talk about today?
I suggest two topics: compression locks and "slowing the opponent down"!


Starting with the latter, DeBlass' argument was that if you want to be successful in older age (and you can't keep up with the young bucks in athleticism...which, let's face it, is probably a losing battle), you'd need ways to slow the opponent down.
On the ground, in a gi or suitably heavy clothing, you can slow him down with grips. In lighter clothing, grips are harder, but it's still feasible.
The question for all of you is, how do you slow down an opponent while he's still standing?
I only know of two methods: break his balance, and break his structure (though if you do it successfully, you tend to get both results at once). Obviously neither one works really well at long range (though there are exceptions with weapons, like "gluing" your weapon to the opponent's...but that's at most a brief pause).
Anyone?


And on compression locks...well, they say an image is worth a thousand words, so let me suggest a video instead (it has at least 1000 images, so...over a million of words, I guess).
The question is just - have you used any of these, whether in competition, friendly practice, or where ever? What do you think about them?


Me, I've only ever used one of these successfully, but then I've attempted them a total of three times. On the other two occasions I lost the grips before getting to actually applying the lock (in both cases, I was going for the biceps slicer/short arm scissors).
But the only time I tried a compression knee lock, it worked marvelously. Though I improvised it on the spot, and didn't apply it the way I've been told to (replacing my leg with a hand, because it was there already...actually, that was what gave me the idea:tongue:).
So I'm looking forward to applying them a lot more:angel:!
 
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Not getting any discussion out of flowcharts and compression locks, let's try Rest and Respect:
Rest:
A lesson from the BJJ over 40 instructionals I'm watching: one of the leading Gracies (Helio, but I might be mistaken, either way it was someone who knew what he was talking about...) advised people to not train to full exhaustion. "Leave something in the tank so you can come back to practice the next day, too", I think is how Tom DeBlass put it. And keep in mind that yes, that's about learning the techniques...but the process is exhausting like any fitness regimen:grin:!
Accidentally, I started noticing much more improvement in my BJJ game and in my conditioning since I stopped training to exhaustion (before I'd even watched that, I'm proud to add - but watching it makes me feel like I'm not being lazy, but smart and lazy:tongue:).
Probably because it means I'm not missing training sessions due to overtraining and others due to scheduling issues - just due to scheduling issues. So in the end I get much more drilling, which I need...and every training session starts with conditioning, so I get more conditioning as well.
No guarantees that my improvements and said decision are related, of course. It might be a coincidence, with my previous training adding up until I start noticing it as a "breakthrough".
But it's a data point to consider for you, because I obviously can't perform a double-blind research...
So, what do you believe in, guys? "Skip training three days, and everyone knows", as the Chinese proverb says, or "Rest is what makes champions":shade:?


Respect:
If you've heard about Chael Sonnen, you probably don't equate him with showing respect. If you watch a MMA competitor's dvd called "gangster grappling", you probably don't expect him to show respect to anyone, either.
And yet, that's exactly how Sonnen's instructional "Gangster grappling" concludes: he tells his viewers "now you should totally go and watch my teacher's DVD, his name is Fabiano Scherner (insert kind words for his teacher's ability, I don't remember it all)...and he has a different outlook for me. You need to see both, so you can compare. Consider it a home assignment from me if you want to get better".
Sounds great to me, and exactly how a diligent and grateful student should act! In fact, even many traditional martial arts students fail to mention their teachers, much less to recommend their viewers to actually see their teacher's teachings! (And admitting that the teacher has differences is sometimes seen as anathema).
Chael Sonnen...got all three right. And thus, this became the day when he earned my total respect!
 
OK, let me show you a bad example of sports-based thinking...



And here's the answer I started writing.

"Young man, I used to say the same things when I was your age. But at least I didn't have You Tube to make my views widely known...still, you (like me at the time) need to learn more about how real street attacks actually happen. Because what you're saying is "if people were fighting according to sports rules, those moves would make no sense".
Except people don't fight while observing sports rules. 1:04 "Just punch'em"....when the guy has already lapel grabbed you. 'Cause he's going to try and throw you. No, young man, that's not how it works on the street. If someone is grabbing your lapels like that, as shown at 1:02...the HEADBUTT is incoming. He's not "positioning his hips in front of yours", he's KOing you.
The defense taught at BJJ schools aims to prevent being headbutted into the next week, not "being thrown". Headbutting and defense against it is a major part of the old-school BJJ, and it doesn't require you to have trained grappling. Grappling just makes it easier.
Sure, it's forbidden in most sports (Valetudo, Combat Sambo, Lethwei and I think Shoot Wrestling being exceptions)...but do you think a biker on the street is going to care about the Unified Rules of MMA?

Roughly at 2:38 you say "Front chokes are useless". Seriously? You know what is forbidden in all grappling competitions and MMA? The specific way that front chokes are performed in the street.
Let me continue: at 2:49 you claim "Closing off someone's carotid artery with your thumbs"... That's because you're NOT trying to close off the carotid. The front choke is an air choke, not a blood choke, it blocks the windpipe. And you do that BY DIGGING YOUR THUMBS INTO THE WINDPIPE - again, a move that is forbidden in all grappling competitions (and probably all combat sports). If you think it's because it doesn't work? See the small hole right between your clavicles? Press yourself LIGHTLY until you start choking (warning, don't go all-out, the damage can close off your airways). That's where the front choker's thumbs are digging with all his might, and his bodyweight. Or he's pulling your Adam apple in two different directions at once (that variant looks like "close your hands on the throat and rip"). So you need to remove his hands FAST, before damage is inflicted.
Also, it's usually done by bigger people on smaller ones, raising the possibility of damage (say, in cases of domestic abuse).

Roughly 8:20..."being in a headlock is a gift". And if punching or "bulldog choke" were the only options, that would be true. Alas, you can also turn sharply to perform a throw (not sure about the name in English). And you know why wrestlers don't do that? Because it's forbidden due to...wait for it...high risk of neck injury. Conclusions so far: you need to train more in non-sports systems. ...I'll go through the rest of your video after I return home. Need to go now."
 
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So to clarify the above...what don't I like about his clip?
He literally doesn't know how street attacks work. I mean, "during the front choke you're trying to close the carotid arteries"...man, even the GURPS books can tell you it's not like that...they even mention the "mechanical" damage that I was talking about.

The lapel grab is used not only for headbutts. Sometimes it is simply the precursor to throwing you off-balance, taking you next to a wall, and lapel strangling you. These moves have been in Judo for ages now, a lot of street guys have done Judo - it's an Olympic sport, for crying out loud!

Similarly, the headlock is often used for throwing you, but even more often: it is used to drag you, head first, into a wall - both of these while threatening :devil:! Either way, you have to counter that one fast.

OTOH, he's completely right about the solution to the headlock. I was quite surprised by the "defense" shown in the video...peel his head back doesn't work by itself.
Pulling his head back or at least keeping it in place while lifting his near leg, however, does, and I suspect that's the move they wanted to show:thumbsup:. Either way, his suggestion of using single/double leg or ankle pick? I actually like those!

He's right about how to escape a rear choke, too. And his strangling from back position is way better than mine (his wrestling takedowns are better, too).
He's right about the likely reasons why you don't see old-school BJJ more often, too: people don't like being punched in the face. They want the magic move that allows them to defend themselves and defeat the attacker.
Sorry, no such move exists, or they're few and far between (and you'd probably need a lawyer afterwards, too). What exists are moves that save you from a menace, put the attacker at a disadvantage and in some pain, and allow you to run... even if you're lighter, less strong, and so on. But a 50kgs woman fighting a heavyweight guy with some boxing/whatever sport/street experience?
Give me a break. In fact, unless she can give him a nasty break on the spot (preferably a leg, but a neck, jaw or skull would work as well...a nose or finger, however, would make him only angrier), strangle him, preferably from behind, or throw him on his neck...she is still well-advised to run.
I guess that's not "sexy enough" for the mass SD market. But that's the cold, hard reality. And yeah, the teachers can't peddle this to the mass market and remain in business.

So I kinda like the guy, he's trying to learn and sharing his conclusions. I just don't like him presenting them in an authoritative manner. Oh, and I dislike clickbait titles. So I guess I like the guy, but I hate his channel (a whole lot of his titles are clickbait).


That aside: Let's speak about sparring today...because if that doesn't get you replying, nothing will:tongue:!
Now, we all know that some places are high on the traditional but low on the martial side...I've seen a couple of those, myself. Never remained for long, though, and I don't consider them actual TMAs.
I mean, if it's not fair to judge Muay Thai by the experience of having gone to a taibo place, it's not fair to judge TMAs by the experience of having trained in a place that didn't allow any sparring.
The sad part is that those places seem to have come to outnumber the actual places where you could learn a TMA.
I like to give an example with the sparring "rules" in the first school where I remained for over a month. "Don't hurt or cripple your training partner or you'd have nobody to train with, and the instructor is going to show you how it feels on the receiving side of the hurt". Period - everything else was a recommendation how to apply the techniques while not running afoul of this principle...:shade:

In practice, it was light/semi contact (lighter on the head and groin, but basically "don't hit harder than your opponent can take", so eye strikes had to be stopped short of contact) with no restrictions what you can hit with...as long as you can control it. Some people were forbidden by using certain techniques because they seemed unable to control them (I was one of those, my personal prohibited techniques were eye jabs and a particular move for stopping low/middle kicks). No gloves, no mandatory protectors (we did wear groin guards and teeth protectors... sometimes - most often the groin protectors were left aside for mobility). No restrictions on where you can strike, with what (that's the school that taught me to like and respect elbows and headbutts), nor how to grapple. No weight categories, no separation by gender. "You're a sack of meat with bones inside, same as her, you both have to learn to defend yourselves, and your plumbing only matters as a target", to quote the instructor on that last matter... :smile:

The only downside to that kind of training was: in the four and a half years I spent there, there had been a total of 11 students that remained longer than a week, and four of them had left. There were no lasting injuries, but it turns out that most people don't like walking around with bodies and legs bearing irregular shapes in blue and violet (also called haematomas...my biggest one was an irregular shape with sides roughly 13x17x17,5x19 centimeters - I measured it, because I found it funny, and if it was today, I'd have taken a picture on my phone...but it was back before a phone couldn't take pictures:wink:).

Whowouldaguessed people might object to regular pain, right:grin:? Well, maybe sportsmen wouldn't, but most of those wanted a place that lets them actually compete, you know...
So the place closed down when we lost access to the cheaply rented gym.

Grappling was, BTW, a secondary toolset, but that was for stylistic reasons, I suspect. I'm pretty sure the former sambo guy in the school didn't use throws often....purely because he wasn't sure we could roll with them on the floor (which was either hardwood or earth, depending on whether the weather permitted to train outside). Same for the guy who had a few years of freestyle wrestling. He had singles and doubles on his "forbidden" list except when he was playing with the instructor or the former sambo guy.
I think that's why he left, too...but back then single/double legs weren't popular enough to warrant training specially against them (throws were used in street fights, I'd been knocked out with one of those...but those were Greco/Judo style throws, or amusingly, "lockthrows" like the kote-gaeshi).
Nowadays I'd have asked the instructor to have us drill sprawling against the wrestling guy, or he might not have needed us asking. Then we'd have had it allowed in sparring.
But it was the late 90ies-early 2000s, so...UFC was that thing you could see on a VHS cassette, and the most likely sports-trained opponent was a boxer or kick-boxer. And most untrained people resort to punching or grabbing and punching, so that's what we drilled against.

That's TMA for me, but you seldom find this kind of place. If it was easy to find, I probably wouldn't be doing BJJ today. Amusingly, I suspect it might be easier to persuade MMAers to train in this way...how do I know? Well, I've heard in the gym that some guys are actually doing exactly that.
 
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Kick-boxing training was fun today. I suffered a couple light groin shots, but that tends to bother me less than other people:shade:.
It was only the hook that put my own (semi-open) fist in my own eye* that took me out of commission for about a minute. But then I recovered from that, too.
I only made a single roll (with the other old guy), though, since my injured shoulder felt like it has suffered too much strain for the day. So I wisely, or maybe just lazily, decided not to push the matter.
I can report that my butterfly sweep works just fine against him, though of course one year of difference is a huge advantage when it translates to 13 times as much training...:grin:
He really should learn how to hit that sweep, too. Today, I felt like trying it, so it worked every single time. Well, at least I restarted the roll from butterfly guard after giving him an option to try and apply an escape, and after trying a submission or two.
I also gave him a crash course in head and arm hokes. I'm starting to like those more and more...:angel:


*I was late by a fraction of the second, so I parried, but didn't have time to parry with the forearm, and the strike pushed my hand towards my face. It was quite close, since I try to do the defenses that the trainer is showing, and he is showing us mostly what I call "third-stage" defenses (making contact at the last third of the strike).
I should really switch to my preferred variant, though, mainly "long guard", which intercepts attacks at the beginning or middle.

After training today we were discussing today the applicability of BJJ on the street. And well, it's not that great, but it's not that easy to take a BJJ player with strikes, as some people with mostly striking background seem to believe...
In fact, that's something that I've been thinking about recently. When people start striking, they're really opening themselves to grappling. In fact, I just read a youtube comment about it yesterday: "If you have never really gotten a really clean/demo like throw while in randori, that's because your opponent is actively grappling you and they aren't putting to much force into one direction, but in a scenario with striking, things will be really different, that's why you will see many Judoka getting super clean throws in the streets."
I would add for myself - when people start striking, the use of the kinetic chain from the ground often makes their weight go up. If you're already in contact, that shift can be exploited ruthlessly to break their balance and posture.
OTOH, when people aim to grapple, they sometimes forget to maintain their "defensive perimeters" to prevent strikes...
Chinese internal styles however, teach you to maintain "pressure in all directions" at all times - even while striking (never mastered that, myself). It is also a principle of Aikido...but Aikido doesn't use much atemi today.

And something that should be of special interest to Fenris-77 Fenris-77 but not only him...
Chadi (the judo youtuber) has noted in his video on Japanese shootboxing that it includes standing submissions, but those work without too much trauma. His conclusion is that this is because of the lack of groundwork. Meaning people don't drop while holding a submission (because they can't finish it there, unlike in judo, and a win by a standing submission is the same as KO), which is how injuries used to occur in judo before the standing submissions got banned.
So I wasthinking: would it be safe enough to practice randori with standing submissions if there was a blanket ban on going to the ground with a submission locked? I.e. even if you're simply losing balance, you have to release it, and if the opponent is throwing you, either prevent it, or release - even during the fall? Maybe with a "workaround" that you can bring it to the ground, if you can get the opponent's knees to the ground one by one (to permit slowly building up on a waki-gatame). If that would open up a rules abuse, just forbid going to the ground intentionally when thesubmission is locked on you, unless it's part of a sutemi-waza. Which means no "pulling guard" to save yourself from a bad position, but throwing someone who has you in a headlock is legit.
 
BTW, guys, I have compiled myself a youtube playlist with butterfly guard and another with half guard. Should I share them here? Amusingly, I find those two positions to actually be the closest analogues to stand-up grappling...some stuff might even translate. Like, sitting down and using a buttefly sweep at speed is basically a sutemi-waza (sacrifice throw), the difference is whether you get your grips before or after sitting on your butt:angel:!


Today the universe conspired to not let me train. I objected, so we settled on not training as much, though:thumbsup:.
First it turned out that First Mom has put the gi of her (smaller) brother in the bag of First Daughter. She didn't have a change of clothes, so training was right out...due to the conditioning/warm-up part. It's winter, I'm not going to make her sweat and then go outside.

Then I was asked to watch the bigger kids from the children's group when they were rolling. They're starting to learn submissions, so the trainer wants someone to pay attention. Kids have worse impulse control, after all, and we don't want any injuries!
However, this also meant that I skipped warm-up as well! So I had to think on my feet, so to say...
Thus, after most of them were tired out, I asked to roll with some of the better (and heavier) ones. Now, they're still lightweights at best, but it did serve as a substitute for the warm-ups, so I was able to join the drilling. I hope they didn't realize that I'm using them for a light warm-up:tongue:.
Also, I managed to show one of our "rising stars" the advantages of two-on-one gripping with butterfly guard. (She is fast enough that she usually just runs around you...but when you grip her hand, that doesn't work as well:gunslinger:). I also showed her a new submission - namely, the short arm scissors.
I rolled with one of the best guys in the children's group, too. He had better strategy, too. Well, I used my single leg sweep, instead.

Alas, I didn't get to roll with the best one in the group (an Ukrainian guy, AFAICT, who has been training in his native city before they got here - his mother mentioned that he'd started with Japanese Ju-Jutsu). I like his style, he's doing...actually, the same things I try to do, and he's actually been training them for longer. Namely, I've never seen him even attempting an armbar - he pressures them until he gets a shoulder lock (when they allow him submissions, that is). But he was too tired.

After that, we were working butterfly guard today. Of course, as luck had it, I had no partner for the practice of the butterfly sweep.
So I enlisted First Daughter. It was an occasion to show her the butterfly sweep as well (it's not popular in the children's group). She swept me off my knees a couple of times, I swept her as well...
Then next drill, however, was straight armbar from butterfly guard, so I let her rest (also avoiding sweating) and joined a couple of adult practitioners, instead. I'm not confident in my ability to control this submission.
I think I have a better grip on it, now.

After that, we rolled. I rolled with the same guy (Martin) today. Then he rolled with another new guy, also more experienced than him (but also with less practice than me), and managed to avoid all submissions. In fact, he was going for submissions from the bottom, and managed to sweep him once, so kudos to him for the spirit! The new guy is also heavier than either of us, in my estimates, in the 110+ kgs range (Martin is in the upper 80ies), so not getting submitted and getting the upper position wasn't bad at all for someone on his first month of practice!
Then I rolled with the same guy. He did manage to surprise me a couple of times, but I spent most of the time on top - he was starting in butterfly, but I did get him with the single leg sweep and a leg weave/over under pass combo. A notable exception was when he got my back after I screwed a single leg attempt.
I did get out, though - managed to defend the hadaka jime*, exchanged the back for half-guard bottom, then swept him to me being on top of his guard. Then he tried to triangle me, and to switch to armbar, with the result of said attempts being me getting to side control...
I didn't manage to submit him, though I tried all kinds of moves - shoulder locks, wristlocks...but it was a nice roll, if you were asking me.
Which is why I was surprised at his comment, which translated roughly to "man, but do you grapple dirty":shock:. Man, what?!?
He didn't want to specify what specifically I've done, though I assured him that I never intended it. All he said was "you're going for fingers and wrists".
Ahem, I wasn't going for fingers - I guess I might have grabbed his fingers at some moment, but the only moment I registered such a thing, I released him and went for his wrist. And I've been recently informed that wristlocks are legal in the rules of the gym, so I felt it's fine if I tried those.

Whatever the case, I also remained for a bit longer after practice to drill some moves with Martin (pressure defense against armbars, courtesy of Tom DeBlass). I also used this opportunity to tell him about a specific hole in his defense against butterfly guard users. Which was both me and the other guy.
I also told him to use more of a pressure-style game. We're both middle-aged, neither of us is going to want to move more:shade:!
I think he's starting to "get" the whole thing I want to present to him, which is actually amazing given how long he's been training.

*I don't like saying that someone on my back is trying to apply a "rear naked choke" on me, it just sounds sus:grin:!
 
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I was to BJJ again on Tuesday. Apart from the assistant trainer telling me I'm really simple* after hearing about my as-of-yet-untreated injury, it was mostly uneventful. I played with newbies only, due to said injury. The only memorable thing was that Martin now manages to pass my butterfly guard - he stopped my butterfly sweep, didn't allow me to get X-guard either, and only succumbed to a 10th planet sweep that he probably hadn't seen before. I don't remember their name for this move, but I call it "the stretch sweep"...which is unlikely to be helping you.
Also, he keeps attempting to lock a kimura from the bottom. He even got close to that goal yesterday, so I'm glad I told him about some mistakes he's been making...we old-timers have to support each other:thumbsup:!

The other newbie was from the Netherlands, a bit more experienced, and a lot more flexible than Martin (and younger, too...), which made it even harder to keep the dominant position. I mean, I managed to get on top at the start, but keeping even the side control was unexpectedly hard, he kept re-guarding!
He also tried to apply a kimura or straight armlock from the bottom, but he was further from the goal than him. Ah well, if he keeps coming and seems willing to listen (not guaranteed:grin:), I shall tell him to stop trying to lock me once I've passed his guard. That's a mistake Martin used to do until Sunday as well.
As it was, we didn't have time for that.

Either way, I'm glad that the new guys are getting better. Especially if I have to take some time off for medical reasons, I'd be able to have interesting rolls with them both when I get back!

Also, it seems that Carlos Machado has created his own online platform for studying BJJ on MachadoMethod :angel:! Which is beyond great, in my book: he is, after all, the guy who inspired me to start learning BJJ (on his seminar)!
I am just contemplating which tier I should join. So far, I joined the free one, but that's purely for technical (a.k.a. bank-related) reasons. Those should be resolved in about a week, anyway, which is when I'm going to upgrade.


OTOH, I got myself a no-gi instructional from Grapplearts. (I like Grapplearts and David Avellan's instructionals). The instructor is Emily Kwok, a Marcelo Garcia black belt, and it seems she has competed in absolute category. So she should be well-positioned to give advice on "How to overcome the bigger, stronger opponent".
And honestly, I might not be a small guy, but some of the guys I train with really have a lot of strength, so I end up being the weaker more often than I'd like to. That's actually how I recognize MMA guys: if the guy is much stronger than his weight would suggest, fights mandatorily for top position, and prefers to use submissions that don't sacrifice the position even if they fail (shoulder wrenches, rear naked chokes, arm triangles and the like) to stuff like armbars and triangles? There's a strong likelihood he's also training in an MMA gym and is in our gym to improve his grappling...
Anyways, as I've mentioned before, I really like training with these guys, and I've never met one of them trying to abuse his strength.
Come to think of it, that preference almost describes me as well:shock:! The two major differences are that I don't mind starting in bottom position in the initial engagement, and that I'm not "stronger than my weight would suggest". But I don't like giving away a superior position for a submission that might fail.
Tuesday was basically the second time I drilled leg triangles. I'm still not sure how I feel about them.

*I think he didn't want to say "nuts":tongue:.
 
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