Productive Mind Mapping for BJJ

How To Use A Mind Map To Shape Your BJJ

First it's necessary to understand what a Mind Map should consist of. A mindmap is not a web of every single technique and position you have ever seen, drilled, or even pulled off while rolling live. A mindmap is a distillation of your most common actions from your most common positions.

When most people first create a map of their game it's an unreadable mess with dozens of techniques for each position and sub position that obfuscates more than it enlightens, to avoid having your mindmap end up as an impenetrable wall of text there are some guidelines you must follow when making it.

Any technique that is in your mindmap should be one that you attempt at least once in the majority of your rolls. It doesn't have to be successful, but it should be something that you are actively pursuing. For most people this will result in two, perhaps three, techniques in a given position. Sometimes as few as a single technique.

When you build the map you should build it in a way that generally mimics the flow of a roll. Begin with 'standing' as your base position and proceed with a method for transitioning to the ground, then your sweeps, passes, and submissions, as they derive from that position. If you normally attempt a single leg and your single leg lands you in side control half the time, and in half guard half the time, then you will branch from Standing to those two positions via Single Leg Takedown as the transition.

The rest of the map can be constructed in a similar manner following the flow of the roll using the techniques you are most commonly attempting and assuming success or failure.

Once you have the visual map created you will have something which vaguely resembles the picture below:

This is a simple map of what a beginners game might look like. So how can this be helpful? Well, We can see that they favor the single leg and usually land in side control or half guard, the most common path for them is to reach side control and then attack from there or Knee on Belly.

Looking at the map makes it immediately obvious that our test subject doesn't really know what to do when they get caught in closed guard. That's an easy and obvious place to address. Our subject will need to learn a guard break and then how to incorporate their existing knee-cut pass into that guard break.

We can also immediately see that the focus is on the top game with no consideration for work from guard. Let's fill this out a bit and see what it looks like when we address those two most obvious gaps.



Now our subject has filled in their most common response to ending up on the bottom of guard and halfguard. Other bad positions like bottom side control and bottom mount can be largely ignored for this particular exercise because the game plan from those positions is almost exclusively going to be to escape to guard or halfguard, top or bottom. In an actual students mindmap we would fill those in as a matter of course, but  they aren't required for this example.

So, again, how can this be used in some kind of meaningful and productive way to guide your training in jiujitsu? The first way is to help maintain your focus leading up to competition. It's easy to get bored with doing the same old thing and decide you want to branch out and play with something you saw in a highlight video or at a seminar or that one of your teammates is working on. Referencing your map before training serves as a mental guidepost to the game that you are working on refining.
The second way to use the map is to locate gaps in your skills which may not be visible to you in the moment while you are rolling, and can be difficult to pinpoint after the roll when you're exhausted. If you put  together your map and get to a point where you don't have a good answer to add to a position then you know that you need to explore that position more mindfully.

The third useful activity you can engage in with your mindmap is to looking for links between related techniques which, again, may not be visible in the heat of the moment when rolling. An example would be someone who favors Single Leg X guard and the standard twisting sweep to to take top, and who also favors leg drags for passing vs open guard. It is entirely possible for someone to have been doing both of those things successfully without ever realizing that the sweep they are doing feeds directly into their preferred open guard pass, and instead be attacking the ankle lock even in less than optimal conditions, or transitioning to a less successful pass. Some people will draw those connections in the moment based on the feel of the technique, but for others it takes a conscious thought process of examining the techniques and looking for ways to connect them.

The fourth, and for the me the most common, use of the mindmap is to look for ways to most effectively insert a new technique into your game to shore up a weakness. A good example would be if my preferred finishing position is the back, and until now I have been primarily attacking with armdrags to reach that position I might decide that it would be a good option to add in the berimbolo to provide me an additional path to my preferred position. Adding that technique to the map will keep it fresh on my mind when I consult it before training and remind me to drill it and practice incorporating it into my game.

While these four uses are all valuable tools the overall most valuable part of the mind map is the process of creating it and the continual reference to it which forces you to consciously think through your techniques, spend time considering them, and honestly assessing what you do well and often, and what you do not. Over time your map will change as you learn more techniques, replace old ones, add new ones, and expand and refine your game.

For me the mindmap is one aspect of an attitude of mindful training which helps me get the most out of each training session and helps me keep a productive focus on the mats without becoming distracted or going too far down the rabbit hole of a new technique that doesn't fit in with the rest of my game.

Not everyone will find value in this exercise. Some people will create this once and never look at it again. But for those who do find value in it a well maintained mind map can be a powerful tool for guiding your training and focusing your game.

More DLR work

Couple of things going on. I realized I'm walking around at the top of the 151 weight class by being 144-146, so I'm just going to stay where I am. No need for a cut. Second thing is that I'm retuning my Tomoe Nage to give me a better entry and more control over the sweep and the followup. Previously I was coming straight in and sweeping my opponent straight over my head. I ran into problems when my opponent was very agile (Like at Newbreed), and in loosing contact after completing the sweep and diving right into triangle chokes while trying to lock down side control.

I did some chatting with some of my Judo homies and was told that I need to be coming in at an angle, so that my foot is parallel with my opponents belt, not perpendicular. Some further discussion determined that it's also possible to fake Tomoe Nage into X-guard from this execution, and it's easier to drop your opponent into an armbar, AND post sweep you are tighter and already past the legs. Happily we got to drill takedowns today so I got in about 50 reps with the new version and it felt really good.

After that was work on the same DLR sweeps. The sitdown sweep when your opponent goes to one knee to avoid your normal DLR shenanigans and you just make them fall over with your body rotation.
From there you can follow up with the berimbolo, or you can slide across to take mount.

After that we did some 'Fun Friday' cardio work which involved tug-of war, then some crazy game involving trying to pile all of the boxing gloves in the middle of the mats, or in the corners. My team lost, we did sprawls, I was sad.

Next more work from DLR, I didn't feel as fluid with my DLR sweeps this time. I felt like I was not being as aggressive about inverting and not as forceful with the DLR hook as I was on Monday. I need to really dig the hook deep and MAKE my opponent fall over. I also got outscrambled a few times, I need to work on that as well. And finally, I'm still having trouble finishing submissions right now. I need to pick a couple and really zero in on them. Probably the nearside armbar since it combos with my takedown, and then work on transitioning into the single collar choke from more places.

I'm improving for sure, but I still have a lot more work to do.

I'm still hitting the non-BJJ gym a few times a week and running and lifting. My strength should be starting to improve over the next couple of months, but not soon enough to make a real difference for the Atl Open.

Americanas are Serious Bizness!

Got in and did some drilling with one of the blue belts for 20 minutes, 5 on top and 5 on bottom each. Worked mostly grip controls and sweeps, just rebuilding some of my chains and reflexes. He's got a competition coming up so he worked a lot of passing stuff.

Technique was Mount escapes, standard knee and elbow to halfguard, and standard upa.

Drilled those for 20 minutes, then did rodeo drills for... a while. Felt like eternity.  Was probably 7 minute rounds.

Cardio was sprawls while partner sprinted the mats, partner does pushups and sprints back, then you sprint down, do pushups, and sprint back. Pushups were done countdown style, 10 on the first lap, 9, 8 ,7. and so on. It was brutal.

After that we rolled, and at this point it's mostly a blur. I do remember defending an americana a little too long because it was super sloppy and it felt like I was about to escape the entire time, and then he suddenly started doing it right and I felt my elbow pop once. So that's not good, but probably won't be too bad. In retrospect I should have tapped about 20 seconds earlier, but the dude doing the americana was a purple belt, and it was white belt sloppy, so I felt like I could defend and escape it. But the guys top pressure and control is 100% purple belt, so he was able to keep me there while he cranked on my arm, and then suddenly he shifted and finally brought my elbow down properly and the americana went from 'meh, whatever' to OMFG TAP. So that sucked.

I remember getting MAULED by the instructor in hilarious fashion. At one point I swear he was posting on just one hand and I still couldn't generate a sweep.

I rolled with a blue belt that I had talked to a while back about focusing his weight better when he was on top and he apparently took it to heart because this time whenever I had a frame or anything his weight was immediately 100% focused and just splattered me back flat. I finally eventually managed to hit x-guard, sweep, and pass and stay on top for about 15 seconds.

Might have been some other stuff that happened

Holiday Work on the Home Gym

Trained today, rolled with one of the aspiring MMA guys again, different one than usual, who has a fight coming up in September as well. He had good heavy pressure, but was making a few small fundamental errors that I helped him clean up with his passing which immediately made him much more effective. I broke out my omoplata/triangle game again which worked well but he was definitely better in the scrambles than I was, so I failed to capitalize on several sweeps.

In bigger news I started work on my home gym. I have a 10'x18' outbuilding on the property that I'm going to convert into mat space and lifting space.

This is a picture of the current outside, after I cut down a bunch of huge bushes that were trying to take over the building, this is also post bug bombing since it was infested with spiders and stuff:

I took it at night, but you can get an idea of what it looks like.

Then here is a close up of the area that will be mat space:

This space is 10'x'10, give or take a few inches, and there is a wall currently dividing the two parts. I'll be taking that wall down and then putting in a nice sturdy wood floor across the entire space, redoing the walls, putting in a little AC unit, and then building in pullup space, and possibly a power cage. I'll be posting updates as I work on it, but I don't intend to be finished with it until possibly early next year, or even mid summer next year. It's going to be a leisurely project.

Training tomorrow is supposedly back in the Gi, so I'll be showing up rocking my grappling pajamas, and if we do no-gi then I'll ditch the jacket and roll in pants.

Heel Hooks and No-Gi DLR

Showed up at the gym today and the Tues/Thurs class is still kind of informal while the instructor is training up at Unit2. Only one guy was there, and he was waiting for guys to show up for MMA sparring. He offered to roll until they showed up though, and so I got in a solid half an hour. I hit him with a couple of single leg x-guard transitions to heel hooks, then showed him how to stop them.
He also tried a flashy rolling back take from top of quarter guard, so I showed him the super easy version of the same back take. We had a good 30 minutes of rolling then his MMA guys showed up so I watched them spar and offered some minor pointers on the grappling bits that happened.

I'll be hitting the gym up again every day this week, and maybe even saturday morning. So there is a chance that I will train 5 days this week, which would be a first time ever kind of thing.


Damn it feels good.

Settling In To The Routine

Back in the gym this morning at 10:30am. Same warmup, then same drilling of upa to situp sweep. Techniques were the exact same guard passes from the last class, which was AWESOME. I'm not used to getting so much time to drill a technique set. I was able to troubleshoot some issues in the first one I talked about and really work on the hip twist that goes along with the knee cut pass.

Drilled for 10 minutes each, so about 3:30 per technique, then split off to roll. Had some fun, still working on getting back in shape, and getting back into the mindset. Made some stuff work, other stuff not so much. Got to roll with my new instructor for the first time and I was really impressed with the precision of his gripping in no-gi, he's only a little heavier than I am, maybe 15lbs, so seeing how he grips and moves is a nice change from my old instructor who was about 210 and had a totally different game.

This is the first time I've trained 3 days in a week in over a year I think, and I'm feeling it. Definitely feel on the tired side today. I'm not as sore as I expected I would be, but I have to dig some fence post holes tomorrow for our horses, so I'll probably feel it then.

Back on the mats Tuesday as our HVAC is coming in on Monday.

I Don't Remember JiuJitsu Being So Much Work!

Today my muscles made a few attempts to remind me that I have done hardly any jiujitsu and that maybe I should take it easy, but I told them to suck it up and quit complaining.

As a result, back on the mats at 10:30am this morning. 12 or 14 people in the class, which was awesome. Started out with a jogging warmup, then drilled Upa mount escape followed by sit-up sweep for 5 minutes each.

After that we worked 3 no-gi guard passes, one of which I had never actually drilled before.

The first one was the standard kneecut. Pop the guard, combat base, drive the knee in, opponent blocks it, you cut to the outside and bring the non-cutting knee up and walk the foot up. Flat palm to push the knee off and clear your leg, backstep and push the far knee to the mat to kill the hips.

Second one was guard break transition to achilles lock. Opponent curls you forward to break your posture, you catch yourself in their armpits and bring one leg around and pinch their leg with yours and your elbow. They open their guard to attack or transition and you bring your knee up into combat base. Then circle your arm back (put it in your back pocket) and drop back for the ankle lock.

Third was the one I had never drilled before, it was a very slick transition to the back. Opponent tries to hip-bump sweep you, you block the knee on the side OPPOSITE the one they are sweeping you towards. So the knee they are trying to use to drive you over, you block that one and pop your knee up on that side, then you step OVER their knee. Drop your knee on that side to the ground aiming for their far hip, and at the same time bringing your inside leg up to catch the first hook and bringing your arm around to set up the RNC. Then you just complete the transition to the back with both hooks in and work for the RNC.

After that we did a gauntlet with 1 person starting on guard bottom, I think I got 4x5 minute rolls out of that, I felt slightly less retarded in no-gi today and was actually able to make some stuff work properly without gi grips, so that felt good. A final round of rolling starting from the knees and then I had to ditch out to shower and head to work as it was 12:05.

So far I am absolutely loving this gym. I won't be able to train tomorrow as I will be buying all of the stuff to install a new hot water heater (inline, woohoo!) and run a 50 foot length of 10/2 and a cutoff switch for the HVAC install monday. I will be back on friday though!

OBMA - Day 5

I ended up at the gym a little before the kids classes started, so I jumped in and did their warmup and drills and then helped coach the kids while they were rolling, and did some gymnastics with them and stuff. We started off our class with armbar defense and escapes and drilled those for a while. Basic stuff, elbow pops, stacking, and the hitchhiker for desperation.

Assertiveness was in full swing while rolling. I was insistent about my sweeps, and continued to hit combinations. My collar drags weren't working quite as well today, but I was switching off to spider guard and hitting sickle sweeps when needed. It actually felt very strange at one point, I realized I had rolled with 4 or 5 blue belts and completely controlled them with almost no effort. I caught myself wondering if that was what I was like as a blue belt.
I rolled with Casey for the first time in a while and for the first time I can remember everything he did wasn't dark magic and sorcery. I could tell what was going on and avoided a lot of things that would have swept me a few months ago. I was able to execute an effective guard pass and avoid a trap that usually gets me immediately swept. All in all I felt a lot of progress tonight.

I also rolled with Johnny and was able to prevent him from passing my guard up until the last 15 seconds of the round, which hasn't been the case in a couple of years. I had to fight hard for it, but it's what I NEED to do, so it was super good for me.

Closed out the night with another points match with Kris, again I could tell he was tired, but that didn't stop me from tomoe nageing him in spectacular fashion and breakdancing on him. He'll recover from this fatigue or whatever in a week or so and be back to being one of the best guard passers in the gym, so I'm getting my licks in now while he's weak and helpless.

This is been the most successful mental project I've done since I started keeping track of my training and I think it's what I needed to finally break through and get my Jiu Jitsu to brown belt level.

OBMA: Day 4

Another solid day for the project. Today was takedowns mostly working from the russian 2 on 1 grip, which I never use, so I spent a lot of the time working with Kris on gi grips, grip breaking, foot sweep combos, and the very non-wrestling standup game we both use.

Started out rolling with Kris and continued to be assertive with my gripping and execution, he felt a bit less intense today than he usually does so I think he might have been backing it down a notch due to the heat and humidity in the gym. I hit a bunch of sweeps to KoB and executed my baseball bat choke. My assertiveness and determination to complete sweeps was leading me to combos that I had worked on before but never really was able to put into practice. I used x-guard or x-guard variation sweeps, the hook sweep, and some others that I am now too tired to remember.
Also rolled with a bigger guy that trained with us before, but was gone for a while. Went immediately to my standard big guy game and omoplata, swept to mount, worked for bow and arrow, then transitioned to his back. Ended up just riding it out on his back and refusing to be shaken off while working for the choke.

Rolled with a new guy that turns out to have a lot of previous wrestling experience. He was preposterously strong, so right off he tried to canopener the hell out of me, then head crushed me. I tapped to the headcrush real quick before my nose could get too smashed, then loop choked him immediately. After the reset I was setting up the loop choke again and he performed a very ballistic sitout that turned it into a kimura, which only didn't wreck my arm because I was lucky and was already going that direction. Rolled through it, and he head crushed me again. Tapped and then pulled him into full guard and x-choked him on the restart.  After that I just held him in guard until the round ended while he tried to canopener me repeatedly.

At that point it got hard to continue my assertiveness due to exhaustion, but I did what I could.

I also have noticed that I am trying to pass the knee shield the same way no matter what size my opponent is. I need to adjust that so that on the stronger guys I back out and work to generate an agility advantage instead of trying to pressure pass through them. I can do that on guys my size, or inexperienced bigger guys, but bigger blue or purple belts it just isn't the appropriate passing method for the situation.

At the end I rolled with Kris again, and as our like 7 minute long round ended, Johnny called for a points match again starting from where we were with me under side control. I spend about 6 minutes playing full on defense unable to muster any kind of offense until I regained guard and at some point accidentally clipped Kris in the face with my knee.

Still it was continued progress mentally and I'm pretty happy with this project so far.

Operation Be More Assertive is a Go

In the past I have had what I definitely consider to be 'Lazy' jiujitsu. This has been hurting me in competition, and I've now compiled enough competition footage from the last year to see exactly where the biggest issues are and start to address them. The following is my plan for addressing these issues and making my jiujitsu more assertive and dynamic.

1. Ignore my opponent - I have in the past had a tendency to play defensively and wait for my opponent to make a mistake and then pounce on it. This lead to a very reactive game which frequently was very passive. This hurts you against opponents that don't make many mistakes or don't make mistakes that you know how to capitalize on. I have now begun ignoring my opponent and working to implement what I want to happen. 

2. Don't give up sweeps and don't give up ON sweeps - I previously would begin a sweep, and if my opponent blocked it I would just chill and wait to try something else. Instead I am now continuing to fight for the sweep and push harder to end up on top. I also would frequently allow my opponent to complete a sweep if it was pretty close instead of spending effort blocking it. Now instead I am actively working to block all sweeps no matter what stage they are at. So even if I miss my first opportunity to counter I am continuing to push back and work to stay on top. 

3. Take risks for submissions - Another passive point of my game has been being very relaxed about seeking submissions. I would be content to positionally control someone for 5-6 minutes and threaten a few submissions, but not seriously. Now instead I am aggressively seeking submissions, and a wider range of submissions and combining them. 


I began this project last night and immediately was able to see a difference. I secured more sweeps and submissions than I normally do and was able to do much more to control my opponents and force them to play the game I wanted to play, to my advantage.

Of course, I also managed to force a white belt to waiter sweep me, which was not exactly what I intended, but it was fun. All of my rolls felt more fun and dynamic as well. I feel good about this project and my expected results.

Should I be Strength Training?

The question of strength training comes up pretty regularly on the various BJJ forums around the internet and opinions are usually mixed. I think I can help clear up some of the confusion around when strength training will benefit you and when it won't.

You Should Strength Train When:
1. You are competing at the top level of your sport where every tiny edge is required to defeat people who are of equally immense skill. This applies to pretty much no one who reads my articles, and pretty much no one who is posting this question. If you are competing at the highest level then you know what you need to do to win.
2. Doing so will not take time away from your skills training. If you have the option of strength training OR going to class, you should always go to class. A lot of people who ask this question DO have free time that they can't use to train BJJ, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with hitting the weights during those times.

3. When you are at an EXTREME physical disadvantage where rapid gains are easy. Weightlifting, like most things, is a game of diminishing returns. If you have never really lifted weights, are really tiny, or really over weight, and are being consistently outpowered by people your size and smaller then lifting weights will have rapid results in relatively little time. This is one of those rare times when putting your time into a good strength training routine will bring you results very quickly and is probably worth the time investment. Very few people are weak enough or out of shape enough to qualify though.

4. You have a specific physical issue that will benefit from it. There are many medical issues that can be helped by regular strength training. You shouldn't forego that benefit just because the BJJ community starts spazzing out at you.

5. You enjoy weight training for its own sake and don't care whether your BJJ progress is slowed by trading some BJJ Classes for weight training. If you would rather spend 3 days lifting and 2 days training BJJ than the other way around, then do that and don't worry about.

6. If you are over 30. As you age you can start to lose muscle mass and bone density, both things that weight training can help with. There are serious health benefits to weight training that can not be ignored.

When you should NOT Strength Train:
1. When you feel like you only got tapped because someone was stronger than you are. This is almost never the case and hitting the weights instead of hitting the mats will only impede your progress.

2. When you are ranked lower than purple belt. At white and blue belt the diminishing returns still generally favor skill training over strength training except in extreme cases. Once you hit purple it takes longer to improve at BJJ, so hitting the weights can help lift your game a few extra steps by opening up more options for you.

3. When you have JUST started training so that you can lose weight and get in better shape. Piling weight training on top of BJJ will kill you. Or you'll quit both of them because by the fourth day of alternating BJJ and squats you won't be able to move.

4. In order to get in better shape before you start training. This will not work. Grappling is a completely different animal from any other physical activity you can engage in. Being the worlds strongest man won't stop you from throwing up all over yourself thirty minutes in to your first class.

5. If you can already bench ~1.5x your weight, do 20 pullups, squat 2x your weight, and deadlift 2.5x your weight. If you can do those things then you are going to be hitting the line of diminishing returns almost immediately when you start lifting and you'll get almost no benefit from it for your jiujitsu. You would be better off doing gymnastics or finding some people to roll with.

6. When you feel like the only reason you couldn't tap someone was because you weren't strong enough. Again, this is almost never the case and trading mat time for strength training time is just going to make things worse.

I'm sure all kinds of people will disagree with me, so feel free to leave vitriolic feedback wherever you like.

Edit: It was mentioned that many people will fall into both categories in one way or another. Usually I imagine with people being over 30 or at an extreme physical disadvantage, and below the rank of purple belt. If you are over 30, you should be weight training anyways. Regardless of other factors. There are simply too many health benefits to it for you to ignore it. However, that question has led me to think that this article might be better represented as a flow chart. So I think I will make one.

The Training Roller Coaster

Normally a title like that would suggest that I'm going to talk about the ups and downs of training and how some days you are doing great and other days you feel like a noob again, but I'm not. This is about the rush of being on top of your game. I had another great class last night, we had the No-Gi Pan Am gold medalist and his brother who is also an incredibly skilled purple belt training with us again. It was no-gi which is what they both specialize in so they mauled me an unholy amount, but I'm already improving thanks to working against them.

In every roll that was not with them I was flowing well, chaining my techniques together, and executing submissions with a much higher frequency that I have been the last year or so. My game has definitely bumped up a couple of steps and I'm hoping to carry that into Grapplemania on the 8th of December and come out with a good performance. In the mean time, I'm going to be back to training 3-4 days a week instead of the 1-2 I've been doing. I expect that to help a lot, and I'm going to see if I can get back to lifting weights after the 8th to try and build up my strength again.

Interesting Takedowns

Last was Takedown practice, we worked on breaking grips and moving to the Russian grip and then attacks from there. Some of it felt natural and kind of fit for me, some of it just was awkward. I had the most successful round of takedown practice ever, I managed to score takedowns against every opponent for over half an hour without getting taken down at all myself. The unfortunate part is that they were all counter takedowns, or guard pull/tomoe nage style takedowns. At one point I actually pulled guard to a sickle sweep as a takedown. Most of the rest were just countering other peoples grips or takedowns and ending up on top.I'm not sure if that's a good thing or not, I need to be more proactive about seeking takedowns that aren't predicated on pulling guard or some derivation thereof.


I keep meaning to do some more video, but everything is so busy that I just haven't had time. I also have some other ideas kicking around in my head that I probably won't get down on paper until after US Grappling on the 27th. Which I just remembered I need to pre-register for...

Homework Assignment: Ranking Your Techniques

In honor of another return to training after another multi month long gap I'm doing it big with a brand new Homework Assignment. I know it's been a while since I posted one, but I ran into this post over at Marshal Carper's blog and was struck by what an excellent training exercise that is.

 I suggest jumping over there, reading his post, and the returning here.

 The homework assignment is to take your technique library and to rank each of your techniques that you commonly use and that you WANT to commonly use by belt rank.
 A good way to determine this is by who you can usually land the technique against. If you can hit it against white belts your size, but not blue belts your size or white belts with a big size/strength advantage then it's a white belt technique. If you can hit it against blues, but not purples, it's blue, and so on.

My technique rank breakdown:
 Submissions:
Triangle Choke - Purple Belt
Loop Choke - Purple Belt
Armbar - Blue Belt
X-Choke - White Belt
Guillotine - White Belt
D'Arce - White Belt
Omoplatta - Brown Belt
Straight Ankle Lock - Purple Belt
Baseball Bat Choke - Blue Belt

 Guard Passes:
Leg Drag - Blue Belt
Teleport Pass - Purple Belt
Knee Swipe Pass - Blue Belt (MAAAYBE Purple belt, it's close)
Double Under - Purple Belt

  Sweeps:
Scissor Sweep - Purple Belt
Gift Wrap Sweep - Purple Belt
Pendulum Sweep - Blue Belt
Situp Sweep - White Belt (Which is just ridiculous since AS a white belt this was my #1 most effective sweep. Somehow I've let it fall by the wayside since then)
Butterfly Sweep - Blue Belt
Overhead Sweep - Blue Belt
Lasso Sweep - Blue Belt

  Defense:
Mount Escapes - Purple Belt
Side Control Escapes - Blue Belt
Back Escapes - Blue Belt
Guard Pass Prevention - Purple Belt (This borders on brown belt at times) Obviously this isn't my full technique library, but it's the must common stuff I use and is the stuff I am focusing on improving. So get to it! Rank your techniques based on their individual level and then pick a white belt technique and elevate it!

Nutrition - More Important Than You Realize

For the entire last half of last year I ate really really well. Mostly lean meats, vegetables, and fruits with hardly any sugar or crappy carbs.

I fell off the wagon during my vacation to disney and have been completely derailed for the last 4 weeks essentially. I went from having almost unlimited energy and only really needing 6 hours of sleep a night to feeling like garbage and being tired all of the time. I attribute this almost entirely to the sharp rise in my consumption of crappy fast food cheeseburgers.

My diet has been sporadic, my meals random in time and composition including far too much fast food. My calorie intake has also been sporadic. I'll eat almost nothing one day, then end up snarfing down 4500 calories the next day. My weightlifting has suffered as well. I'm frequently too exhausted and crappy feeling to lift and I then feel stressed  because I've missed an opportunity to improve.

Such a simple thing, how much you eat, what you eat, something we take for granted all the time, but it can change your entire training regimen. When you aren't well fed, and well rested, then you can't train as well, you can't pay attention as well, and you don't absorb knowledge as well.

This is especially important if you have limited training time. If you can only train twice a week then it's incredibly important for you to get the most out of each minute that you are training and part of that is going to come down to your nutrition. Remember, lean meats, vegetables, and fruits. A minimum of sugar and bread, and plenty of post workout protein! Eat well, train well!

Day 1 of Mundials Training Prep

Started off with half an hour drilling scissor sweeps and then drilling attacking for the single leg takedown against standing guard passes.
Then rolled light for half an hour and worked on sweeping, passing, and applying baseball bat chokes.

The main class fed nicely into what I was working on with a lesson on halfguard/zguard with the overhook.

The first technique was a basic transition from halfguard, to the z-guard (Also called long range half) then situp and get the overhook, shrimp out on the overhooked side, free the bottom leg and base on the opponents hip, then pull the top leg out and base that on the hip. Push the opponent away and clear the arm to execute a triangle choke. There is a straight armbar available here as well if everything lines up just right, but it's rare.

Second technique was the same initial setup, but finishing with an omoplata. Key detail is to lift and drag your hips away from your opponent to drop them over onto their side before trying to finish.

Third tech was the Mir lock when your opponent tries to free their arm from the overhook. They drive their elbow towards the inside and you lock it up, extend your body and pull up like a guillotine for the finish. If they have super flexible shoulders you can turn it into a sweep by lifting them over with your top knee.

We then did position sparring from halfguard. I stuck with the lightweight side of the room and spent the time sweeping from the bottom mostly. Kris is the only one that can even slow down my guard passing and that's primarily because he has great hip movement on the bottom. Which reminds me I need to make it a point to continue working passing against him to make it more reflexive to establish good controlling grips and block the hips properly while passing. He'll make me pay for mistakes better than pretty much anyone else I could train with in my weight class.

Rolling was a lightweight gauntlet. Again I tried to concentrate on working my scissor sweeps, single collar chokes, and baseball bat chokes. I also worked a couple of back-take  transitions that combo with the single collar. I briefly got distracted playing with the berimbolo, then reminded myself I wasn't supposed to be screwing around and got back on track.

Final roll of the night I rolled with Brian, who wasn't wearing a Gi, and without anything to latch onto to slow him down he mauled the crap out of me. He's REALLY worked on refining his technique and avoiding muscling things and it shows in his progress. He's going up to Atlanta this weekend to compete int he "Fight For Your Belt" tournament as a white belt and I fully expect him to return with a Blue.

I felt like it was a good progressive day. I hit my goal of drilling and using the small group of techniques that I want to refine the majority of my time on the mat. A very successful class.

Also, my cardio felt great even after two and a half hours. I could have gone another hour and still been fine.

Innovation, Jiujitsu, and You

This post has been forming itself in my head for a few days, ever since I saw this video from the ADCC Pro Trials: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UrluVaEJSfw

In it the guy catches a very slick collar choke variation off of a scramble. He posted it over at JiuJitsuForums in this thread and we had a discussion about what it was called, and exactly how it was executed. This lead me to thinking about innovation, especially at the lower belts, and jiujitsu.

One of our white belts who has been training for a long time did something that as far as I can tell is completely unique to him. He made up the technique. I've never seen anyone else do it, or even indicated it might be possible. He hit an ezekiel choke on a guy that HAD HIS BACK. In the process he discovered a really solid way to block attacks from the back while threatening his opponent with a choke. Is this a brand new move? Who knows, but it's definitely new to our gym. More importantly, should he, as a white belt, be trying to make up new stuff on the fly instead of working on his established defenses? I don't have an answer to that and that isn't what this post is about.

This is about the creative process of JiuJitsu and how it forces innovation, as well as how that innovation is embrace by the community. Some blackbelts have been extremely innovative and everyone knows about it. Marcelo Garcia's X-Guard is widely studied and used, Eddie Bravo's Rubber Guard system is something that almost every white belt has dabbled with, Spider Guard, De La Riva guard, etc... are all relatively recent innovations as well, and Upside Down/Inverted/Tornado guard has been exploding across the BJJ world for the last few years.

This post is about where this stuff comes from. Again this is not about the specifics of how Marcelo developed the X-Guard, but you can read about that in his book if you're interested, this is about how innovation in general occurs.

Ok, so enough teasers. Innovation in BJJ happens when someone hits an obstacle that they can't overcome with traditional methods. BJJ itself is a testament to this process as Helio developed it largely because he wasn't able to use the traditional Judo style effectively because of his particular body type. When the white belt from our gym kept getting his back taken and getting stuck he was getting outmuscled by guys when he tried to escape, so his solution was to try to use something he's already really good at (His Ezekiel choke is pimp) to solve a problem he was having somewhere else.

My game has partially shaped itself around issues like that because I'm small, weak, and lazy. Sweeps not working on bigger guys? Well, what if I collar choke them at the same time? Oh hey! That works! And not only does it work, but I can't find video or reference to it anywhere. Did I just invent something? Nope. Someone, somewhere, is using exactly the same stuff I'm using. Doesn't matter though. I discovered it within the context of my jiujitsu so for all practical purposes I "invented" it.

This will happen more and more as your game develops because your instructor can only teach you so much and most of it will be out of solid, universal, fundamentally successful techniques. Much of what you discover or invent  will be techniques that fit uniquely into your attributes or your game. Your instructor will have some of these things which he may or may not teach because they may or may not be universally applicable, but rest assured he does HAVE them. Everyone past blue belt will have at least 2-3 techniques that they "invented" that work well for them, but may not work well for anyone else.

Frankly I approve of this process. The sport develops because people try new things. Most of the new things you try will fail, but some will work, and some will work incredibly well. Don't listen to anyone that tells you everything in BJJ has been discovered already. That MIGHT be true, but one guy, in one gym, in Brazil using something doesn't do you any good if you don't know about it. That means we should all be trying to innovate, all the time. Don't try to innovate to the exclusion of your fundamentals, but don't be afraid to set some time aside every week to explore your jiujitsu.

I guarantee that all of the guys who have pushed the sport forward started exploring with their Jiujitsu WELL BEFORE they got their blackbelts.