A few days after a no-gi Saturday down at the gym, I was thinking about how to put together a fierce grappling game plan and detailing a jujitsu roadmap to get there, something hit me. At first, I wanted to dismiss the thought as too simple – but the more I dwelt on it, the more sense it made.
Get on top.
What made it really click is something Mike Colby said while teaching. He said something like, “If you have the opportunity to escape from a disadvantageous bottom position to either a top position or a more advantageous bottom position, always choose to go to the top. The more time you spend in the top positions, the more guys you’ll tap.”
This rung true with most MMA and grappling I’ve watched, as well as my limited personal experience. Submissions are easier to get and harder to defend when attacking top down. When in top positions, it seems easier to attack the different body zones (head, neck, arms, and legs) from one spot. In MMA, half-guard, side-control and mount are some of the most excellent places to go on the offensive with minimum risk.
If you can just focus on getting from wherever you are to a more dominant top position, a lot of things will just take care of themselves. Having such a simple “plan” will help to funnel all of your moves to one consistent goal easily, instead of getting caught in analysis paralysis.
Watching Mike wrestle, he certainly practices what he preaches. It seems like he’s always putting pressure on his opponent from a top position, creating submissions or waiting for an opportunity. And if you don’t know Mike, it’s my understanding that he’s one of the state’s top no-gi grapplers.
Anyway, “Get on top” is just a quicker way to say, “consistently attempt to gain positional dominance.” It’s not that you haven’t heard this before. But for me, I often don’t really hear the truth, on a deep level, until I’ve heard it 100 times.
This clinic is geared toward University students and beginners, but any can come. Again, it is meant especially for those beginning U of U martial arts classes.
I’m very excited to announce “Essentials of Jujitsu Clinic”, to be held at the University of Utah on Saturday March 28 from 11:00 AM-3:00 PM. It will be held in HPR W room 105, the big gym room many already know as your classroom. All are invited to attend, regardless of experience. The university is charging forty bucks. The clinic will be taught be Bart Beattie (me).
Register at the U of U website – https://secure.uuhsc.utah.edu/peak/registration/ by clicking on “Essentials of Jujitsu clinic” , then “add to cart” in the lower right hand corner and follow directions from there.
From the university website:
Description
This clinic is to help “install” some essential jujitsu moves into a student’s mind and body. A limited number of techniques will be presented, explained thoroughly, and practiced repeatedly with partners. This clinic will be hands on, and work oriented. Students should arrive prepared for a workout. Gym clothes or gi required – no jeans. By restricting the scope of information, students can expect to physically understand the saying, “I’d rather have 10 moves I can fight with than 10,000 moves that fight me.”
Instruction will be no-gi oriented, meaning that all the moves taught are applicable to both gi and no-gi (armbars, throws, chokes, etc). The moves are going to be taught from a Japanese Jujitsu perspective.
Prerequisite
No martial arts experience is required – only a willingness to take instruction and ability to stay focused. Print and sign the ‘Waiver’ form. Send it to PEAK by campus mail, or bring it with you to the first day of class. This form is included in the online registration process.
If you have any questions, feel free to comment or email me. I look forward to training with you!
Make sure you come hydrated, and you’ll probably want to bring a water bottle and a little snack when we take a small “lunch” break. There will be opportunity to roll/spar for students who want to do so.
The guillotine choke is beautiful, simple, effective.
It works in MMA, it works in Judo, it works in Jujitsu. The guillotine can be used in dozens of situations. Whenever an opponent goes in for a leg take down, they become vulnerable to the choke. If you’re clinching, you can push their head down and slap on the guillotine. In the guard? Yes indeed, it’s time to end someone’s consciousness by guillotine.
Done deal. Let’s learn how to do it.
Technique Level 1:
This video comes to us via Gracie Insider, and goes over the basic points of the guillotine choke from standing and from the ground.
When you pull your elbow into your armpit (keeping your chicken wings in), it pulls his head down, making it harder to get your forearm across his neck. Don’t.Essentially, get your opponents head underneath your armpit facing down. Really though, get his neck under the pit. Meanwhile, the arm closest to his head needs to snake underneath his jaw so that your forearm bone is pushing up into his throat. Using your armpit to keep his head down, slice up with your arm.
There’s a million little things that will help this submission. Play around with it at level one, gain some experience, and progress to level two.
Technique Level 2:
Shinya Aoki, master grappler shows how it’s really done. The video is in Japanese, but don’t freak out. I’ll break down a play-by-play. In fact, I’d suggest you read the overview first so that you can see them as he’s doing them – many of the elements aren’t obvious unless someone points them out.
Note: I don’t speak Japanese, so I’m interjecting my knowledge and the things I think he’s trying to say.
Traditional setup, go for the kimura and open your guard. Arm is being protected, so immedieatly go for the guillotine choke.
When going for the choke, sliding your arm across the back, make sure not to press the back of his head down. When your arm is nearing the outside of his body, keep the elbow pointing away from you. Curl your arm toward you bicep. It’s like the superman pose (elbows pointing out ) vs making a fart noise in your armpit (flapping your elbow like a chicken wing).
When you pull your elbow into your armpit (keeping your chicken wings in), it pulls his head down, making it harder to get your forearm across his neck. Don’t.
When you snake your arm under, use proper hand position. The forearm that’s under his chin, that hand makes a fist, cocked down towards your elbow. The other hand gable grips over it (thumbs on same side as fingers).
As you roll onto your back, make sure to control his hips (pull guard of some kind).
Use your arms to start choking him. Using the arm position (shown below) will help you choke him hardcore. Imagine trying to get your thumb to the shoulder.
Remember how I said not to squeeze in your elbow before getting your forearm underneath his chin? Now I want you to do that. Strangle the life out of him by pinching in your elbow to your rib cage.
Also, make sure that radial bone (the top forearm bone) is jamming into the throat. If you have gripped properly, it should already be doing that. If not, roll your arm to get it in right.
Sure, you can crank directly back like you’re doing a back bridge – that might tap him. However, if you use the leg opposite to the arm that’s under his neck, you can push off his hip (controlling it) and angle your body off to the side.
Like the Gracie family said in the first video, don’t control his hips too low or he’ll pop out of your guard, into side control and nullify the choke. You need the right amount of squeeze between your legs, possibly your knees if you’ve got full guard. Don’t overdo it – you want to save energy and focus on the choking, but at the same time, keep him from escaping – something we’ll cover in part 2.
So watch out for Mastering the Guillotine Choke Part 2 – until then, happy head hunting!
Alice: Oh, no, no. I was just wondering if you could help me find my way.
Cheshire Cat: Well that depends on where you want to get to.
Alice: Oh, it really doesn’t matter, as long as…
Cheshire Cat: Then it really doesn’t matter which way you go.
Brazilian Jiujitsu is complex. There are dozens of distinct positions, hundreds of techniques, thousands of variations. The map above shows one small version of beginning BJJ.
Despite the nebulous complexity, I know you want to get as good as possible, as quick as possible. AND … you want to have a fight plan that you can use to defeat your opponents.
The solution to both goals is the same. You need a road map of where you want to go.
When thinking about progressing in your training, you want to list the things you need to learn and improve on. You highlight four or five things and find techniques and tweaks to get good at them, rotating your practice evenly over a period of time to cover all the things throughly.
You review your progress, make some tweaks, and go through the cycle again. If you don’t consciously control how you train and what you techniques you choose to train, you cannot make consistent progress.
Making a game plan, especially if you’re a beginner, is fraught with pitfalls. Even if you’re fairly advanced, having a coach to help you progress is virtually a must. Which moves do you choose? Which positions and transitions?
Steven Kesting, one of the most gifted grapplering instructors I’ve come across, has 35 page pdf called “A Roadmap for Brazilian Jiu-jitsu”, a copy of which can be found here. It’s a solid overview of BJJ and which positions and submission you should learn first.
In his own words, Steven says
The goal of this book is NOT to teach you specific techniques – you can learn those from your instructor, your fellow students, and other resources such as books and DVDs. My goal here is to give you a basic framework to help you make sense of all the different techniques you are learning. In essence I am trying to give you a big picture which functions as a kind of filing system to help you learn more efficiently,and to access the correct technique quickly in the heat of battle.
If you want to get good at BJJ – fast – check it out. If you want to tailor your own road map, try picking a half-dozen things from the chart at the top of the page, and then learn and drill techniques that associate with them.
Fight Roadmap
When you step into the ring, its time to play by your game plan and win. If you go into a match without a concrete plan, you will be at the mercy of the opponent, forever reacting, countering, and trying to squeeze in your moves. In the BJJ Road Map linked above, Kesting has a solid progression to use when grappling.
You’re in the opponent’s Guard and break it -> Side Control -> Knee Mount -> Full Mount -> Rear Mount.
The idea is that you should always know where you’re going. It shouldn’t be a time of meditation, “Okay, I’m in side control, what now? As you progress through the chain you should try one or two submissions at each place. Immediately go for one sub, then the other, then transition into the next position. Quickly, but smoothly – 1,2,3.
Here’s a map I made for when you begin grappling from a standing position.
When you start, you’ve only got two options – so not much thinking. Fake one to set up the other. You hit the next level down and still, only a few minimal choices.
Wherever you are in a fight, you should have a pre-memorized, ready-to-fire-off technique. Limiting your options speeds up your reaction time. No hesitation.
Bang, bang, bang. The opponent should always have to be defending your constant attacks. You flow don’t the chart, constantly trying to make it worse for your opponent by gaining progressively better positioning.
Now then, memorize at least one good escape from all the disadvantageous positions, and if you find yourself there, escape back into somewhere you recognize and continue down the tech-tree.
I know I haven’t covered all avenues, but I think you get the idea. Reading the BJJ Roadmap will help fill in the gaps, then start learning techniques to plug into your game plan. Happy scheming!
Masahiko Kimura is one of best judo practicioners in history, so it reasons that a high class submission would be named after him. The story goes that Masahiko fought jujitsu legend Helio Gracie and broke his arm with this move, and BJJ guys have been calling it the kimura ever since.
Just look at the dude. (above) I’d name my firstborn after him, even if he wasn’t a hardcore judoka.
Now days, because every mixed martial artist with even a passable knowledge in jujitsu knows the the kimura, it can be a bit tricky to submit a guy with it. A lot of fighters know the specific counters or blocks, or just how to posture and prevent kimura opportunities. Which is, of course, why we need to take our game to the next level.
In the video below, Ari shows how to use your legs to help sneak in the kimura.
One of the most important things about getting the kimura to work is to escape your hips on the side on which you are working the arm. Getting your hips out will help you flatten out your opponent. It is important to keep the leg on top squeezing down, so the kimura’d person doesn’t try to roll out of the lock.
Another tip to getting the kimura is to keep your opponent’s hand well away from his/her body so they don’t block the kimura by grabbing their gi pants or wrestling shorts. If they do grab some clothing – keeping their arm from going backward – you can try to overpower them or do something trickier. That’s where the kimura sweep comes into play.
After you sweep them and take the mount, it’s candyland. You can either abandon the kimura and work something else, or you can finish the kimura from the mount. If you follow that link, I think you’ll enjoy their clever way to sweep from the guard and finish the lock.
One more thing – so people have trouble finishing their opponent.(Some guys just have really flexible shoulders!). Three things to keep in mind.
1. Keep a 90 degree angle in the elbow joint. If the opponent’s hand gets too close to their armpit, the kimura becomes a hammerlock – which many people are more immune to – or they can try to grab clothing and block.
2. Move the elbow up toward the head. If you have fully escaped your hips, it shouldn’t be much of a problem.
