Tag Archives: bjj united

Rebuilding the Jiu Jitsu Colosseum

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The BJJ United academy got flooded yesterday when the fire sprinklers “malfunctioned” and went off. Jared Weiner (the head instructor) put out a video documenting this unbelievable event (that couldn’t come at a worse time):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8txa_7HjXA8

What I think a lot of people were inspired by is how Jared took on this situation as he takes on a lot of challenges on the mat: whatever happens in life, you don’t whine and sulk, but focus and overcome it.

If you know Jared, you know how much of his blood, sweat, and tears go into the school. Send him a note. He recently put out an instructional dvd set all about knee on belly. I think actually buying that would be an especially nice way to show support. I wrote a review of it a while ago. It shows that he attacks his opponents the same way he is attacking this mat flooding misfortune: with intensity.

Lazy Judo

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I woke up bright and early at 10am today (Sunday). For some people that might not be so early, but for people like me with a productivity peak that hits around 3am and a life-threatening addiction to coffee, 10am is pretty damn early.

I finally got around to having my “birthday party” with my parents. A month late, but who’s counting. I got a new camera! Mostly for still shots, but I’ll be definitely using for HD video also together with my other one. Here’s the first video:

These are a couple of throws that ignore most of the basics: not bending knees, not turning enough, not pulling enough, etc. Hence the title of this post: “Lazy Judo”. I was being relaxed, overly relaxed.

That’s a perfect time to focus on technique. Instead I ended up lazily half-assing each throw. This is why I like video’ing practice, because my judo looks a lot worse on camera than I imagine in my head ;-)

Special thanks to Osagame Martial Arts for the great training and instruction as always.

In other news, congrats to Jared for winning his Long Island Pride superfight. A score of 3-0 is always music to my ears. That’s a score I would love to have for the rest of my BJJ career. To me it says: a long battle that ends in a guard being passed.

Flower Sweep

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Training journal for Thursday at BJJU…

Good training in the afternoon and night. High level black, brown, purple belts packed the mats. There were so many exciting matches going on, both gi and no-gi… with reverse de la riva, inverted guard, one legged x-guard, triangle attempts from every angle, crazy backtakes…

In fundamentals, the technique was the flower sweep, which never really clicked for me until today. The setup is key. Jared put the left foot on the hip and used a bump one way to set up the flower sweep the other way.

The combination of off-balancing one way and then the other way is prevalent in a lot of jiu jitsu techniques but especially for closed guard attacks.

Here’s a video of Rafael Lovato Jr describing the basic flower sweep and his variation of the off-balance to one side as a setup for the sweep. PS: He refers to it as the Xande sweep.

And here’s him pulling it off in competition:

Also, here’s a video of the very entertaining Kurt Osiander showing a variation of the flower sweep:

Wrestling Mindset and The Perfect Practice

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Mike Denny ran a hell of a good (tough) wrestling practice Tuesday. Emphasis on pressure, always hands on the opponent, pushing him and yourself.

Live training didn’t have “sorry”, handshakes, rest breaks. Pushing the cardio, and yet (at least the guys I went with) didn’t use much muscle, all crisp technique.

Of course, my favorite part was the non-stop drilling, for about 30 minutes. Shot after shot. I went with Tom who is a tough no-bullshit guy, and again doesn’t use muscle, just clean technique. I don’t think he said a single word to me the whole time, which is perfect.

That brings me to the idea that I’ve been after for a while which is what makes a good (and even “perfect”) practice:

  1. A short warm up (not too taxing cardio-wise, but breaks a sweat), followed by a quick stretch. I usually do my own stretching before hand since I have a few specific problem area I need to loosen up (shoulders, neck, groin, lower back).
  2. Drills of fundamental techniques. Keep the pace up, but no muscle, technique has to be 100% perfect. No talking, no breaks, no questions (except if you’re completely lost).
  3. Live training. If I’m going hard, I like to keep this part short (only 3-4 matches of 6 minutes), but if I’m relaxing and focusing on learning then I can  just roll forever.

My criticism of any practice, even one Mike ran is not enough time for drills! I like to get high number of reps in. That’s where I start enjoying a technique, the more and more I understand every little details of it, the more it becomes effortless. For me, there’s nothing like the feeling of pulling off a technique without using any muscle, purely based on timing and leverage. That’s when I know I only have 10,000 reps to go ;-)

Lloyd Irvin Interview: Drilling Transitions

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Just read this interview with Lloyd Irvin and am both inspired and motivated. There is a lot of truth in what he says here about what makes a good school and a good training regimen. Some key points he makes:

  • There is no winning or losing when rolling at the club, but only there, everywhere else (including in life) you’re either winning or losing.
  • The higher the level, the more important the mental game becomes.
  • “If the school wants to be a high level competition school, they have to ban excuse making, they have to ban letting their students make excuses, they have to ban sitting out rounds during sparring, they have to ban asking for water when live sparring is happening (you take water breaks when the instructor says so), you have to ban all of the BS happening on the floor in your school.”

I first came across this philosophy of training at BJJ United. It’s definitely tough, but worth it. As Lloyd Irvin says in the interview “when it’s all said and done the only thing that matters is the results.”

The most important reminder came in the answer to the question: “If you could only pick one thing that an individual could start today that would improve their Jiu-Jitsu what would it be?”

His answer: transition drilling. He probably means something specific, but in general, drilling is key. I think that includes:

  1. Drilling with perfect technique (which often means slow but stead) against a non-resisting opponent.
  2. Positional training against a resisting opponent
  3. Flow drills: flowing through positions in order to explore variations and possibilities

Here’s a very cool video of drilling judo throws:

Black Belts and Fire Sprinklers

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My day started at 10am when I was woken up by the sound of running water. My landlord installed fire sprinklers in the building last week. Today, they were testing them by turning the pressure up to “200 pounds” and seeing if any of the sprinklers fail.

One of the ones in my apartment did fail, soaking the majority of the room. My first reaction was to yell “What the f***!” I’m not sure who I was addressing, but it seemed like the right thing to do. Then I heard a voice from downstairs yell back: “Sorry, dude!” Reminded me a lot of Office Space.

I grabbed a cup of coffee, my gi, and went out the door to go train at Jared’s. Every guy there was tougher than the next, including as Mike said: “the world’s two best blue belts”. He was just joking, but when he said that, I realized how much I wish I’d gone to Worlds, and that I’m definitely going next year. Of course, there are many high-level tournaments before then that I really need to start medaling at. Andrew is game for the Chicago Open in August. And I think Jared and a few others might be going to the Boston Open.

In training, I opened up (as I have more and more recently) and tried different guard passes. Even tried lefty passes to help make sure my base is strong no matter what grip I have. X-pass is working well. The part I struggle with is stabilizing side control. I’m most successful when I really force a strong knee-on-belly right from the x-pass.

Guard Passing Intervention

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There are times in your jiu jitsu development that you need an intervention, either from yourself or your coach or both. First step is admitting that you suck. I did that, and was depressed for a week about it. Step two is to analyze the biggest problems and what needs to be done to fix them. Jared did exactly that, better than most coaches I’ve ever trained with. He taught  four passes, which set me on a long road of improvement in this aspect of the top game.

I now have a clear system of passing. It feels awkward, since it’s new, but it’s clear that the potential is there. Already, I’ve been plowing through guards that gave me trouble before. X-pass, in particular, has been very effective, especially since it’s there more often than the others.

Below are some of the passes I’ve been drilling. The first four are the four that Jared taught me. Two of them I already knew, but there’s nothing like a coach drilling into your brain the importance and effectiveness of a pass. Linked are some youtube videos showing the pass.

I got a chance to drill and work on these in several training sessions at BJJ United. Every hour I spend on those mats, I walk away with a better jiu jitsu game.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3zeEe7Sd2as

The Jiu Jitsu Academy Brings Together an Interesting Bunch

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CustomProgrammingGood training at BJJ United as always today. Much like Ivan Drago (the Russian in Rocky IV), I had big plans for tonight. I brought two gi’s, because I was going to do the 6pm class, the 7:30 class, and the 8:30 one. However, much like the aforementioned Russian I failed in my plans. There are several reasons for this, but they boil down to the same thing… I need to grow a pair. I’ll have to fix this problem in the coming days.

Anyway, a guy in the locker room mentioned that he was impressed that I was staying for the next class given how hard the first one was. He mistakenly thought I was Rocky and not Ivan Drago… That led to a conversation about what we do outside of jiu jitsu. And it turns out that he is one of the original developers of Qt, which is a brilliant software system that I use in my daily programming work. This guy is the real deal. Program by day, kick ass by night. Now that’s the jiu jitsu lifestyle…

It’s amazing how many interesting, talented, and unique people the jiu jitsu academy brings together. And more than that, I noticed that people don’t really bring their work and off-the-mat life with them onto the mat. In a way, a jiu jitsu class is the great equalizer. I mean Al Bundy is a jiu jitsu black belt for f’s sake.

Now back to business… Jared showed the sprawl to the all-important back take. Good stuff. In the beginning he made everyone run backwards without looking back. I think that’s part of his twisted sense of humor, given that the room was packed. I thought it was pretty funny.

Jared always pushes the pace. That’s part of what makes BJJ United a great place to prepare for competition. But it was cool to see him stop the class and emphasize that we should not sacrifice technique for speed in drilling. Especially for stand-up (wrestling or judo) I find that people too often rush the technique or tense-up which breaks the crisp flow of the drilling.

Alright this post is already too long. If you read this far, you are probably my mom, in which case, I’m sorry about not calling more often.

Solid Jiu Jitsu Fundamentals

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lex-fridman-jared-weiner-training-at-bjj-united

Fundamentals class (6-7pm) at BJJ United precedes kettlebells, no-gi, and then an advanced bjj class. It’s always packed with good training partners, and a lot of them.

I like this class because in it Jared Weiner usually shows the basics, and I’m all about the basics. All I want to do in jiu jitsu, in the end, is to excel at the fundamentals.

I got a chance to train with Jared and Rafa (one of my favorite training partners). Rafa kept going to inverted guard which is great to see because it makes me feel like I’m not being ridiculous for working on this guard also. He has a very technical game that’s fun to figure out and find answers to.

The roll with Jared was excellent. He has exactly the kind of top game I hope to developlex-fridman-rafa-rolling-at-bjj-united one day. Lots of pressure, strong powerful passing, knee on belly, chokes, backtakes, etc. I went for a basic x-guard entry that works on most people, and he just didn’t even pay attention to it. He broke the butterfly guard, and passed real heavy. I had no space to move, none. Awesome jiu jitsu!

I also did the Kettlebells class with Sharon. I especially liked the pass-under lunges. She had a better name for them, but I forget it now. Here’s a video of this exercise. It’s definitely a good mix of balance, coordination, strength, and there’s a kind of nice flow to it.

PS: Thanks to Greg (a BJJ United student) for the excellent photography. It’s always great to see someone be very good at their hobby (or job).

A Good Idea for Finishing the Single Leg

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Ever since I was paired up with Wilson Reis a few weeks ago and we were doing a single leg takedown drill, I realized that I was lacking in knowledge and skill (to put it mildly) in the area of finishing the single leg.

I finished a few single legs in tournaments but it’s been an annoying scramble every time, and I’m always thinking “damn it, Lex, why didn’t you just switch to a double when you had the chance”. The single leg just never made sense to me. It feels like I’m trying to control a lion by its tail. The analogy probably makes no sense to you, but it works in my mind at this late caffeinated hour.

So, given all that, it was great to see Jared Weiner put up a technique of the week video (see below) with an awesome idea for finishing the single leg. Why is it awesome? Several reasons, but the main one is that it uses the same kind of idea that I like to use in passing the butterfly guard (in gi). The gripping and the body mechanics are very similar, so I can’t wait to try it if I ever find myself with just one of my opponent’s legs in my hands.