Tag Archives: butterfly guard

Some Techniques Make You Suck Before They Make You Better

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I am always on the look out for new effective techniques, guards, positions, details that fit my game and my body type. I am very selective, but try to remain open to new possibilities. There are no rules of course. Just because not many people play the turtle “guard” in high level competition doesn’t mean it’s off limits.

But I do try to follow a simple guideline. If I see a lot of top-level black belts (with a “style” that’s close to my own) using a certain technique, it’s worth investing in. Sometimes if I see just one black belt using it, it’s enough for me to believe it’s possible to make it work. I then turn off the skeptical part of my brain, and embrace the hope that one day I’ll be able to make it work.

Here’s the problem though… As the title mentions, some of the best techniques are ones that force you take a step back before taking two steps forward. Meaning: the learning process for these techniques will often involve losing position in training and just being generally demoralized by constant failure of the technique.

Alright, so here’s some examples from my own experience in jiu jitsu. First “technique” like  that for me was the butterfly guard. Forcing myself to play butterfly and look for the basic hook sweeps meant that I had very few ways of stopping my training partners from passing me. It was incredibly frustrating and the urge to play on top or play closed guard on bottom was really strong. But eventually I started to get the details that make the position work, and my game improved noticeably.

The same happened when I recentle started to drill the smash pass. I was avoiding it because the idea of defeating guard with the pressure of just my hips was very challenging to pull off against good opponents. But I watched far too many black belts pull it off in competition not to take it serious and begin the long journey of trying it over and over in training. Of course, with this one, I didn’t have to pay too much for failing because you usually don’t lose position from a failed smash pass, but still the process is very frustrating, and it’s always tempting to go back to what I’m comfortable with.

My project for the next several months (at least as I see it now) is to embrace the 1 legged x-guard ala Marcelo Garcia. I’m a big fan of the regular x-guard and always prefer that, but it’s often easier to get the 1 legged x guard instead. There are a million of options from there, and watching video after video of Marcelo preaching the power of this position has finally gotten me convinced.

This one will hurt though… because whenever I try it, I often get passed or fail to sweep or just get put in an uncomfortable / weak position. But those are the best techniques: the ones that make perfect sense for your game, and check your ego by making you feel like a first-day white belt.

This new journey, I’m sure, will be painful, stressful, and full of dead-ends, but I hope that it will make me a more complete and dangerous competitor.

Consider the Options

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I was listening to an interview with Ellen Langer on the subject of mindfullness. I think the interview was on NPR, but of course I wasn’t very mindful, so I forgot.

She mentioned that most of us operate in autopilot, making basic assumptions about the environment around us, and thus no engaging with it. The result is that the brain can often tune out without ever really immersing in the experience. There was a lot more hippy-sounding stuff, but ironically I tuned out and started thinking about jiu jitsu.

The part that stuck in my mind was Ellen Langer’s suggestion for how to become more “mindful”. She suggested that when you make decisions, from simple to complex, try to force your brain to consider the options, weigh the pro’s and con’s, and then make the decision.

Of course, this directly applies to jiu jitsu. For example, when I’m playing butterfly guard, I’ll fight for a certain grip and then go for a certain sweep. Because I’ve done that particular sequence hundreds (if not thousands) of times, I’ll stop considering the options. But there are a million details about that sweep that deserve consideration: to what degree I curl my toes, the exact position down to inches when I place each of my hands, how close my heels are to my butt, how curved my back is, where my chin is, etc. I could go on for a while. But I don’t play around with those details. I don’t “consider the options”.

So… Perhaps you don’t always have to challenge yourself by exploring new techniques and your “weak” positions. You can challenge yourself instead by considering the minute options available to you in your favorite techniques and your “strong” positions.

Now, what was I talking about?

A Visit to Marcelo Garcia’s Academy in New York City

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I was visiting NYC for a day, and decided to stop by Marcelo Garcia’s Academy. A day pass there is $40 and only $20 if you are a member of MGInAction.com.

Overall it was a great experience. I enjoyed the chance to train in a friendly environment with a lot of high level grapplers that I haven’t trained with before. That’s probably a good thing to do for anyone looking to expand their game.

The Butterfly System

When I started jiu jitsu two years ago, I was put on the butterfly guard (and x-guard) path right off the bat. I took a liking to the butterfly guard not because I was good at it, but because I was terrible at it. It seemed that unlike the closed guard and half guard, holding on for dear life is not an option for butterfly, so I knew I would have to learn good technique to prevent my butterfly guard from being passed.

A lot of the fundamentals (as well as the advanced details later) about butterfly and x-guard I took from Marcelo’s instructional dvds and MGInAction (his online video library). Marcelo really believes in that system, and his students do as well. So it was a surreal experience for me, because I got to train with some great technical players that all had amazing butterfly guards and more importantly had good defenses for mine.

The hardest part for me was safely passing the butterfly in no-gi. I had to be very patient and not make any mistakes. Especially the higher ranks were very quick to take advantage of any opening.

Advice for Visitors

I did 4 classes (2 gi and 2 no-gi). I was sore going into it, which was frankly a mistake. There are a lot of good technical players there and in order to really appreciate the experience I think you need to be able to go toe-to-toe with them. That takes a lot of physical and mental energy. It’s almost similar to a tournament. So my recommendation is to get a good night’s sleep and make sure you’re well rested before the visit, especially if you are looking to do multiple classes.

If you live in Philadelphia like I do, take a bus there! BoltBus or MegaBus will take you from 30th St Station in Philly to within a couple of blocks away from Marcelo’s academy. The ride takes exactly two hours, and is comfortable, especially when you’re sleep deprived as I am and spend the whole ride there and back passed out (probably snoring and/or drooling on yourself).

Do laundry in the city! Marcelo’s academy is on 36th and 5th. There’s a cheap coin laundry place on 30th and 5th: L C Laundromat. So even if you want to do multiple classes, you can still bring just one gi and it’ll be nice and clean for both training sessions.

The last piece of advice I have falls into the category of common sense: don’t over eat. Did I follow this advice? No. There was a Subway footlong. There was pizza. There were lots of apples and coffee. It wasn’t too much food, but just enough to make training less fun than it otherwise would have been ;-)

One Hundred Guillotines with My New Best Friend

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To the left is a picture of a fellow grappler I recently met. He doesn’t read poetry. He doesn’t have a blog where he airs out his emotions. He doesn’t take s*** from anyone. He is a man of few words. And if I want to practice 100 guillotines on him, he is game. He has the heart of a champion, and if only he had arms and legs, he would be unstoppable.

In all seriousness though, getting a lot of reps of the Marcelo Garcia style guillotine (shown below) on this dummy has really helped me figure it out. I’m not a fan of guillotines, foot locks, wrist locks and other staples of the no gi game, but I’m trying to learn them (mostly with the help of books, instructionals, and competition footage) in order to have descent answers when others attack me with these techniques.

My general approach to jiu jitsu is to be gentle and not use much strength for 99% of cases. That makes learning certain techniques tougher. The guillotine in particular (along with its uncle the read naked choke) is one such technique. Once I get good at it, I’m sure I can make it crisp and mostly painless, but the initial learning process requires some ugly playing around. That’s where the dummy comes in, since he doesn’t seem to mind much.

Here’s the guillotine I’m working (shown in the second part of the video):

In Search of No Gi Guard Passing Fundamentals

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I watch a lot of instructional videos online and from DVD’s explicitly for the purpose of searching out the few fundamental principles and techniques. I’m a big believer in knowing just a few techniques (1-2 from every position) and then figuring out the dozens of ways to enter into those techniques and also the little details that make them work.

I think that a good instructor is very important in putting you on the right path with a technique. JW’s x-pass is a good example of that for me. But it can’t stop there. It’s up to me to really explore and understand WHY what is supposed to work does work.

I’ve been on that journey in gi for a while with the x-guard, butterly guard, gi chokes, smash pass, x-pass, etc, but in no-gi I’m still a complete newbie in many ways, lost without any real fundamental principles to cling to. I haven’t quite found a guard pass to believe in, and drill the crap out of. This post is just a bunch of videos that I found interesting. The search continues…

Jean Jacques Machado shows some basics. I like the standing pass with wrist control. He also offers some footlock options which I would really like to avoid as (in my mind) that departs from the whole “fundamentals” thing that I’m after. I really like jumping the hips forward when the opponent opens his legs and drops his hips:

Now, here’s a beautiful no-gi x-pass by JT Torres. I just found it, and it clicked. I will definitely have to work this:

Saulo throwing down some philosophy and an excellent explosive pass. What I like is he emphasizes not lingering in the closed guard.

Marcelo shows the jump-over butterfly pass:

And then, Marcelo shows a standing closed guard pass with behind the back wrist control. Looks tricky.

Robson Moura shows an even trickier step-over pass of the butterfly guard:

Mario Sperry shows a pass of the butterfly guard where you loop your arm around and grab the opposite foot:

I’ll start getting reps in on the Saulo, JT, and Marcelo (butterfly) passes and see where that takes me.

Adding a Straight Foot Lock to the Butterfly, X Guard Mix

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The butterfly guard, to me, is the best “learning” guard. By that I mean, for my experience with jiu jitsu, it’s the guard that most prevents stalling-type tactics in training and allows me to explore different positions, off-balancing techniques, grips, sweeps, back takes, etc.

From the butterfly guard, I look for the one-legged x-guard, regular x-guard, reverse de la riva, etc. I haven’t, however, looked for the obvious leg locks from the x-guard position. There’s a knee bar, and there’s also the basic straight footlock. In the following video, Marcus ”Buchecha” Almeida shows this basic footlock. To me, these type of videos are what YouTube is good for: high-level competitors showing jiu jitsu fundamentals:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qnWWqZ0uk4A

I’m still focused on controlling and dominating the butterfly / x-guard positions, so submissions are still secondary for me, but it’s good to start thinking about these things, so that I can start to notice openings when they pop up.

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).

Losing Your Temper

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Losing your temper during grappling

One of the biggest benefits I gain from judo and jiu jitsu is an understanding and control over my ego.

There’s something about being armbared and choked that sets me off on a self-analysis that in the end makes me a better person. What I mean by “better” is an understanding of my place in the world, along with a greater respect for other people.

Sometimes, rarely these days, I’ll lose my temper. It doesn’t really reveal itself in anything I do on the mat, but I just feel a mix of frustration and anger. Last time it happened for me I remember was a month ago when I tried a butterfly sweep on a blue belt (and overall good guy) and he crossed the knee a little too hard, stuffing the sweep but also hurting me a bit. My body was exhausted, my mind was frustrated. I tried to reguard but couldn’t. Nothing was working. Unlike usually when I just keep trying, keep working to improve position, I stopped and when the set ended I walked off the mat. I was embarrassed for how much frustration I was feeling from something that is just part of jiu jitsu. I really didn’t understand the source of it. I just sat watching the sets, breathing, and 5 minutes later was fine.

Such incidents, as rare and insignificant as they might seem, is how I progress towards a calmer outlook on life, allowing me to deal better with difficult stressful situations on and off the mat.

X-Guard is My Gateway Drug

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It’s fair to say that this was the week of the x-guard. Everyone everywhere was working on it. I was entering and sweeping with it multiple times on almost every set I did throughout the week.

The x-guard has been essential to the development of my game as it allowed me to focus on something I was pretty good at off my back. That’s why I’m referring to it as the “gateway drug” for playing off of my back. Having the confidence to go on my back then led to more confidence in exploring the butterfly, half-guard, and open guard positions. I think I’ll always be a top player, simply because of how much takedown work I do, but playing off my back seems to teach me a lot more (at this moment) about the fundamentals of jiu jitsu. Here’s a clip of some x-guard positional training:

Early Morning Training with Ray

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If it’s before noon, it’s early morning in the Lex Fridman brain.

Ray and I got on the mat at Osagame to do a little training. Turned out to be a good two hours. Here’s a few clips from that session.

I asked Ray about a couple of issues that I’ve been running up against:

  1. Defending the sweep from De La Riva guard
  2. Defending the bull pass from the butterfly guard
  3. Escaping side control to turtle
  4. Reguarding to half guard or full guard from turtle

Then we trained. I enjoy (in a sick masochistic way) playing half guard or butterfly guard against Ray, because he makes it very difficult to do anything from either. He stays very low and applies a lot of pressure.

Once he passes, he consistently gets the choke within about a minute. I need to find an answer besides just turtling and then trying to reguard from turtle. The answer probably is just the fundamentals: create space and reguard. Given how tight his game is, this will require a lot of improvement for me.