I am a shark, the ground is my ocean...and most people don't even know how to swim. - Rickson Gracie

понедельник, 23 апреля 2018 г.

How Much Do Private Lessons Cost?

There cost of private lessons varies a lot but I think on average its about as follows:

1. Purple belts - $30 per hour or 20-30 UK pounds

2. Brown belts - $45-50 per hour or around 40 UK pounds

3. Black belts - $60-100 per hour and 60 UK pounds +

Prices will vary depending on your location and currency but I think these are kind of average. Some black belts may charge at the higher end if they are located in a country/city where there is no BJJ and they are the only game in town.

There are also big names, like world class competitors that have won the worlds etc. They could charge $100-$400 but I think it depends on a lot of factors including their desire to teach you, your level of training, whether you train regularly, like once or twice a week regular privates or one-off.

Very often the factor that will also influence the price is whether the training takes place at the instructors gym or another location where he has to travel and potentially pay rent. The distance travelled therefore and his relationship with the place you train could be a factor.

At white belt level I would recommend to take privates from a purple or brown. You just dont need at this stage a black belt and especially competitor level because your focus should be on the fundamentals and defending positions and submissions. Once you have reached a good level, it is worth investing a little more to learn from the best.

If you are a spider guard fan and have the opportunity to train with the best, the best way would be to train at an academy and take private lessons with a black belt that does spider guard in competitions.
If you love leg locks then go to New York and train with the Danaher squad, take privates with those guys and you will definitely improve.

I generally think that cross training wise, prices for Judo and Wrestling could be a little cheaper

The one to one attention is valuable but it is also good to get out of your comfort zone and take some lessons from a guy who is not from your academy and who you dont train with regularly. This will develop your experience and expand your knowledge of BJJ. If you have trained for a long time at your school and you want to take privates from your academy instructor, this may be useful but it is worth taking into account that he is likely very much into the same techniques that you have been doing over the last few years. 

пятница, 13 апреля 2018 г.

10 Tips to Improve Your Grappling Game

Whether you are a serious competitor or an avid UFC fan, or just training brazilia jiu jitsu for self defense, we all are looking to improve our grappling game. Here are my tips:

1. Train More :)  obvious but cannot be overlooked. If you have a friend or an extra few hours a week, why not train a little more than your partners. Hours on the mat never lie and you cant find a serious competitor that is not a mat rat or spent years on the mats.

2. Train Smart. This one cannot be overlooked. If you keep doing half guard on white belts, never pass guard or simply are a one hit wonder, you are not going to go very far. Jiu jitsu is a huge game and you have to be proficient in a variety of situations. Get out of your comfort zone, train leglocks if you suck at them... train guard passing if you are a leg lock guy... pass standing if you pass on your knees... do something you dont normally do .... take a white or blue belt and master something new that will take your game to the next level

3. Cross Train. You dont have to be a takedown wizard but you dont want to be the bjj black belt that flops on his bit and knows nothing about taking a guy down... nor do you want to be a judo guy with no ground game. Train a little bit of everything and your overall game will improve

4. Cardio. Technique conquers all they say but I think there should be a caveat and that is you need the cardio. Even if your jiu jitsu game is sick, if you cant handle the pace of your partner you will get tired and lose especially in competition. How you develop cardio is your business. Regular sparring is a fun way of doing it though:)

5. Compete. No matter what they tell you, competing is an important element of grappling and you will progress much faster when you regularly compete. It not only motivates you but you learn from your mistakes. Believe me when you lose in competition, you will remember your mistake for a long time. Get to it!

6. Privates.  It is expensive but if you can afford it or can share a private with a friend, its worth it at any level. Find a guy that you admire, respect. Put together list of questions, problems you have had with your game and figure it out. Spending an hour or two going through positions that are a problem is the ultimate way of training smart. Choking random whitebelts with the same technique you have been doing for 10 years is not going to get you very far.

7. Travel  This could sound strange or unloyal but if you want to be great you have to get out there and learn from as many people as you can. Go to Roger Gracie's Academy in London or Atos Jiu Jitsu in California. Train with the best and learn from the best as much as you can. There are now academies all around the world and in almost every city you go to. Drop an email in advance and visit, you wont regret it. It will be a fresh perspective, different training partners and you might just learn something or see something you havent seen before

8. Drill.  you have to become proficient and beyond in your technique. Hours of drilling will make your game better and accustom your body to new positions and moves. You will also wear your body out less by spending time on drilling.

9. Open mats. Open mats are often held at many academies around the world. Why not come by and roll with some tough guys from other academies. You will develop better cardio and gain access to training partners you dont know. I think too many academies have relatively low level of bjj among students so training with a tougher group of competitors could be beneficial to leave your ego at the door and learn.

10. Ask questions. I think this one is the most critical of all. You need to constantly ask your instructor questions, Questions about techniques, questions about mistakes or positions you lose. This one will really separate you from the others., After class stay and take a few minutes to try to figure out some errors you made 

среда, 28 марта 2018 г.

7 Things to do to Gain Your Blue Belt! (Checklist)

Your Checklist to gain your Brazilia Jiu Jitsu Blue Belt:

1. Learn a Take Down!!  - doesnt matter which one it is. Just try to learn one that you feel most comfortable with and just go for it!

2. Learn One Pass - ideally you should have several types of guard passes that you can chain together to develop a complete passing game but at the white belt level, after a few months of learning and drilling the different passes, choose one and be relentless about going for it. 

3. Learn a Sweep - as a brazilian jiu jitsu player you need to be able to work off your back. I would learn and try to drill several sweeps from the closed guard, half guard and any other guard you feel comfortable but at the end of the day you need a GO-TO move. My preference would be the butterfly guard sweep or the classical half guard underhook sweep. 

4. Submission - try learning one basic submission to attack. I recommend either the arm bar or the triangle. Both are available from top and bottom. Both take years to really master but you can use these basic attacks at any level. 

5. Go to a Seminar - you want to get your belt but you really have not seen any BJJ until you have gone to a seminar, preferably with one of the top instructors or competitors. You will find seminars everywhere on the internet. Pick one and try it out. It would give you a second perspective and its a lot of fun if you go with your team for a few hours to learn something different. 
I strongly recommend seminar of more classical jiu jitsu guys especially and white and blue belt levels. 

6. Private Lesson - an excellent way to make progress is to take private lessons. At the end of the day it is for you to actually make notes and ask the questions. if you ask the good questions, you will get the information from your instructor that you need to make progress. Take a private lesson every month or two and you will be a much better brazilian jiu jitsu player. 

7. Compete! So you want your next belt huh? well you need to deserve it! you may have been training for a year or two but only in competition can you really find out where you are on the food chain. Compete as much as you can at white belt, gain confidence and it will be a matter of time before your instructor just hands to you that long awaited blue belt

I would say that typically it should take at least 2 years to gain a blue belt training at least 3-4 times per week (consistently) but the reality is that if you actually want to get good at this sport you need to train as much as you can. 

Khabib Nurmagomedov's BJJ Game

The upcoming UFC 223 main event looks is due to feature Khabib Nurmagomedov vs Tony Ferguson on April 7 2018. These two guys have proven themselves to have the incredible ability to get the W with Khabib proving especially dominant in the last few fights.

While Khabib's takedowns have been spectaculor I think there is an overlooked fact that we actually have not seen him grapple on the ground against top brazilian jiu jitsu black belts and while Ferguson is not a specialist, I think it will be interesting to see how he is able to control Tony on the ground.

What we have seen little of is actaul pure grappling from Khabib and looking back to Fedor's days, it has been especially worrying when Sambo fighters have claimed that Sambo and wrestling was sufficient in terms of ground game for MMA. I would argue there are nuances to the ground game that arent covered. For example you are definitely not going to see a great passing game from a pure sambo player and on the bottom, sambo fighters have very basic guard retention skills.

If we look back to Fedor's days he had great trouble with Ricardo Arona in Rings and then when Bigfoot started passing he showed very little in terms of both guard skills. He had this great arm bar but when tough BJJ guys reversed the position and got on top he had very basic defenses.

In Khabib's case I think his top game is very strong and it would be difficult to easily sweep him but I would argue that all three of Khabib's last opponents were mainly strikers and I think he should watch out with Tony even if he gets his favoured half guard position.

From what i've seen Khabib's passing game is based on setting up passes with strikes but in some of the grappling videos in Naga floating around on the internet it really looks like he did struggle to pass the guard in a pure grappling environment. It could be that he does not need this skill as he is not really looking for submissions but I would be curious to see from the ground game stand point he is able to actually improve position on the ground.

In Russia & Dagestan BJJ and Grappling is still in its early days as far as I understand and although there are some good submission grapplers around, I would be curious to see what is the ground game level in some of these places where Khabib trains at back home. 

среда, 21 марта 2018 г.

BJJ All Roundness

I think one aspect of BJJ that is not talked about enough is regarding building up an all-round game.

Classical BJJ has been oriented at judo take downs, passing the guard => mount => taking the back

Today one should consider two additional aspects:

1. Leg lock game = still very neglected aspect that due to the IBJJF rules is almost a part of a different sport these days. (IBJJF does not allow heel hooks)

2. Wrestling game = as great as Judo is, i think anyone will agree that some of the throws expose too much and leg focused takedowns are not allowed based on the latest iteration of judo rules

Both are better trained in no-gi/grappling in my opinion but its great to mix it in the gi as well.

I think wrestling & judo are an important aspect given that many schools have little or no takedown training. Im a brown belt at the moment and as I progress, more and more I feel the need to tighten up my takedown game because it would be a shame to start training takedowns when you reach black belt level as it feels like being a black belt with white belt takedowns is just embarassing.

For street self defense the takedown game is critical. The reality is you dont want to be on the bottom in a real fight no matter how good you are on the ground. You never know what situation you will be in and it just makes sense that if you can take the guy down and start from the top position, you can not only win but also stay safe. afterall the guy could be much stronger than you
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