The Three P's of Top Guard

For most beginners the guard position is something of a puzzle. They get stuck in closed guard by a more skilled opponent and simply don’t know what to do. The new trainees might try a submission from inside the guard or simply move wildly until their lack of balance gives the opponent an easy sweep.  Even more advanced trainees can get in the habit of “working in the guard” rather than “working through the guard”. They get comfortable and forget that their actions should be goal directed.

So what exactly are the goals from guard? An easy mnemonic is to remember “the three P’s” of guard top. They are passing, punching, and pinning. I include punching for completeness even though strikes are not allowed in sport jiu-jitsu, judo, and submission wrestling. Grappling should always be considered in a cross-contextual way so that mindset and tactics don’t require dramatic changes when moving from mat to cage to parking lot. In other words, never forget that you could strike.

A general principle is to never attempt a submission on your opponent from inside the guard. Yes people do occasionally get choked, arm barred, or neck cranked by the person on top. However, it is not tactically sound to focus on these submissions as part of your fundamental game. They typically happen only when there is a major size/strength advantage. Likewise, leg locks are available when the opponent opens his guard. These should also not be considered fundamental attacks for two reasons; (a) they place you in poor position if they fail and (b) you will expose your own legs to attack most of the time. So for clarification, unless you are freakishly strong and only roll against people smaller and weaker than you or you are a leglock master, focus on the three P’s.

Passing – Although top position is dominant, staying in someone’s guard gives them an opportunity to attempt submissions. Certainly you can defend these submissions - but why stay there and give your opponent multiple chances? You could eventually get caught. The tactic of passing includes all of the standard passing techniques but also picking your opponent up to slam him (when the context allows this) or disengaging completely from the ground by backing out and standing up.

Punching – In the context of mma and self-defense, striking the opponent from the guard can be devastating. One only has to look at all the victories due to ground-and-pound in modern mma. Advantages of punching from the top include the use of gravity to add power and the opponent’s inability to roll with the strikes. It is important to practice proper ground and pound technique because improperly executed strikes can get you submitted or swept. Included in the punching category are strikes to the head or body using the fist, hammerfist, or elbow. In a self-defense situation, headbutts may also be included. Obviously, you should not strike when the context does not allow it.

Pinning – Just as from the bottom guard position, it is occasionally necessary to stall out the match. This could be to catch your breath, or to recover from getting hit during a successful takedown. The key is to pin the hips of your opponent by keeping your head tight to his stomach and pinching your elbows tight against his sides. Follow him as he tries to scoot away and maintain your straight line position so that he can’t take an angle for attack. You can use this to prevent him from standing or attacking with submissions.

Brian Jones, PhD

The Three S’s of Bottom Guard

Few positions are more important in jiu-jitsu and grappling than the guard. A good portion of the match will either be spent working from the top or bottom of this position. Knowing individual techniques is of little use if you make poor tactical decisions. To simplify things I offer this analysis. There are only three things that the guard is useful for; sweeping, submitting, or stalling. These are the Three S’s of guard bottom.  When you are on the bottom you should always direct your energy towards one of these goals.

Sweep – Reversing your opponent so that he goes from the top to the bottom, disengaging to neutral, returning to standing, or taking the back. All techniques designed to get you out of the guard position and into a more dominant position fall under this label. Examples include the scissors sweep, overhead sweep, arm drag, and ankle pick. Sweeping is by far the best tactical option when all grappling contexts (sport, mma, and defensive tactics) are considered because it puts you in dominant position.

Submit – Utilizing the guard as an offensive position. This includes attacking the arms, neck, or legs with the intent to submit your opponent. An important point to remember when attempting submissions from the guard is that you must always have a safety net. Avoid submissions which allow your opponent to pass if they fail because this will often be the case. Learn what happens when submission techniques fail so that you know how to move to recompose the guard, or to attempt another submission or sweep.

Stall – The guard can be a useful position to lock the opponent down and catch your breath. This is especially true during long matches or after particularly intense scrambles. In a fighting or mma context, it is often necessary to stall in the guard to get your senses back after being hit hard. Although stalling is a legitimate use of the guard there is a tendency to over use it in training. This slows down the match and promotes a lazy, defensive mindset. Learn how to stall, but don’t do it unless you have to.

Brian Jones, PhD

Bridging the Gap

It seems that in many dojos the practice of standup techniques has fallen out of fashion. Oftentimes there is a reluctance to train them out of an unwarranted fear of injury, or just as common, the training environment to develop them is insufficient.  What is needed is a proper understanding of Judo principles, which unfortunately, are lacking in many clubs. Beginners must learn how to practice, and it is the responsibility of the initiated to impart this culture.  Without a mutual understanding between training partners and a firm commitment to refining not only one’s own abilities, but also those of the collective, a positive training environment will remain elusive. Finding this balance can be tricky. How do we remain martially authentic while at the same time not stifling technical development?

Train for competition. Do not have a competition every time you train.  There is a need for high intensity bouts. They keep us honest and are a source of motivation. However, when every randori session devolves into pitiful attempts at poorly executed takedowns, which are unsafe and foster aversion to practice, expect technical incompetence and injury to follow.  The result is a rigidity and apprehension that will quickly stifle any growth.

Bridge the gap between form and function, but never compromise either. You must have a firm understanding of any technique you plan to use in a live situation. This is accomplished through many uchi-komi. However, technical competence is only brought to full fruition through extensive amounts of randori (the good kind). Entry, timing, and speed are essential. Repeated trials are necessary to develop timing and to learn to exploit the opponent’s balance. You will never develop this skill with a rigid uke, or by moving from one technique to next without focus and perseverance. This can be likened to digging a well: Dig until you reach water - what good are a dozen half-dug wells?

Lastly, try to remain relaxed and supple. There is strength in suppleness.  I am seldom concerned when an opponent grips me roughly and assumes a defensive posture.  It is easy to read his intent and nearly impossible for him to cover the distance needed to generate the leverage to complete the throw.  Rigidity in the posture limits speed and fine motor coordination, which are essential in breaking the opponents balance and generating momentum. The importance of speed cannot be overemphasized.

An appreciation of these ideas will yield dividends immediately. Short bouts of high intensity ego driven competition will give way to more frequent and longer training periods. This in turn will lead the development of competent technicians who can throw with skill. What once seemed dangerous will prove to be a safe, enjoyable, and essential facet of grappling.

Robert Burge, MA

Contributor Bio - Robert is a judo nidan, Brazilian jiu-jitsu blue belt, and has a master's in mental health counseling. He is the head instructor of the University of Kentucky judo club and a member of the Valhalla Grappling Academy.

Winning the Scramble

Many people think of grappling a simply a series of well-defined positions. The guard, mount, back mount, north-south, etc. However, there is more to it than that. There is  small but significant part of each match during which no one has the advantage and no one has any thing that resembles a definable position. This is called “the scramble”.

Consider the moment after a failed takedown. Just after you dove for an armlock and missed. When your opponent has swept you half way and you are both lying on your sides staring at each other. In these situations whoever takes the initiative, moves first, and stays aggressive will end up in the best position. He will win the scramble.

Winning the scramble leads increases your chances of coming out ahead at the end. If you can take control of the match every time there is a mistake (yours or your opponent’s), you will spend more time in positions of advantage. This allows you to rest and recover, keeps you safe from attacks, exhausts your opponent, and gives you more opportunities for attacking.

Dominating the scramble also demoralizes the opponent. If he knows that every time he makes a mistake you will capitalize on it and that every time you make a mistake you can recover before he takes advantage of it, his morale will sink. Do not underestimate the power of the psychology in the outcome of a match or fight.

So what does it take to win the scramble and how can you train to get better at it?

Anticipation – Be aware of the flow of the match. You should never be ‘surprised’ to find yourself in a certain position. At any given point there are a finite number of things that can happen. Always be moving to the ‘best’ position in any given situation. This requires hours of live grappling, positional drilling, and experience.

Athleticism – Staying in control requires you to move first, move fast, and keep up the pressure until the scramble settles. To do this effectively you need to be strong, powerful, balanced, and agile. A certain amount of this is genetic but a solid strength training program combined with sport specific movement drills can improve anyone’s athleticism.

Conditioning – Fatigue makes people slow and breaks their will. When severe fatigue sets in you will miss your opportunities. Mentally you become less aware and less determined. You will find yourself responding too late if at all to your opponent’s actions. What’s more is that fatigue actually saps your will to continue and may cause you to simply give up. The answer to this is simple – spar, drill, do your conditioning, and get in better shape.

Brian Jones, PhD



Making Friends with Gravity

Most of us will never visit outer space. This means that gravity will be a constant in our lives – that powerful force that sends unsupported objects crashing down to the ground. Because we can’t change it, we have make friends with gravity and get it on our side when we grapple.

The first way we befriend gravity is to develop takedown proficiency. In a sporting context, winning the takedown game puts you ahead on points and in good position. In a self-defense situation, dropping someone hard on the ground can be a fight ender. Think of it as ‘hitting them with the ground’. If they don’t land correctly, and they often won’t, it could easily be lights out.

My suggestion for takedowns and throws is to train them often. Start most of your sparring rounds from the standing position. It is truly sad to see a jiu-jitsu athlete who is amazing on the mat look like a complete novice from his feet. I’ve heard the tired chorus of excuses:

“The majority of fights end up on the ground!” I agree, but all of them start on the feet. I suppose someone could ambush you while you’re lying on the beach. We’ll say 99.9% start from standing.

“People get hurt when we start from standing. Training from the knees keeps injuries down!” This is because you don’t know how to fall properly; another underdeveloped skill among the jiu-jitsu crowd. Learn how to fall then takedown sparring will be safe - as safe as a contact combat sport can be anyway.

Another way we can get gravity on our side is to emphasize top position on the ground. Guard work is fun, interesting, and intricate. Many people have great guard work, dangerous attacks, and excellent sweeps. However, the guard should always be a position of last resort. Work for the top. Gravity forces the bottom person to carry the weight. Every attack and movement requires extra effort because it works against gravity. Meanwhile the person on top can relax his weight and use it to pin.

An emphasis on top position cuts across contexts. In no grappling context is it a poor tactical decision to be on top. This is not the case with the guard. In an mma or self-defense situation you can land harder shots because you are working with, rather than against, gravity. Striking from the guard is feeble in comparison.

Top position also allows you to disengage more quickly if you need to stand up. It offers greater environmental awareness in case there are multiple opponents and easier access to your weapon if you are a LEO or armed civilian.

Gravity is one of the universe’s most powerful forces. It is ridiculous to fight against it so get it on your side.  Make friends with gravity.

Brian Jones, PhD

Perspective, Plateaus, and Progress

Grappling is a complex skillset with innumerable variables. In addition to technical complexity, grappling involves an ever-changing environment of training partners who each possess unique abilities and skillsets. Further compounding the issue is a skewed population of skill-levels: numerous beginners who lack perseverance and are transient, fewer intermediate practitioners, and lastly a minority of advanced ranks. The result is a training environment that is oftentimes less than ideal for any particular skill-level at a given time. Beginners are often overwhelmed while veterans are not sufficiently challenged. The intermediate practitioner perhaps profits the most, but is unfortunately rarely the numerical majority. The implication being that any serious practitioner must develop skills to cope with the inevitable frustration that is synonymous with grappling. 

Frustration arises when our expectations are incongruent with reality. When frustration results from reaching a plateau, the inability to set sound goals may be a large part of the problem. In the challenging and ever-evolving environment that many grapplers find themselves, the ability to set goals can mean the difference between steady progress and stagnation. Ideally, goals are attainable, measurable, and can be defined within the limits of a finite timeframe (shorter periods typically being better). In other words, goals are behavioral in nature. Any behavior will increase in frequency if it is reinforced. Reinforcement in the grappling domain comes largely from the perception of success, usually in terms of besting other opponents.  Success, however, is relative. Consider the following example. Suppose there is a grappler with a quantifiable ability. For ease of discussion let us say this person possesses 5 out of a possible 10 skill-units. If this athlete were the member of a club where the average player possessed 3 skill-units, it is likely that he would perceive himself as successful – although in reality he is average. This perception of success has significant consequences: it is likely this individual will train harder and more frequently. Thus, the behavior of training is reinforced, resulting in an increase of skill while at the same time increasing the likelihood the behavior will continue when not reinforced – when reaching a plateau, for example. Now let us suppose this person were a member of a team who on average possessed 8 skill-units. The converse would likely hold true though the athlete is identical in both instances. Accordingly, by understanding the relativity inherent in any training environment, a grappler can remain motivated and set goals that are conducive to growth.

The following are some examples that almost any grappler can use to increase motivation and that illustrate the principles of sound goal setting.

·     Make sure training goals are realistic. It is not always possible to define successes in terms of a decisive victory over an opponent. For example, it is unrealistic for a beginner to have the expectation of overcoming a seasoned grappler. In this instance, success could be defined in terms of avoiding a particular submission or attaining a positional advantage. 

·     Pick a finite number of skills to improve and continue practicing those skills until results are seen. Fundamental techniques are well suited for this. They have endured they test of time for a reason, and any investment of effort will yield many dividends while laying the foundation for more advanced skills. 

·     Beginners often confuse the difference between knowing a technique and being able to execute a technique.  A skill must be practiced many times before it will be successful in a live environment. Do not give up on a technique if it is not initially successful. It is not uncommon to see an individual abandon a skill just when they are on the cusp of attaining it.  

·    Come to practice with a well-defined goal. What specifically will you train? How many times will you do it? How will you know when you have achieved your goal? Break large goals into smaller objectives. For example, the goal of improving one's guard is too ambitious. The guard has many facets and can take years to develop. Instead, pick a specific technique and develop that technique. In this fashion, you will progress steadily.  

·     Spend a few minutes reflecting after each practice. What did and did not work?  Look for small successes: I got a good workout, I was able to get into position for a particular submission, or I contributed to the development of the group by participating although I was discouraged.

·     Make a firm commitment to train no matter what the results. For example, you may decide that you will practice three times a week for six months regardless of success or failure.

·     Above all, remember that you are a part of a larger group.  It can at times be helpful to take the focus off oneself. The challenges you are facing may very likely be providing growth for others. 

By understanding and applying these principles, it is possible to reframe one's frustrations into a series of attainable goals that will ultimately result in growth. The ability to set sound goals is not difficult skill to learn, but it is often neglected. However, once put into practice, like many other skills learned on the mat, can be applied to our everyday lives.

Robert Burge, MA

Contributor Bio - Robert is a judo nidan, Brazilian jiu-jitsu blue belt, and has a master's in mental health counseling. He is the head instructor of the University of Kentucky judo club and a member of the Valhalla Grappling Academy.

Circuit Training on the Mat

One of the challenges you’ll face as a coach is how you organize practices for maximum efficiency. In any given training session you want to accomplish as much training as possible in the least amount of time. This article covers the use of matroom circuits that are ideal for this purpose. Circuit work can be adapted to train skills, conditioning, or a mixture of both and provides an optimal method of managing larger groups. The following basic guidelines will make it easy to put together your own workouts.

EXERCISE FAMILIARITY

For these circuits to run smoothly your athletes must already know how to perform the exercises. Select exercises that everyone is familiar with and/or conduct an orientation run on the practice before. Teaching from scratch immediately prior to or during the circuit wastes valuable time and holds up the session.

CIRCUIT FLOW

As a coach you must keep the circuit moving smoothly and eliminate confusion. You want your athletes focusing on the exercises, not trying to figure out where they are supposed to go for the next station. Set up the circuit so that stations are clearly marked and follow a simple linear or circular pattern. Do not expect your athletes to remember that they are supposed to go to the other side of the room for exercise five, particularly when they are tired. Keep it simple.

Work and Rest Intervals

It is better to use time intervals for each station rather than a specific number of repetitions. Each athlete will move at a slightly different pace and those athletes who finish quickly will be standing around waiting on those still working. To avoid this, just instruct everyone to work at a constant pace for the duration of the work interval. During the station switch allot just enough time for everyone to get in position. Typically rest intervals of 10 – 30 seconds work well. Use work intervals of 20 – 60 seconds depending on the fitness level of your athletes. Start low and add 5 – 10 seconds each week.

 

Exercises

The keys to choosing exercises are usefulness and simplicity. Elaborate or multi-part drills are best left to other times. The following list provides some training activities that require very little equipment and can easily be performed on the mat. This list is not meant to be exhaustive but rather to provide some examples to stimulate your creativity.

Conditioning and Solo Skill Work

            Pushups (all types)

            Pullups (all types)

            Band Pulls (all types)

            Squat Thrusts or Burpees

            Bodyweight Squats and Lunges (all types)

            Mountain Climbers

            Step Ups

            All Fours Spins

            Medicine Ball Exercises

            Dumbbell or Kettlebell Exercises

            Sandbag Exercises

            Jumping Jacks

            Jump Rope

            Bounding or Dot Drills

            Agility Ladder Runs

            Cartwheels or other tumbling

            Throwing Dummy

Partner Skill Work

            Pummelling (Cooperative or Competitive)

            Partner Trade Off Throws (Full Throw or Setup Only)

            Live Positional Wrestling (If Space Permits)

            Tug of War

            Partner Medicine Ball Drills

 

Exercise Markers

 

To avoid confusion, use placards at each station to remind the athletes what exercise to perform. An easy and inexpensive method is to print out the names of all the exercises you plan to use in a large font and laminate the page. Lay or hang these placards at each station. The lamination will protect them from any sweat damage. Another slightly more expensive option is to buy several small dry-erase whiteboards and write down the exercises.

 

Conclusion

Wrestling and grappling coaches will find that conditioning the entire team together will bring everyone’s performance up. Left on their own the athletes might hold back when performing their conditioning work but no one wants to be a quitter in front of the team. You’ll find that the stronger players will encourage the others to keep going. Adding an element of competition to the circuits is also a great idea. On occasion, keep the circuit going until only one person hasn’t dropped out due to fatigue. These circuits also make a great way to reward players for outstanding fitness. Create a ranking chart based on the number of consecutive trips through a reference circuit. Post the results on the wall in the training room. Similar to the lifting poundage charts, this will give your athletes standards to shoot for.


Brian Jones, PhD

How many calories did I burn during jiu-jitsu practice?

The fundamental principle of weight gain, loss, or maintenance is energy balance. Take in more calories than you expend and you’ll gain weight. Take in fewer and you’ll lose weight. According to the available nutritional research it really isn’t much more complicated than that.

There are a number of formulae for determining your resting metabolic rate (RMR) but many people get stumped when it comes to figuring out how many calories they burned during grappling practice. To help estimate this value, exercise physiologists utilize the metabolic equivalents (METS) method. A MET is a unit of metabolic rate based on oxygen consumption. A single MET represents the metabolic rate at rest and is equal to approximately one calorie burned per kilogram of bodyweight per hour. This means you can find your resting metabolic rate in calories by multiplying your bodyweight in kilograms by one. So a 75 kg athlete will burn about 75 calories per hour at rest.

Researchers have quantified different activities in terms of METS. This allows us to determine easily how many calories were burned per hour during that activity. Though no MET values have been determined for Brazilian jiu-jitsu, there are values for two closely related sports – judo and wrestling.  Both of these grappling sports are rated from 6 – 12 METS depending on intensity. A lower intensity grappling practice will have a value of about six METS, a moderate intensity practice nine METS, and a high intensity practice 12 METS.

The MET value represents multiples of the resting metabolic rate. So a six MET activity burns six calories per kilogram of bodyweight per hour and a 12 MET activity burns 12 calories per kilogram of bodyweight per hour. Once you estimate about how hard your practice was you can determine caloric expenditure. Let’s look at a sample problem.

A 70 kg grappler practices for 90 min. The practice has a mix of activities but on average is of moderate intensity. We use 9 METS to represent moderate grappling.

                Calories burned per hour = 9 METS x 70 kg

                Calories burned per hour = 630

                630 calories x 1.5 hours of practice = 945 calories

So our sample grappler burned 945 calories in this practice. This figure can be used to help design an eating plan to accomplish weight maintenance, gain or loss.

Obviously this method is subject to some error in estimation. Practices will typically be rated subjectively. To calibrate your scale consider six METS to be the pace of warm-up calisthenics, technique practice, and light drilling. On the other hand 12 METS would be sparring at or near competition intensity. Nine METS would fall somewhere in between. Think about your practice as a whole and assign an average value. An alternative method is to break up the activities in the class and determine calorie expenditure for each separately. The latter method will be more accurate but much more time consuming.

Brian Jones, PhD