The SF Brazillian Jiujitsu Thread - fans, competitors, filthy casuals, all are welcome

[Clouseau]

So my 13 yo son (black gi) made his debut in BJJ. He has been practicing judo when he was a kid and is very interested with BJJ.
So you have now a white belt (well rather is father) aboard. I might ask you some questions in the future guys.

 

[razorfrazer]

So my 13 yo son (black gi) made his debut in BJJ. He has been practicing judo when he was a kid and is very interested with BJJ.
So you have now a white belt (well rather is father) aboard. I might ask you some questions in the future guys.

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Welcome to the team. Here's some tips !

1. Don't do the warmups if its decontextualized line drills. Finda gym that warms up with skillwork. Conditioning makes sense for a warmup, but I'de rather do that on my own .

2. All practice is live practice. Decompossed dead static drilling is largely a waste of time. if your gym is doing anything less than 70% live training I would find a new one.

3. Train more NoGi than Gi, Gi moves at a glacial pace and isn't regularily updated. Also, organizing around controlling a jacket can just be confusing when trying to navigate what really matters. Controlling a body with your body should be your priority. NoGi transfers more to Gi than anything else.


4. Focus on skills, NOT techniques. Skills and more importantly fundimentaal skills are what you need to work on , not what the community refers to as "Techniques". Its good to understand body mechanics, leverage, and the concept of offb alancing but putting too much into techniques will slow your progress. Instead focus on fundimental techniques or concepts. "Removing connections on you, Staying on top, using connections to destabilize your partners, segmenting the body, etc etc"

5. Competition is a tool for development, use it. Dont be a gym warrior.

bonus

6. If your gym doesn't do leg attacks or reaping, just move on,

If you ever need help you can message me on here. I can provide frameworks or guidance.

 

[LA Guy]

I’m mostly in agreement on this if your son has the temperament to be a strong competitor. I feel though, having trained at a lot of gyms now, that the most important thing is to choose a gym that will keep you going in. That’s nearly completely the culture and the head instructors. Of course, this means a strong learning culture, which is what @razorfrazer is mostly talking about. But I think that especially when considering a kid, and a beginner, the most important thing is to keep them wanting to go back. I’d like an add my $0.02, which is that I think that situational sparring is important. So many, myself included, find themselves with overly asymmetrical games that are harder to correct at higher belt levels, because you were not made to fight in all common positions.

 

[razorfrazer]

I’m mostly in agreement on this if your son has the temperament to be a strong competitor. I feel though, having trained at a lot of gyms now, that the most important thing is to choose a gym that will keep you going in. That’s nearly completely the culture and the head instructors. Of course, this means a strong learning culture, which is what @razorfrazer is mostly talking about. But I think that especially when considering a kid, and a beginner, the most important thing is to keep them wanting to go back. I’d like an add my $0.02, which is that I think that situational sparring is important. So many, myself included, find themselves with overly asymmetrical games that are harder to correct at higher belt levels, because you were not made to fight in all common positions.

Dude to your last point about situation sparring … yes !!!! That is such a good point :

I’ll go even beyond that because yes situation sparring is very important but also using CLA “constraints led approach” with these starting positions is even more important. This forces you even more to find new skills and sometimes alternative paths in those positions. To build new skills on a player who already has good solutions sometimes you gotta take away some of their solutions .

 

[LA Guy]

Dude to your last point about situation sparring … yes !!!! That is such a good point :

I’ll go even beyond that because yes situation sparring is very important but also using CLA “constraints led approach” with these starting positions is even more important. This forces you even more to find new skills and sometimes alternative paths in those positions. To build new skills on a player who already has good solutions sometimes you gotta take away some of their solutions

Exactly. One teaching method that I use is to not allow the same submission twice in a row. If you say "You have to finish with a choke" when someone starts on the back, it can make the defensive player's task unrealistically easy. But the other way, they might be able to go to that A option once, but after that, they have to figure out new stuff, rather than just spamming the same attack. It's a more refined, imo, version of "You get better by beating up blue belts" in that you get to practice both offense and defense against people at your level who have the knowledge to defend or attack you, and you can't simply play for tricks.