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Archive for the ‘positions’ Category

The Deep Half Guard (video)

Thursday, May 27th, 2010

Nowadays you often see the Deep Half Guard at the highest levels of BJJ and submission grappling competition.

Because I saw this position working again and again, several years ago I decided to add it to my repertoire. It’s a bit like regular half guard except you insert yourself right under your opponent’s center of gravity, which opens him up to some very powerful sweeps.

It wasn’t easy at first: it took a lot of experimentation and research, but eventually I had a series of ‘aha’ moments and it became one of my bread and butter sweeping positions!

Here’s a video clip of the specific revelation that made the biggest difference in my game, and converted the Deep Half Guard into an aggressive sweeping position for me:

Posted in concepts, drills, half guard, no gi, positions, sweeps | No Comments »

BJJ Wrist Injuries and My Guilty Conscience

Friday, November 13th, 2009

A bunch of people have recently emailed me, basically asking if I’m still alive. I haven’t been sending out my normal volume of grappling tips and beginner lessons recently, and they want to know why!

You see, I’ve been working like mad on the Online Grappling Concepts course that I’m delivering at my new site, Grapplearts.tv. I’m really enjoying creating those lessons, but it takes a lot of time to write, film, edit and encode each weekly lesson. And the 15 to 25 page PDFs that accompanies each weekly lesson. And the occasional bonus video.

Anyway, that’s the reason I haven’t been posting quite as much recently. Thought you might want to know why!

But I HAVEN’T completely forgotten about you. That’s why I want to talk about an easy way to prevent injury.

This tip comes from my heart, because I learned this lesson first hand when I injured my first BJJ teacher (and friend) Pshemek Drabchinsky.

Once upon a time we were grappling. I was on top and things seemed to be going well (this was unusual at the time because he was way more skilled than I). However on this day I almost had him pinned! Pshemek is one of those Daddy Long Legs kind of grapplers, and he was trying to put me back into his guard using his long, flexible and agile legs.

He was pushing on my hip with his hand to make enough room to bring his legs into play.

To thwart his defense I twisted my hips: this is one good option, because changing the angle of your body this way often collapses your opponent’s arms.

Unfortunately this time I did it a little to abruptly and a little too fast.

The bottom man is stiff arming my hips
(over-exaggerated for clarity)…

…so I twist my hips to collapse his defense

There was pop!

And he gasped in pain.

His fingers had got caught on my body and when I twisted my hips he couldn’t get his hand out in time. In effect I had applied a hard, uncontrolled wristlock on my training partner without meaning to do so. His wrist took more than a year to heal completely, and I felt bad about it the whole time.

There are eight small bones, and a lot of ligaments and nerves in the wrist. Unfortunately if something is broken in there, then the fractures is often missed by a non-specialist looking at an X ray. (So if you or someone you know severely injures the wrist, or if a nagging wrist injury just won’t heal, then get hand specialist to take a look at you, and not just the regular ER doc…).

Anyway, I don’t mean to scare you you, but I hope I’ve made my point that wrist injuries are not to be taken lightly.

If someone is pushing your body then go ahead and use the body twist to neutralize his arms. Just don’t do it super-abruptly and with a lot of weight on his hands.

And if you’re pushing from the bottom then be aware of the dangers. Be aware of the angles and positioning of your wrists and hands, and be ready to collapse your arms in before you get inadvertently wristlocked. Better to live and fight another day from the bottom of sidemount than have your training cut short by a hyperextended wrist.

Train safe, because as BJJ black belt David Meyer says, “Injury is the enemy!”

Posted in Injuries, positions | No Comments »

The Reverse Mount; Another Unorthodox BJJ Position

Monday, March 23rd, 2009

Stephan Kesting teaching the “Reverse Mount” position
at a recent seminar on Unorthodox Positions and Attacks

The first time I saw the Reverse Mount I was at an Erik Paulson seminar. My reaction was something like “yeah, right….”

I honestly thought that Erik had run out of high percentage things to teach and was now just making stuff up.

Knowing Erik though, I really shouldn’t have doubted him…

As soon as I used the reverse mount in sparring I realized that my opponent had no clue about what to do. In addition, the pressure on his diaphragm turned out to be quite intense, making it hard for him to breath.

This is an application of choking your opponent’s diaphragm instead of his neck.

Difficulty breathing = panic = doing something stupid = easy submission! I finished my partner with a submission and that was the beginning of a beautiful relationship.

After that I started using it fairly regularly. I even won the a BJJ tournament with it: I started in North South, jumped up and forward to get to Reverse Mount, and then sunk in a kneebar (a breakdown of that finish, and a video of it, made it into my Dynamic Kneebars DVD).

It’s funny, before you identify something as a position it just looks like a wacky tangle of legs and arms. You think to yourself “how could I ever end up in that silly position?”

But after you isolate it and give it a name you start seeing it much more often. Grapplers may not mean to end up there, but they do anyway.

And you see this position even at the highest levels: I remember watching two top ranked fighters in Pride end up in this position and stalemate there for what seemed like hours (in reality it was probably only a few minutes).

It’s so unusual that the vast majority of people trapped on the bottom have no idea how to escape from here or even what kind of submissions to expect

(To my loyal readers I’ll spill the beans and tell you that most of the attacks from here involve leglocks, but don’t tell anyone…)

Knowing how to apply a few so-called ‘specialty’ positions can be an absolute ace up your sleeve!

Posted in competition, leglocks, positions, teachers, unorthodox strategies | No Comments »

Offside Kesa Gatame has an Judo Name

Monday, March 23rd, 2009

OK, it’s official. The collective intelligence of the Grapplearts readership is awesome.

About 5,000 people receive these newsletters, and many more read it on the website, via RSS feeds, etc. If we all got together and combined our knowledge we’d make Rickson Gracie look like a three-stripe white belt.

A few days ago I talked about one of my favorite unorthodox positions: Offside Kesa Gatame. I also said that, to the best of my knowledge, there aren’t any formal names for this position

Well Chris Beaver from Canada and Pierre Henry from Belgium both wrote in to tell me that Judo DOES have a name for this position, namely: “Makura Kesa Gatame.”

The funny thing is that, before I wrote the article in question, I’d asked about 5 Judo black belts if they’d ever seen that position and they all said no.

After I got those two emails I did some additional research and found out that there are a couple of variations of Makura Kesa Gatame. One of those variations is very similar to what I call Offside Kesa Gatame.

It’s a bit of a digression, but one thing to keep in mind is that while some Judo players may use this as a PINNING position, knowledge of the submission potential of this position will be more rare. In Judo the pin itself can win the match, so why risk going for a position and losing the position.

(Back when I did Judo going for a submission from a good pinning position in competition would have been considered insane).

I’ve often said that we should look beyond the borders of our own specific martial arts for additional information. Chris and Pierre helped me do just that!

Thanks!

Posted in competition, judo, positions, unorthodox strategies | No Comments »

‘Offside’ Kesa Gatame: Another Unorthodox BJJ Position

Tuesday, March 17th, 2009

Stephan Kesting teaching the “Offside Kesa Gatame” position
at a recent seminar on Unorthodox Positions and Attacks

Today I want to look at another unorthodox position. It’s so unique that – to the best of my knowledge – there aren’t any formal names for it. For now I’m calling it the “Offside Kesa Gatame”, because it resembles normal Kesa Gatame except that you’re applying it on the ‘wrong’ side of your opponent’s body.

The first couple of times I ended up here were complete accidents, as I was frantically trying to hold down a bucking opponent. At that time I had no clue that I was actually in a position with submission potential.

Since then I’ve been formally shown this position by two separate instructors – it’s one of Erik Paulson’s favorites, and also the late Carlson Gracie showed it a seminar he did in Vancouver back in 2005

I can guarantee you that 99% of grapplers caught in Offside Kesa Gatame will be taken completely by surprise. This can give you a huge advantage, because your opponent will often do the wrong thing to get out and give you an easy submission.

When you’re applying Offside Kesa Gatame you trap your opponent’s head and FAR arm (instead of his near arm). His head is elevated off of the ground by resting on your thigh.

The photo at the top of this post shows the positioning of my legs (spread wide) and my right arm (trapping his head and left arm). I’ll tell you more about the positioning of my other arm in a minute…

But first I’ve gotta tell you something very important…

The big danger of Offside Kesa Gatame is getting bridged over backwards. In order NOT to get bridged I normally do TWO things

I keep my legs spread very wide apart. If your feet are close together then you’re going to go for a ride, straight to the bottom
I keep my weight forward. That’s why – in the picture just below – my head is down and I’m grabbing my shin with my hand.

Offside Kesa Gatame fully applied with the weight FORWARD
(note how Stephan is grabbing his own shin)

Once you shut down the possibility of getting bridged over backwards he may still manage to escape by squirming, but the chances are that you’ll still be on the top in some variation of side control.

You can slap Offside Kesa Gatame onto your opponent in a number of ways.

The most common entry is probably when you have Side Mount on your opponent with his far arm underhooked. There are other entries as well though – my most recent discovery is how to surprise your opponent by switching to this position from an under-over grip on this back when you don’t have the hooks in yet.

Once you’re in Offside Kesa Gatame there are a variety of very effective armlocks and chokes available to you, most of which keep you in the top position.

As I alluded to earlier you can also end up here completely by accident. Even if you have no intention to make this a bread and butter position, then at the very least you should know how to transition back into a more familiar top position.

So give this position a try. Start with isolating Offside Kesa and work on maintaining it with a semi-cooperative training partner. If you like it then begin incorporating it into your sparring.

I don’t feel the slightest bit sorry for your opponents when you start busting this move out on them – it’s their punishment for not reading this blog and being subscribed to the Grappling Tips Newsletter!

Posted in kesa gatame, positions, unorthodox strategies | No Comments »

Stirring Up a Hornet’s Nest

Tuesday, March 17th, 2009

Boy, was there a lot of buzz after my last post! When I wrote about Kesa Gatame being both a valid and an unorthodox attack position, long heated discussions broke out on several grappling forums and quite a few people even contacted me with quite a diverse set of responses:

A lot of people agree with me (which is always nice to hear).
Others insist that Kesa Gatame is easy to counter (I can only say that they’ve never had it applied on them ‘in anger’).
Some people argue that it’s not an unorthodox position at all, and that it’s a fundamental Judo position (true, but it’s NOT a typical BJJ position).
And there’s a selection of grapplers who are upset with me because I’ve spilled the beans about one of their favorite positions (what can I say, that’s my job…).

Oh well, I wonder what they’ll all think about my next post on “Offside” Kesa Gatame…

Posted in positions, unorthodox strategies | No Comments »

Kesa Gatame in BJJ – An Unorthodox Position

Saturday, March 14th, 2009

Kesa Gatame (what the guy in the white gi is using in the photo above) is the Judo name for a position that is also known as the Scarf Hold or the Head and Arm pin.

Some people will object my calling this an ‘unorthodox’ position, because it’s a staple pin in Judo, Sambo and Freestyle Wrestling.

That’s true, but while it may be common in other grappling systems, it’s underutilized and generally frowned upon in BJJ. (I think this is because of the common belief that it’s too easy to have your back taken from here, but that’s easy to counter if you know how).

These other arts have honed kesa gatame as a pinning position. The only problem is that they don’t use or teach very many submissions from here.

In those sports the submission is redundant – if you pin your opponent for 3 seconds (wrestling) or 25 seconds (Judo) you win the match. Given these rules, why risk going for a submission?

BJJ is different – the ultimate goal is to submit, not pin, your opponent. And if submitting your opponent is your goal, then Kesa Gatame actually has a lot to offer!

I first learned about the submissions you can apply in Kesa Gatame from Shootwrestling, as taught by Dan Inosanto and Erik Paulson. It turns out that you can submit your opponent using a whole gamut of submissions, including:

straight armlocks
bent armlocks
chokes
neck cranks
leglocks

Personally I now use Kesa Gatame all the time in sparring. It also has a special place in my heart because, many years ago, it saved my butt in a tournament. I was behind on points, managed to secure Kesa Gatame, and then transitioned into a kneebar which won me the gold medal.

So no matter what anybody says, I know that Kesa Gatame works in BJJ.

And it’s not just my opinion. Several of my teammates – most notably Benito Segura, now a Marcus Soares brown belt – have refined this into an absolutely deadly position. And yes, I’ve been caught in it. And tapped…

When it comes to Kesa Gatame you don’t necessarily need to make it your primary position, but you’ve GOT to learn a little bit about it.

This is an area of grappling that BJJ and submission grappling people could actually learn a lot from Judo, Freestyle Wrestling, Sambo, Shootwrestling and all the other styles for which Kesa Gatame is a bread and butter position.

Posted in Brazilian jiu-jitsu, kesa gatame, positions, unorthodox strategies | No Comments »

BJJ Positions – What About North South?

Saturday, March 14th, 2009

After my last tip about unorthodox BJJ positions I had some people contact me and tell me that I’d left out the North South position from my list of the 6 fundamental BJJ Positions.

I’ve actually addressed this issue in my Beginning BJJ Package, and so I’m just going to quote from there:

“The boundaries of the positional variations we’ve just discussed are a bit vague, and some people might classify certain variations as separate positions. For example, some people might consider the North-South position to be sufficiently distinct from Side Mount to deserve its own category, as opposed to what I’ve done in this book (i.e. calling North-South position a variant of Side Mount). The terminology isn’t too important; to quote Bruce Lee, “…it’s just a name, don’t fuss over it.“

The bottom line is that no classification system is perfect. It doesn’t matter if you’re dealing with biology, economics, chemistry or grappling: sometimes the things you are trying to classify will absolutely refuse to be forced neatly into a convenient niche. To deal with this problem I encourage you to eventually create your own classification system, and use this system to describe the unique subset of positions, techniques and strategies that YOU use when YOU grapple.”

So that’s the north-south position cleared up (I hope). I consider it to be a form of side control, but you can call it whatever you want!

Posted in Brazilian jiu-jitsu, positions | No Comments »

On Keeping the Top Position

Wednesday, October 29th, 2008

Here is an excerpt from a soon-to-be-released book that I’ve been working on called “A Roadmap for Brazilian Jiu-jitsu“:

Keeping the top position is a contentious issue. To illustrate the debate, let’s consider the one of the classic BJJ techniques: a straight armbar from Mount. If you manage to pull it off and apply the armbar then that’s great, the match is over. If your opponent manages to defend against the armbar, however, then you will typically end up on the bottom, in Guard. Going for that armbar means that you are accepting the risk of trading a superior position (Mount) for a neutral position (Guard). Some instructors and coaches will encourage you to go for that armbar, while others find the risk of losing top position unacceptable.

As with all attempts to balance risk and reward balancing acts, however, everyone has their own comfort zone. Some BJJ practitioners are perfectly happy to abandon top position to pursue a submission, whereas other, more conservative, practitioners prefer submissions that don’t yield the top position if the submission attempt fails.

If you are competing in mixed martial arts (MMA) or are in a self defense situation then I would think long and hard before abandoning the precious top position. Any time you end up on the bottom in a context that includes striking there is always the chance that your opponent, with gravity on his side, could slip some heavy punches, elbows or headbutts through your defenses. If, on the other hand, your emphasis is more oriented towards sport BJJ or submission grappling then you have a more latitude about ending up on the bottom. Being on the bottom in a sport BJJ context isn’t so bad if you have a good Guard game.

One of the decisions you’ll have to make at some point in your BJJ career is where YOU stand on the issue of keeping the top position. Even if you become a die-hard top position player, there are still several reasons why you should still learn and occasionally practice submissions with an inherent risk of you ending up on the bottom.

First, it may help your athletic development, and make you feel more comfortable in scrambles where positions aren’t so clear cut and the role of the combatants (i.e. top vs. bottom) changes very rapidly.

Second, an opponent may reverse you and send you to the bottom against your will – feeling comfortable with these techniques may allow you to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat en route to the bottom.

Finally it will allow you to better counter these techniques should an opponent try them on you; because the best way to learn to counter a technique is to know how to apply it yourself.

Posted in positions | No Comments »

Learn to Crush the Bug

Saturday, October 11th, 2008

A large part of jiu-jitsu is using your weight to immobilize your opponent; “crushing the bug” as it is sometimes referred to. When done properly, the application of your body weight from the top position can be enough to submit your opponent by making it impossible for him to breath. Even if your opponent doesn’t actually tap out, one of these diaphragm chokes can take much of the wind out his sails and reduce his will to fight.

A barrier to learning the nuances of body positioning and weight distribution necessary for this level of pinning is that most people have no way to gauge the effectiveness of what they are doing. In today’s newsletter I’m going to share the ABC method of teaching weight distribution, a powerful way to get immediate feedback on the effectiveness of your pins.

Imagine being back in school and writing a test, with a teacher standing right behind you. Would you score higher on that test if your teacher were to give you encouragement, saying “yes, that’s it”, whenever you started writing down the right answer? Of course you would – getting immediate feedback always helps your performance.

So try this:

Start out by pinning your partner in side mount or knee mount – these are the two easiest positions to initially apply this in. Now get your partner to slowly recite the alphabet, saying “A, B, C, D…”, out loud. If he is able to speak easily then there is something wrong with your positioning; most likely you are putting too much weight onto the mat instead of onto your opponent.

Now adjust your position: try getting off of your knees, lifting your elbows, shifting your weight from his belly onto his diaphragm, etc. When it becomes hard for him to breathe and his recitation starts to sound labored – “A ….. gasp …. B ….. gurgle …….. c-c-c …..” – then you’ve got it right!

If you’re an instructor teaching a class then give the ABC method a try. It makes for a very effective demonstration, because it leaves no doubt in anyone’s mind that the pinning position is, in itself, an offensive weapon.

I have written other tips and articles on this topic, which you can check out by going to these additional resources:

Take care
Stephan Kesting