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Archive for the ‘takedowns’ Category

Judo for BJJ, An Olympian’s Perspective

Wednesday, June 15th, 2011

One of the most neglected areas of BJJ training is takedowns. Which is a shame, for a couple of reasons…

First of all, even if your whole competition plan is to run out and pull guard, you should still have enough confidence on your feet so you can tie up, get the grips you want, and then pull guard on your own terms. And that confidence on your feet comes from knowledge of what to do, where to grip, what your opponent might do, etc. Once again, knowledge is power!

Plus having a tiny bit of standup might help you avoid the awkward spectacle that happens when two guys pull guard at the exact same time. Don’t laugh, I’ve seen it happen more than once!

Secondly, takedowns are just part of the art. BJJ came from Judo originally. Completely avoiding throws and takedowns, deliberately not learning anything about them, is like trying to learn to ski but only ever turning right, not left.

Doesn’t work so well…

Finally - and this is important – BJJ IS A MARTIAL ART. That means that you’ve GOT to have some idea of how to use this stuff ‘for real.’

Are you planning to pull guard in a streetlight? I hope not!

So you need AT LEAST one good throw, preferably two or three. And they should link together; this way, if your first throw doesn’t work, then it at least sets up the second one.

With all this in mind I recently interviewed Daniel McCormick. Daniel is a 2008 winner of the US National Judo Championships. He’s also a 2009 Judo Olympian. So I think it’s fair to say he’s pretty good at throwing people onto their heads… But he’s ALSO cross-trained extensively in BJJ, with some of the best guys in the business.

You can read, listen to, and/or download the entire interview right here, whatever you want:

It’s an in-depth talk. I got him to share exactly what he did to get ready for the Olympics, what Judo brings to BJJ, how BJJ has affected his Judo training, and what his favorite throws are for BJJ. (By the way, his favorite throw is one of my favorites too. And it works really well when your opponent is bent over with his arms straight, pushing you away and keeping his legs far out of reach)

Once again, the link to the interview is here: http://grapplearts.com/judo/

P.S. If you use iTunes make sure to subscribe to my podcast so that you get notified whenever I upload a new interview like this one!

Posted in bjj, Brazilian jiu-jitsu, competition, conditioning, gi vs no gi, judo, takedowns | No Comments »

Countering the Double Leg with a Sitout & Switch

Monday, May 10th, 2010

I respect most grappling arts, not just BJJ. Freestyle and collegiate wrestling, in particular, have a lot to offer to submission grapplers and BJJ practitioners. Obviously we can get a lot of good throws and takedowns from wrestling, but we can also ‘steal’ some very powerful moves on the ground as well.

One of these techniques is called the ‘switch.’

The first time I ran into the switch was incredibly frustrating. Years ago I was sparring with a wrestler who was getting ready for an MMA fight. Every time I came close to passing his guard he’d sit up, reach over my shoulder, and completely stalemate my guard pass using his arm. This must have happened 5 times in the course of our sparring that day!

I know this move is effective, so today I’ve recruited Dave Scholten, 3 time Canadian wrestling champion, to take you through the technique. In this 1:41 video Dave uses the switch as a counter to the double leg takedown in an MMA context, but you could use the exact same technique to stop a guard pass in submission grappling.

P.S. If you liked this or my previous Youtube videos then I strongly suggest that you go to my Youtube Channel and subscribe. It doesn’t cost anything, and it means you won’t miss my future Youtube videos!

Posted in Denis Kang, guard passes, takedowns, techniques, the guard, wrestling | 1 Comment »

The Double Leg Takedown in MMA

Sunday, May 9th, 2010

I recently had the opportunity to meet up with my friend and professional fighter Denis Kang. I wanted to pick his brain about some MMA techniques. He shared a lot of stuff, and because I had a video camera with me I can now pass that information on to you.

In this first clip Denis talks about adapting the double leg takedown to MMA. He also reveals the exact training drills that allowed him to defeat Xavier Foupa-Pokam, an extremely dangerous striker, in the UFC.

Denis also explains the difference between high and low double leg takedowns; which one is better suited to MMA, and why.

Even if don’t train MMA, I think you’ll still find this information valuable!

Posted in Denis Kang, MMA, takedowns | 1 Comment »

Combining the Thai Clinch With The Double Leg Takedown

Monday, August 24th, 2009

Today’s goodie is a report written by my online friend John Will, discussing how to combine the deadly Muay Thai clinch position with the double leg takedown (arguably the highest percentage takedown in MMA).

Mixed martial arts is all about mixing different fighing styles. Think of building a fight game that mixes Wanderlei Silva’s deadly clinch ‘em and knee ‘em game with the super fast takedowns of Georges St. Pierre. That would be a TOUGH game to beat, wouldn’t it?

Anyway, you can download that 5 page report on combining the Thai clinch with double leg takedown, completely for free, just by right-clicking and selecting “save” on the following link:

http://www.grapplearts.com/Clinch&MMATakedowns.pdf

And if you still want more material from John then check out what he has to say about the most important aspects of the double leg takedown.

Posted in clinching, MMA, takedowns | No Comments »

Functional Training Gone Bad

Friday, January 23rd, 2009

Today I’m going to tell you about one of the sillier ideas I’ve ever had…

About 10 years ago I got interested in functional training and sports specific exercises. I wanted to get away from the Pec Deck and do exercises that more closely mimicked the movements I was using on a daily basis in Brazilian jiu-jitsu, judo and wrestling.

So I used books, magazines and the web to find sports-specific exercises. Then I’d try them out and see how I felt. Some of those exercises I still use to this day. Once in a while I invented my own exercises. Some of those were good, but others were abject failures….

The ‘inspiration’ behind my dumbest idea came when I noticed that I often ended up on my knees when trying to finish a double leg or single leg takedown. I also observed that quite a few wrestlers would finish from here by lifting their opponents off the ground.

Lifting an opponent off the ground starting from the knees obviously requires strength. “Wouldn’t it be great”, I thought, “if I could simulate this move in my weightlifting.”

So I put on a set of kneepads and loaded up a barbell in the squat cage. I stood straight, squatted down, dropped to one knee, and then knelt down. Then, with the bar still on my shoulders, I got back to a standing position one foot at a time. Basically I was going up and down from a standing to a kneeling position with 225 lbs on my shoulders.

People in the gym were looking at me like I was on crack…

I did about 10 reps, rested a while, and then did a second set. “Good enough for the first day,” I thought. “Maybe I’ll do more reps and sets the next time.”

Maybe it’s not too surprising but the next day my knees ACHED! Not a good, muscular-burn sort of ache, but that stop-doing-this-or-you’ll-be-sorry type of deep joint pain. The pain did eventually go away, but I never did that exercise again.

So the take-home message is that sports-specific training is a good thing, but be very careful when you’re inventing new exercises. Especially when you’re talking about heaving a lot of weight around and/or contorting yourself into awkward positions.

Since then I’ve discovered other ways to train getting-up-from-the-ground movements without compromising the knees. For example, I occasionally do Turkish Get Up (like in the video below) using either kettlebells or dumbells.

Posted in conditioning, takedowns | No Comments »

A Jiu-jitsu Secret

Tuesday, August 12th, 2008

OK, draw the curtains, turn down the lights, turn off your recording devices and come closer. I want to share a principle with you that Marc Laimon calls “one of the secrets of jiu-jitsu”.

Are you ready? OK, here it is: “it is impossible for your opponent to stand up when you’re holding one of his legs off of the floor“.

What? Not impressed?? Well I use this principle almost every time I step onto mats, so maybe I’d better explain what I’m talking about.

Have you ever almost swept an opponent and almost secured the top position when they refused to remain swept and fought their way back to neutral position? Have you ever tried to take an opponent down only to have them scramble back to a standing position? When facing certain kinds of opponents this can be a huge problem, one that I discussed at length in my last newsletter post about refusing to concede the sweep.

This very irritating conundrum can largely be solved if, at the end of your sweep, you stand up and hold one or both of his feet off of the floor. Once your opponent has his foot lifted to waist height he’d need amazing athleticism and balance to stand back up.

Some sweeps (and takedowns) are more suited for this style of finishing than others. For example, many sweeps that you might use on a standing opponent rely on grabbing a foot or ankle with your hand. While doing these types of sweeps you can often convert from using your hand to effect the sweep, to using that hand to elevate his foot to stabilize your top position.

Finally, there is one guard position is particularly good for applying this principle: the X Guard. In the X Guard you already have your opponent’s foot hoisted onto your shoulder. When you sweep him from there his leg will naturally be elevated (even if you don’t stand up), and it will be very, very difficult for him to stand up or scramble away. The ease which which you can elevate his leg at the end of the sweep is yet another reason to love the X Guard (in addition to being a very powerful sweeping position, well suited to grapplers who lack long, flexible legs).

You can learn more about the X Guard in my article about half guard positions and in the highly reviewed Butterfly Guard and X Guard DVD.

Have fun incorporating this very powerful principle into your training!

Posted in takedowns, the guard | No Comments »

An Alternative To Pulling Guard When Grappling On Your Knees

Saturday, January 5th, 2008

Many grapplers start their sparring sessions on their knees. From this starting position usually one of two things happen: either the two combatants push and pull each other until one falls over, or someone pulls guard and starts looking for sweeps and submissions.

Well there are alternatives, and one option is to jump into a sweep rather than jump into guard. If things go well, the technique of the sweep combined with the momentum of the jump should bring you to the top position. If things go badly you usually end up in the guard, where you would have been anyhow if you had just pulled guard in the first place.

To help illustrate this concept I have put a short clip onto Youtube for your viewing pleasure. I should stress that the four sweeps used in this video are NOT the only sweeps that will work: your homework assignment is to examine your favorite sweeps and figure out if they might work were you to apply them from your knees (or from your feet). My video can be viewed below or found here:

When you do sweeps in this manner, the line between sweeps and Judo sacrifice throws starts to blur. To illustrate this I’d like to point you towards another Youtube video where you can see a variety of sacrifice throws (and a variety of setups) demonstrated by two skilled Judoka (click here or see below):

Before I sign off I have to give some credit, as this isn’t entirely my own idea. I developed this tip after absorbing and fermenting the ideas that Marcio Feitosa, Roy Harris and Walt Bayless have shared on the topic (in seminar and/or on video).

Posted in takedowns, the guard, training, unorthodox strategies | No Comments »

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