This article grew out of an email conversation I had with a reader of the Grapplearts newsletter about his problems with claustrophobia while grappling (read about the initial conversation here). How could he possibly control this awful feeling? At first I suggested various structural or technical solutions to avoid getting crushed on the bottom, for example: breathing when you are on the … [Read more...]
How to do the Back Roll
The back roll (or the backwards shoulder roll) is one of the most important movements in BJJ. Honestly, it's right up there with shrimping and bridging! Most fundamentally, the back roll allows you to fall backwards and roll over your shoulders rather than rocketing into the mat and taking the full impact on your back and/or head. But you can also use it to counter guard passes. Set up … [Read more...]
How to do the Forward Roll
The forward roll is one of the core movements in BJJ, Judo, and all grappling arts. The most important use of the forward roll is to avoid injury; if your opponent sweeps you over his head you use this movement to avoid spiking your head down onto the mat and destroying your neck. But you can also use the exact same movement in other contexts, including in scrambles and while applying … [Read more...]
Countergripping – What to Do if You Can’t Break Your Opponent’s Grips.
We all know how important it is to break grips when you're in someones guard, right? For example, if someone has a deep grip on your lapel from the closed guard he can use it to break your posture, prevent your pass, and set up sweeps and submissions. So your first priority is to break or at least nullify that lapel grip (here are some ways to do that). But it's not just the lapel grip that … [Read more...]
Protect Yourself And Your Training Partner At All Times
The other day I almost tore a partner’s ACL off the bone, which would have required him to have surgery and many months of rehabilitation. What happened exactly? I was more experienced and a bit bigger than my training partner that day and we were doing some no gi sparring. Because of the experience discrepancy I was hyper-focusing on a couple of very specific positions, namely Ashi … [Read more...]
How to Train BJJ with an Injured Neck
Necks are delicate things. Seven small stacked cervical vertebrae protecting all the nerves in your spinal cord and held together with a multitude of flimsy ligaments and muscles. Yet in BJJ we stress the neck continuously. We attack it with chokes, crucifixes, and cranks. We stack our opponents, turn their heads with crossfaces, and scissor his head with our legs. We also use our head … [Read more...]
Podcast Rant: Why You Have to do Jiu-Jitsu, and How to Get Good at It Fast
Here's a quick 10 minute audio rant I released on my Strenuous Life Podcast recently. I start out by talking about why you absolutely have to train some form of grappling if you consider yourself a martial artist. Then we go into the 6 basic position of traditional BJJ - the positions that you'll be spending 80% of your time in when you're rolling around on the mat. And then I cover the … [Read more...]
Jiu-Jitsu for the Zombie Apocalypse
As we get closer and closer to Halloween it's important to shift your priorities from training jiu-jitsu to surviving the impending zombie apocalypse. (After all, it's tough to train jiu-jitsu when you're dead. Or undead, as the case may be.) That's why you've got to check out the most important video I've ever put onto Youtube: Jiu-Jitsu for the Zombie Apocalypse. A lot of people will … [Read more...]
The Main Positions of Modern Leglocking
One of the biggest changes in the modern approach to leg locking is the emphasis on controlling the underlying leglock positions rather than going straight for the submission. In some ways this is an old approach; jiu-jitsu been preaching Position before Submission an this is exactly the same philosophy applied to leglocks. I've put together free PDF book for you with a checklist of the 12 … [Read more...]
How to Choose a BJJ School to Train At
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Em0akAwkjGI I often get emails from people trying to decide where to learn BJJ. They're usually trying to choose between 2 or 3 different schools... Should they train with the purple belt down the street, or the black belt across town? Should they study at the Gracie Barra school, the Atos affiliate, or the 10th planet representative? Should they … [Read more...]
How to Throw Defensive, Stiff-Arming, Bent-Over Opponents
A reader writes... Question: Hi Stephan, I'm looking for a way to incorporate some of judo take-downs into my BJJ game, but I'm having a lot of difficulty finding throws that work with the low center of gravity that is so central to the jiu-jitsu defence against throws. The defensive bent-over posture makes it nearly impossible to get good access to their hips, or even their legs while … [Read more...]
Your Open Guard Options vs. Standing Opponents
If you end up on the bottom with your opponent standing up and detached from you then be prepared for a very frantic and dangerous scramble. Unhindered by your grips and hooks he can deploy his favourite Open Guard passes on you without having to feel endangered by your own attacks. Now of course one option is to use the separation and stand back up to your own feet using the technical … [Read more...]
Four de la Riva Guard Grips You Need to Know
The de la Riva guard is very powerful and effective form of guard, often used in modern BJJ. It can be an intimidatingly complex position though, with a large number of grips, variations, sweeps, attacks and other techniques available for you to use. The point of today's article is to simplify the de la Riva guard for you. The way we're going to do that is by breaking it down on the … [Read more...]
How to Break a Tight Sleeve Grip on Your Gi
The single best thing you can do to stop your opponent from dominating you in grappling is to get rid of his grips on you. But against someone with strong hands and a powerful grip this can be tough to do. That's why I want to share a super-powerful way to break a sleeve grip with you. It's illegal in Judo but still totally allowed in BJJ. I've seen small women use … [Read more...]
How to Get Kicked Out of Your BJJ Club
by Jeff Meszaros So, you've been training at the same jiu-jitsu club for a while now and you've decided it's not for you. You've given it very careful consideration and concluded that it's time to move on to another club or quit altogether. But you don't want anyone to call you "a quitter" so instead of quitting, you've decided to take the high road and get kicked out. But how can you do … [Read more...]
A Simple Drill to Shut Down Your Opponent’s Guard Pass
I don't usually have to spend a lot of time sitting around and dreaming up new crazy techniques to put onto my Youtube channel... Typically all I have to do is look back at the last couple of training sessions I've done and something obvious to talk about pops right out at me. In the case of today's video, I was working with a friend who was having trouble with his guard getting … [Read more...]
What To Do When Your Mind Goes Blank While Sparring or Competing
Lots of grapplers run into the problem of their mind going blank when they're sparring or competing. In a class setting they might be able to bang out repetitions of techniques, demonstrate combos, and flow with the go like nobody's business, but as soon as they hit the mats to actually roll, well, all of a sudden they have absolutely no idea about what they should be doing. This … [Read more...]
How To Find the High Percentage BJJ Techniques You Can Rely On
As a young martial artist I once debated whether a certain Kung Fu striking technique could actually work in a real fight. To prove my point I mentioned that a bouncer I knew had successfully used that technique on a drunk in the bar the other night. The guy I was arguing with shut me down with a devastatingly simple rebuttal, “Yeah Stephan, that doesn't prove anything, because ANYTHING will … [Read more...]
BJJ Q&A Podcast with Rob Biernacki
There's a new Grapplearts Radio podcast out!! I recently brought Rob Biernacki - a BJJ black belt and the creator of the highly reviewed BJJ Formula apps - back into the studio for his second appearance on the Grapplearts Radio Podcast... We mostly did a Q&A format in which we answered reader questions about everything from passing the guard to organising your training, but we … [Read more...]
Should You Compete in BJJ Tournaments?
I often get asked whether competition is essential to BJJ, and if you need to have competed to get promoted to black belt. (If you prefer to watch or listen to me talk about this this topic then just scroll to the bottom of this blog post and look for the video called "Do you need to compete to get your black belt"). The quick answers are: no, you don't necessarily need to compete. And no, … [Read more...]