BJJ Norcal

Photo Credit: Shumei Wu

The more seminars I go to, the more I realize it is not the individual moves I take away, it is the philosophy.  The experience last Friday at American Kickboxing Academy was no different.  The event was a gym fundraiser and bjj seminar put on by Dave Camarillo.  Dave typically hosts free seminars every few months as a service to his ever growing student base.  The focus on this evening was footlocks, and some particular details he picked up from Ryan Hall and John Danaher.

Dave began the seminar with a discussion of his approach to the submission game.  In essence, he called out the difference between "attacking the target" and "controlling the position".  Imagine being in mount top.  Your opponent pushes on your chest (incorrectly).  In a split second you make the decision - do you trap the arm and establish a position to finish (control) or do you immediately attack the wrist as you spin for the armlock finish.  Both are attacking models, but one emphasizes control and the other the direct path to finish (A-> Z, no B, C, D, etc).  In Dave's opinion, the focus until black belt should be to control the position.  Attacking the target takes experience and attributes.

Once that mindset was in place, Dave covered a basic entry to the standard footlock.  Of course, he showed the important aspects of control such as pinching the knees and keeping your outside foot on their hip, but the most valuable for me was the details for finishing the position.  Instead of falling straight back for the finish - Dave falls to his side.  Once there, clamping the elbow tight to the body he torques the forearm up and then looks backwards to finish the submission.  These details make the straight footlock much more effective.  Now, as a side note, there was one other finish he showed, but we did not spend much time exploring it.  It essentially is the same ankle lock, but instead of falling backwards, you drive forward.  You end up sitting sideways on your opponent with your knee on the mat.  I really liked it since I am a big fan on keeping top position.  This seemed like an evolved way to do footlocks.  I am sure Dave will cover deeply it in a future seminar.

As in any good seminar, we spent a bit of time drilling the position.  In this case, we focused on control.  Making sure we could all hold the position without finishing(see earlier discussion).  After some focused training, Dave returned to the group with a warning - "Don't neglect guard passing".  You can imagine how this would happen.  A person with great footlocks may stop trying to pass guard altogether.  This approach will work fine until you come across someone with a tough guard and good footlock defense (Dave referenced Marcelo Garcia and his x-guard here).  This was a great point to emphasize and I think it shows the balance that everyone needs in their game.  No footlocks - bad.  No guard passing - bad.  I see a lot of parallels here between the gi/no gi debate.  The truth is you should really train them both for education and for fun.  In my view it not only keeps things interesting, but it makes you better as well.

All in all a great event.  Not only did I learn something, but it is nice to see the energy of the gjj community all in one room.  Good folks abound.

See you on the mat!

Paul