What I like about Dave's approach to the position is that he emphasizes control instead of the finish.  In his view, if you can control the position then the finish is easy (relatively).  I think this model of thinking applies in many, many areas.  We have all heard the maxim "position before submission" and this is no different.

The seminar started with two ways to take the armbar.  The first was if you held side control (cross sides top).   Your opponent turns into you with an underhook.  You take the top arm, secure a kimura grip and walk your hips in tight to their shoulder, finishing in the SAP.

The second entry was via mount.  More often than not, Dave holds a low mount (ie. legs crossed, hips low).  So we started there, gained head control, disrupted their posture, and trapped the opposite side elbow, driving it up slowly towards their head.  From there, we moved to an S mount, and then the SAP.

Two good things about these entries.  First is that they are very common and great to drill.  The other was that they demonstrated both a headside and legside armlock.  This forced you to think about how you were controlling the positon as what you do is different depending on the grip.

I have talked about this before, but there are three basic ways to control from the SAP: Posting, Extending Your Body Flat on the Mat, and Leg Control.  My personal favorite is leg control when I want to control while finishing, but more and more I think that against a really explosive opponent, I may use the extended body position.  Just something I need to play a bit more with.

The seminar was a good mix of new material (ie. details on gaining S mount) and things I had seen before (securing the SAP).  This gave me a chance to review what I knew, but also clean it up a bit.  A good example of this was the technique to switch between arm positions.  I "thought" I knew it and realized after watching Dave last night what component I was missing.

Thanks to Dave for putting on these free seminars.  I know everyone in the program appreciates it!

Paul

photo credit: Eric Knight of Modcom

Yesterday I headed down to the new ModernCombatives location in Fremont.  It opened relatively recently, has some great mat space, and more importantly, the usual SBGi vibe of just cool people wanting to have fun.  If you have ever been to an SBGi gym you know what I mean.  If you haven't, do yourself a favor and hit one up sometime.  I am always super impressed.

A few times a year John Frankl returns to the US from Korea where he is a University Professor (and bjj blackbelt).  Every time he lands on domestic soil I make sure to find some time to train with him.  He is not only a genuinely nice person, but one of the best instructors around.  He also has a well rounded game with deep experience in MMA as well.  However, the focus of the seminar this past weekend was groundwork.

After years of attending seminars, some good and some bad, I usually see three types - I think of it like a spectrum.  On one side is uncoordinated (often fancy) techniques, the middle is techniques that flow together as a unit(usually one position), and the last is techniques that all illustrate a single principle in various ways.  John's approach was the third.  The power in this model is that there is less to remember.  I always forget about 75% of what I see at a seminar (in terms of the small details), so a principle based approach gives you less to remember, and in a way, enables you to teach yourself later by recalling the concepts as opposed to things like grips or foot positions.

I'll also note that the middle approach of taking one position and connecting a few techniques is very powerful as well.  In fact, Matt Thornton taught this way in Berkeley last year with a series of knee drive passes - I found that very useful as well.  The only seminar style I don't like is the disconnected list of moves, or more commonly referred to as "cool stuff I like to do".  You'd be surpised how much that happens.

On to the seminar....The principles John focused on were as follows:

1. Empty Space (create it, put your opponent in it)
2. Hip Movement (sometimes a little bit makes all the difference)
3. Diagonal Base (posting, becoming light, and moving your hips)

For each principle, we walked through, and practiced, several techniques to illustrate the point.  Doing the techniques helped me clean up some small errors that have been forcing me to work way too hard, or worse, lose certain positions. 

Another very powerful aspect of what he showed was how "advanced" techniques actually have the basics embedded inside them.  They are the core of everything.  A simple example is standing from X Guard.  You stand using the old school self-defense standing in base.  If you haven't put that "basic" into your game then you'll always have trouble getting up in X-Guard.  Just demonstrating again that the basics are the foundation for a reason. 

John also summed this up another way, using a variant of Pareto's Principle.  In his words, 90% of what you use every day comes from 10% of what you know.  Conversely, what you need in 10% of the situations takes 90% of your time to learn.  So both from a time management perspective and from an instinctual, reactive perspective, focus on that 10% - the basics.  This is a theme I have heard from good teachers everywhere and I can't hear it enough as I am tempted by new dvd sets almost weekly.

Lastly, I rolled a bit with John (see photo).  The thing I like about rolling with people of his caliber is you get to feel the precision of their movements. Everything has purpose.   He moves with conviction because he knows exactly what he wants.  His reactions are always one step ahead because he knows where the game is headed.  Tight, constricting, precise and very, very quick hip movement.  The great ones almost snap in and out of positions.  You can really tell immediately how good someone is by this feeling alone.  It's inspiring to say the least, and something I need to think about as I roll.

Thanks to John for sharing his insights and I hope everyone can train with him next time he is out.

Paul

Last Saturday I was lucky enough to find some time to make it over to One World in Union City for the Paul Schreiner Seminar.  I have always been a fan of Paul's and I think he is years ahead of the crowd in terms of teaching ability.  He always seems to have a fresh perspective to bring on something you think you already know.  The great thing is that even with his depth, he has not lost his humility and openness to new ideas.  You'll notice it immediately when you ask him a question.  He is not dogmatic, but rather introspective about why he does certain things and clearly articulates his view, letting you decide if it works for your game.  It seems he has been able to maintain the mind of a white belt with the depth of a seasoned expert.  That in itself was worth the mat fee.

The seminar started on time, so I appreciated his professionalism.  Instead of the usual warmup style beginning, we warmed up with his "6 movements of bjj".  His six movements are a great way to not only get the blood moving, but also to ingrain the fundamentals of jiu-jitsu into your game.  Examples of the movements include the shrimp, guard recovery and going to your knees.  Watching him perform these will make you want to spend more time on these basics.  Personally, I tend to skip these and start rolling, but I plan to make these movements the foundation of my warm-up going forwards.  It is just too important.

After the primary movements were completed, Paul moved on to some details on the double under pass.  It was nice to see he has the same emphasis as John Frankl did when I saw him teach this in Berkeley.   For both a key is the placement of your grip and the elbow position, as it can be a great counter for the guy on bottom.  The unique element that Paul brought, was the basic idea of how palm position really impacts your strength.  We always talk about elbows tight, but I had never thought much about palm position.  If you play around with palms up or palms down, I think you'll find just how different the level of strength can be for each.  This is a great overall principle to take away and represented a theme of the day being broad ideas that are universally useful as you'll see at the end.

We then moved to mount.  The concept here being that there are two risks when mounting.  The first is the upa and the second is the elbow escape.  As with all jits, if you know what your opponent can do, you can counter it, proactively.   Paul showed some great details on mounting properly to effectively shut these counters down before they become an issue.  I love these small details that immediately tighten up a part of your existing game.  He even showed a way to mount by trapping the opponents leg that I have never seen.  I am really excited to work it tonight. 

Once in the mount, he showed his favorite method of holding mount with his hips low.  It is the same position that Dave showed me a few months ago and he referred to as "skydiving".  The basic idea is to lock the opponents lower body while keeping hip pressure.  The really interesting thing is that he never left this position to finish the fight, whereas I tend to bail on it to attack.  I think his idea is smart since it allows you to be safer.  Another nice addition.

From here he showed several methods of finishing the cross choke as well as the head and arm.  We probably spent a full 90 minutes on these positions.  As you can imagine there was a ton of detail here.   I won't even attempt to explain it all, but suffice it to say that Paul has a very nuanced approach to each.  Every movement, no matter how small, is doing a job.  He continues to tighten the noose bit by bit until it is checkmate.  Super detailed stuff that I know will take me a long time to get right.  I think I could work on this approach to finishing mount for years.  The great thing is that at the same time I think it's pretty much unstoppable when you get it right.

Of course at the end of the seminar he spent time with Q&A and rolling.  Everyone seemed to have a really good time and we even had some brief discussion of the north south guillotine that is so popular now.  To me that was the cherry on top of this great, great seminar.

I'll leave you with a few principles I caught throughout the event that stuck with me.  If I misquote, consider it my error.  I was struggling to keep up as the seminar went on:

• "Mount is one of two apex positions in jiu-jitsu, you're there to finish the fight"
• "Jiu-Jitsu is the gentle art, but mount is the one area where you can't be too gentle"
• "Jiu-Jitsu can almost be simplified to Pass, Mount, Choke" (via BJ/Roger)
• "Make Jiu-Jitsu a part of who you are, not something you do"
• "Success at the higher levels means knowing exactly what you want"
• "Removing techniques is as important as adding new ones"
• "You'll only get one chance to finish the RNC, it may come immediately, or 5 min later" (via Marcelo)
• "Mount stability is largely determined by your foot position"

Thanks again to Paul and definitely look him up for some great instruction.

Dave Camarillo held an free in-house seminar last Friday night at AKA in San Jose.  He holds these at least every few months as a service to his students, typically covering a position he has been working on recently, or a position where he feels he has a solid game to communicate.  Last night's focus was the standard armlock position.

Anyone who has seen Dave compete knows that armlocks are his specialty so there was no way I was going to miss this one.  In fact, just a week ago, I had asked Dave specifically which arm was best to use in armlocks after reading Rodrigo's new book, Complete Guide to Gracie Jiu-Jitsu.  You see, in that book, Rodrigo finishes all the armlocks using his leg side arm instead of his head side arm.  This made me wonder since I always take armlocks with the head side arm so I am free to grab the pants with my other hand.  I asked Dave and his response was of course that "it depends".  So with that in mind, I was excited about the seminar topic and hearing his views.

I arrived a bit late due to traffic, but as I entered the packed facility, Dave assured me that I hadn't missed any of the details yet.  As I settled in and found a partner, he made clear the fact that once your back is off the mat you are in danger of being rolled.  With that in mind, you need to recognize the risk and "stabilize" the position.  He then proceeded to show three simple ways to stabilize the standard armlock position - posting, extending your body, and grabbing the pants/leg.  Each of these made immediate improvements in my game.  It is amazing how sometimes little details can make such a big difference.  That is the beauty of bjj.

After the discussion of stabilizing, he moved on to "finishing".  I appreciated the classic "position before submission" mindset as it works for my slower style of game.  Of course, Dave will often take the armbar immediately, but hey, he's Dave.  In terms of finishing, Dave kept things simple (which is good) and covered his two favorite finishes, noting that he can use these two against "anyone he can finish". 

The first finish was from any of the three stabilizing positions while the head side arm is holding their arm.  Nothing magical here, just a palm strike to free the arm and then a zig zag motion to finish.  The other finish was more complex and started from the standard armbar postition as well, but your other hand was going for the finish.  This is Dave's favorite of the two and in it he uses his leg to apply pressure to the opponent.  It resembled bringing you leg over for a figure four, but without the figure four.  It is a very strong finish.

Overall, this seminar was pure gold for me.  In about two hours I can say that my finishes from that position will increase 5x.  I used to feel a bit shaky there, worrying about being rolled or losing the position.  That is no longer the case.  My partner was a big, strong guy and I had no problem holding him in place with very little effort (and the same for him holding me btw).  I am really excited to play with this week.

Thanks again to Dave for putting out such great info to his students!

See you on the mat,

Paul

We were honored to host Dave Camarillo for a 2hr in-house seminar last night.  Anyone who attended can attest to how much great information was shared. 

It seems like every time I train with Dave he is different, and better.  I am not speaking technically in terms of his performance, I really can't judge that since he is so far beyond me, but rather his teaching ability and his overall game.  He is constantly honing how he communicates the essence of what is important.  He gives detailed answers to questions (which is great) and uses a lot of visual imagery which helps in remembering.

What did he cover?

I asked Dave to spend some time on open guard passing for the seminar.  The main reason is that I feel it is a very broad area and one that we don't spend much time at in our club.  We started with the basics of how to control the opponents legs and some of their common reactions.  We also discussed the concept of push-pull as applied to guard passing.  Incidentally, this idea of action and reaction is one that I feel separates beginners from more advanced students.  It is definitely an area I want to explore more.

Once we had a good grasp of leg control fundamentals we moved into two solid options for passing the guard.  One was what I would call a sprawl pass where you lock your arm out and control a leg.  The other was a transition directly to the basic smash pass, Camarillo style.  He has some fairly unique ideas on this pass given that it is his favorite - he even referred to it as the "perfect" pass.  Dave also was kind enough to give the bottom player some game as well by discussing the various approaches to countering the stack pass when you are both early and late.  Solid fundamentals and they fit very well with the earlier discussion of pushing and pulling.

A Philosophy Emerged...

Although techniques are always interesting, what I get most out of seminars, and particularly from this one, is a broader philosophy.  Dave spent a good amount of time talking about  "Game" and what that means.  In his view, you have game when you understand and make reflexive the essential postures in each of the six positions of Jiu-Jitsu.  For example, in half guard, he talked about the underhook, head control, and leg pressure as critical.  A player with game with move directly into this type of control without thought.  When you can do that everywhere, you have game.  Until then, you are just collecting techniques and will have major gaps to fill.

Another concept that I found powerful was his idea of "hub" positions.  A hub is simply a place of control where you can rest and force your opponent to move.  Based on their reaction you can take what  is there.    A small point, but a great nugget I thought.

Lastly was Dave's discussion of "go-to" moves.  I got the sense that once you understand the principles of each position and have made them automatic you would then begin assembling a set of go to moves.  This is what most people would call "technique".   The key is to not go overboard, but get a small set of moves that work really well for you and then hone them over time.   If you start with techniques you tend to be a bit lost and confused, but under Dave's model I could see people progressing quite rapidly, as Jon Fitch has(the photo above is in honor of Fitch's accomplishments).  More gold.

To anyone who was there, feel free to post your impressions to comments.  I'd love to hear what you thought was interesting or what you'd love to see from Dave on his next visit.

See you on the mat!

On Sunday I headed over to Peninsula BJJ for the Andre Galvao seminar.  If you don't know Andre, he is 7x World Champion, including a victory this year at the Mundials against Braulio in the finals.  To make this even more impressive, he only started jiu-jitsu in 2000.  When asked about his secret of success he pinpointed two things: (1) Train a lot (duh!) and (2) Be open minded.  Andre doesn't stick with a single game (say x-guard, De La Riva, Closed Guard, etc), he plays everything.  This continous play and adaptation keeps it not only interesting, but more effective as well. 

I use the term "effective" since from a competitive perspective (paraphrasing Galvao), if he stuck with a single game (say pulling closed guard), over time his opponents would watch his matches and figure out the correct counter.  Therefore, he always is learning and mixing it up.  This ensures his evolution and helps to keep him on the top of the competition scene.  Andre credited Terere with encouraging him to have an open mindset when it comes to sharing.  Terere told him "When you teach your secrets, you open your mind to be filled again with new information".  Building on that, Andre said "I'm not one of those guys that keeps details to myself".   Personally speaking, I for one am very happy that Andre is sharing his game at seminars and in his unpcoming book, Champion Jiu-Jitsu.

The seminar was crowded, I would guess about 50 people.  The vast majority were white belts, but there were some other belts including 3 or 4 blacks as well.  Although room was cramped, everyone made space and we worked primarily on two positions, the reverse De La Riva hook and the Z Guard.  Andre has a very powerful game from here and I am doing my best to remember the details - what I can say is that you can immediately get a sense for his athleticism as he trains.  Simply put, he is powerful and effortless at the same time.  The seminar was worth it just to see that level of skill in action. 

I also enjoyed his humor - Although his english is not 100%, he managed to make some great jokes throughout the day.  My favorite was when he spoke of the importance of the adductor muscles and noted how most guys never work them in favor of bench presses.  His advice was to just keep doing what people consider "women's exercises" and then you can look over to the guys mocking you and know you can "kill them".  It comes off a bit odd in print, but trust me, it was hilarious in person.   I can only imagine if I spoke Portuguese what a great night I would have hanging out and listening to his stories. 

In the end, the key take away for me was not a technique, but rather a philosophy.  Andre learns games deeply and then moves on, unattached.  Sometimes I will move away from a game after practicing one or two moves.  I need to be more patient.  I need to really develop an area like Z Guard or Closed Guard before moving on.  It is a long process, but one I think will help me grow technically, but more importantly, in confidence.

Thanks to Andre Galvao for sharing and Marco and Angela for hosting this event in such an open and inviting atmosphere.

See you on the mat,

 Paul

I just returned from a great day of training with Roy Dean.  He was down for a seminar in Morgan Hill at the new Train For Life facility.  This new gym has a host of martial arts such as Japanese JuJitsu, Aikido, Judo and more - not to mention olympic lifting, personal training, and crossfit.  It is a gym for the 21st century. 

Roy is in town for three days (Friday, Saturday, Sunday).  I offered a while back to help him out with Saturday and be his uke for the day.  He took me up on the offer and there I was on the mat today.

I would guess there was about 20 people at the seminar, most with a mix of martial arts backgrounds and the BJJ being mostly white belt level.  As usual, I found the participants at this location not only open to new ideas, but humble as well.  Good people.

Throughout the course of the day (we went from 9am to 4:30pm with a break for lunch), Roy covered a wide range of material, including: footlocks, open guard passing, armlocks, back attacks, and chokes.  In the Q&A at the end, he even touched on the omoplata and crucifix.  Everything he showed, as usual, was a high percentage technique.  I am sure all the participants left with something they could call their own.  I know I certainly did. 

As I thought about the day on the drive home, I started to piece together the items of note that I learned or honed:

• Roy gave me some good details on the timing of the sleeve choke (often called the Claudio choke for Claudio Franca).  Using this as someone passes, as opposed to forcing it from closed guard,  is a sharp addition for me.
• Roy had a great detail on going for the americana from side control when someone frames on your face.  The idea is to rotate your hips and place your whole body into the movement.  I love these little gems, so simple, yet they make a move so effective.
• I really liked Roy's back transitions to the rear naked choke, collar choke and armbar.  The key here was to roll your opponent to set up the move.  Too often I find myself telegraphing moves - his method of rolling to the attack will help increase my success I have no doubt.
  
• Anyone who knows me, knows that I do not do footlocks.  I have always believed that they hamper your passing game development and thus I decided to avoid them until purple.  For that reason, anything in the area of footlocks in new to me and therefore interesting.  I really liked Roy's footlock counter to the scissor sweep.  I may have to break my rule on this one! 
  
• Roy's section on the standard armlock from the guard was a great refresher for me.  So often I emphasize the foot on the hip as a tool to rotate the body, which it is, but that leaves out it's other job - to elevate the hips.  I really need to spend some time drilling this until it is automatic. 
• Lastly, his entry to the crucifix was very slick.  He uses his knees to open the angle to trap the leg.  Again, simple, yet one of the small things that will open that position up to me again. 

One final note of thanks to the gracious seminar host, Margarita, who was always there with a bottled water, some food, and even a fantastic smoothie from Robeks - all without a thought.  I would also like to thank Roy for sharing his insights with me throughout the day.  He's a class act.  Don't miss the next one! 

See you on the mat! 

Our club had the honor of hosting Chris Haueter, a longtime BJJ black belt under the Machados for a short seminar.  He was in town teaching at ModernCombatives and decided to accept our offer to stop by on his way home.  

I have met and trained with a lot of bjj coaches and no one understands the game better than Chris.  Furthermore, he is just a super nice guy and is 100% open and honest in his instruction.  Just a joy to be around.   I try to be a sponge, but know I am missing 90% of his insights.

We spent the time focused on fundamentals as he was new to our group.  We plan to make his visits a frequent thing (next planned trip is February) so over time we’ll round out all areas of study.  This trip was all about achieving a solid base, breaking guard posture, passing, and attacking from the guard.  Next we plan on guard retention.  Personally, I love focusing on these things since they are the foundation of the house.  In fact, many experts will tell you that the guard in particular is 50% of the game (at least).  For this reason, I was happy to spend time focusing on the fundamentals.

The other great part about meeting Chris was hearing his stories of the good ol days.  The days when no one heard of the UFC or Royce, and BJJ was just “bad judo”.  He is a colorful guy and I learned as much listening to one of his riffs as I was to his guard pass examples.  
I am already looking forward to February.

If you get the chance to train with Chris, jump at it!

Paul
Train Jiu-Jitsu

Today myself and a fellow bjj student had the pleasure of attending a submission wrestling seminar by Eddie Bravo.   If you are not familiar with him, he is a Jean Jacques Machado Black Belt who shocked the world by beating Royler Gracie in 2003 at the Abu Dhabi World Championships.  Eddie’s secret was that he had been training for years exclusively without the gi.  In those years he developed some very powerful guard techniques that did not depend on the gi.  He called this type of guard the “Rubber Guard”.

I have to say that Eddie was a real nice, down to earth kind of guy.  It is refreshing to find another in the jiu-jitsu community who is so willing to share what he knows.  I have been lucky to find this with guys like Dave Camarillo, Matt Thornton and now Eddie.

The seminar itself was only 2hrs, so it was a bit short, but we covered the cornerstone of his guard work - Mission Control.  We started with breaking posture and obtaining Mission Control and worked to a submission from there.  We also covered some other spots like “Chill Dog”, “Krackhead” and some other wacky ones I can’t remember.  The good news was that we covered so little that I can actually remember it (as opposed to most seminars), but I would love to have gotten into his half guard game since it is so good.

Some key points I remember were:
-always clinch tight in guard
-think about breaking posture all the time
-stay tight with all limbs
-armbar grips should be tight (ie. elbow to elbow)

It really makes you wonder about the gi controversy.  I will be sure to add some more no-gi training to my game.  I know if I ever went up against one of his students I’d be in real trouble - you know what that means?  I better learn this stuff pronto!

So if you ever have the change to train with Eddie, I highly recommend it.  He is a great teacher whose heart is in the right place.

See you on the mat.