Jiu-Jitsu Instruction Log

[JGaulard]

I'll be using this thread to record any thoughts I have about instructing Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. If you aren't aware, I've been training since 2008 and currently hold the rank of black belt. I have trained primarily at three different schools, one in Glastonbury, CT (Giroux BJJ with Jeff Giroux - awesome guy), one in St. Augustine, FL (Fighting Chance Fitness with Kevin Synan, Christy Synan, and Julian Synan - incredible family and crazy good practitioners), and now in Farmington, ME (The Foundry BJJ with Seth Harris, Brianne Genschel, and Shawn Smith - some of the toughest people I know). Each school was and is incredible in its own right and I have learned so much from all of my instructors and classmates. In between my full-time training at the aforementioned schools, I've visited and have trained at quite a few others. Let's see if I can remember them - they were in Middletown, CT, Marlborough, CT, Manchester, CT, Palm Coast, FL, New Haven, CT, and I'm sure I'm forgetting a few more. They were all great. Some were very different from the others, but that's what I enjoyed most about the experiences.

Anyway, I now teach Jiu-Jitsu to a great bunch of students at The Foundry. They're a lot of fun to transfer my knowledge to and I thought that recording my thoughts, lesson plans, and other things that come across my mind in this thread might prove to be worthwhile. I'm not quite sure how yet, but I'm confident that I'll figure that out along the way.

I do want to mention one last thing before I continue on below, and I'm sure many other BJJ instructors can attest to this. While I have learned a good chunk of technique while progressing through my colored belts, I'm continuing to learn much more as I teach others. As an instructor, I really need to delve into the whys and hows of things more than I ever have as a student. So really, even though I've been teaching since 2016, I still think this is just the beginning. And what's strangest of all, I continuously think I'm actually getting worse at both technique and rolling. I attribute this to the ever growing expanse of knowledge I find myself seeking. At this rate, I'm not sure I'll ever think I'm there.

 

[JGaulard]

Okay, so here it is. This is my first installment of my instructor's log. I've got class tomorrow night and I've been considering changing things up for a while. I normally hold a warm up session that includes jumping jacks, push ups, crunches, triangles, leg lifts, up downs, and all the rest. This goes on for approximately 15 minutes. After that, we all get dressed in our gis and move onto the technique portion of class. From there, I'll cover either just one technique in detail and we'll practice that for the remainder of class or I'll cover a few less complex techniques and we'll, again, practice those for the remainder of class.

If there's one thing I've learned while teaching BJJ, it's that instructors need to feed their students and keep them occupied. These guys are like hungry piranha that want to be worked over and made to sweat. If an instructor gets lazy about teaching or keeping the students busy, the instructor will know it. People will complain and wander off into neverland. That's not a good thing. So I always get a bit more forceful during class. I don't take excuses, my tone is somewhat more harsh, and I hold people accountable. I've had good reaction from this.

Tomorrow I plan to switch up my routine. I'm going to start off with my traditional jumping jacks for a few minutes and then move into 50 crunches. The students will think it's the same old thing. After that, I'm going to ask people to partner up, high belts with low belts. I like to use the higher belts as assistant instructors. For five minutes for each student, we'll drill the bullfighter pass or matador pass. Whatever you want to call it. If you're interested, here's a video of exactly what we'll be doing.

BJJ Breakdown: How to Do the Matador Guard Pass Drill

After this, we'll continue on with what I consider review. What I'm attempting to do here is take concepts that we've gone over in previous classes and turn them into drills that we can knock out without a tremendous amount of instruction. And since we've recently gone over the armbar from knee on belly, we'll continue on with that. When one student has his knee on the other student's belly, I'll ask the top student to simulate a few punches to the face below (or just a simple push up defense/reaction from below). When that happens, the bottom student will raise his arms in defense and that's when the top student will slide his foot into the armpit of his opponent to take the armbar. Here's a great example of what I'm referring to from MMA Leach.

The Shotgun Armbar From Knee On Belly

And finally, I think we'll continue on with the push pull sweep that we were going over last week, but we'll turn it into a drill with a few details added. I think another name for this sweep is the hook sweep, but since no one has ever decided on continuity between names of moves before, we'll call it what we want. The thing is, once the top guy makes the sweep, we'll end it with the same armbar as above. Check it out.

Open Guard Sweep Push Pull Sweep

I think this will make for a good class. I always like to review concepts and add a few details here and there. It keeps the students on their toes and helps them with muscle memory, but it also keeps them entertained with learning new things.

 

[JGaulard]

Well, last night's class didn't go quite as planned. While we got through some of what I had intended to get through, I found that some of the newer students weren't as up to snuff on the armbar and triangle techniques as I would have liked. This is why we need more of this drilling and repetition. Because much of this is included in "the basics" and I want to make sure these guys can do these moves in their sleep.

I had the students pair up, higher belts with lower belts. Then I had them do 24 armbars from guard, switching sides. I'm beginning to get into the switching sides thing because I feel that it'll make their games more well rounded. For 12 years, I've been relying pretty heavily on my "good side" and I feel as though if I had been forced to mix up my sides more in the beginning, I'd have more options today. So that's what I'm doing for these guys now.

The armbars took about ten minutes longer than I had wanted them to, mostly because the speed just wasn't there. I also had to do a bit of instructing along the way, which chewed up minutes. That's fine because we'll go over these things again next week and they should be faster to complete then.

The triangles were somewhat better. I again asked each student to perform 24 triangles on their partner, 12 on each side. This went well, but some of the guys who have shorter legs needed to make adjustments. I also had to teach along the way again, which wasn't my intention. I wanted the students to fly through these drills, but I have a strong feeling that this will come in time. They're smart students and they learn fast. So next week or the one after should be better.

These two drills consumed about 40 minutes, so I only had 20 minutes to cover the lesson for the night, which was just another drill. It was the matador guard pass drill into the shotgun armbar. The guys seemed to like this one and pick it up pretty quickly, so we'll continue on with that next week too. And then we'll move onto the push pull sweep into the shotgun armbar. I'm looking forward to that because that's a very sweet combo. Until then!

 

[JGaulard]

I think we'll attack the armbar again tonight. Perhaps we'll include variations of this technique on an ongoing basis. It's such a big part of the basics that I simply can't have students in my classes not knowing how to do it in their sleep. It's just one of those things. But...I don't want the beginning of class to be boring, so I plan on introducing variations into the same ol' move. That ought to keep people on their toes and will hopefully hammer home the basic functionality and purpose of the armbar.

I found another video of what I'd like to cover. Take note of how the instructor uses the collar grip to keep his opponent on top broken down. Essentially, this is the same armbar from guard as we covered from last week, but with a slightly new element introduced. Like the instructor in this video, I'd also like to focus on how the leg clamps down on the back, up as far as it'll go, in order to hold the top guy down and in place. As I like to say, "It's all in the setup." If you don't set a move up properly, you'll have a really tough time finishing it. And I hate getting lucky while rolling. I'd much rather act like a ratchet wrench and slowly crank along to the finish line.

By the way, I love how the instructor in this video speaks slowly and clearly. I can only hope to emulate this sort of thing one day. I have a real problem with getting ahead of myself as I teach.

As far as the oma plata goes, this is another move that's in the "basics" category and I'm not good with letting students go without becoming experts at it. With that in mind, I'd like to include this into our drilling as well. Now, the concept of this move is very straightforward. It's just a shoulder lock from a weird position. So if I can get that point across, I think we'll be in good shape. But like the armbar from guard, it's all in the setup. By the way, we'll be doing the oma plata from closed guard as well.

Here's a video that shows the oma plata the same way I recently covered it.

This instructor uses an interesting setup. In the video below, the instructor uses a more traditional approach. I think we'll use this one tonight as part of our drilling.

And after we're all done with 15 of each of these moves on each side, we'll move onto the lesson for the day, which will be the open guard push pull sweep into a shotgun armbar. That'll be fun. We didn't have time to get into it during last class, but I'm hopeful for tonight. I'll cover how tonight's class goes down below.

 

[JGaulard]

We had a very good night of Jiu-Jitsu last night. Three black belts, one blue belt and the rest white belts. I tend to like it when there are a lot of white belts because that means I can really get into some of the more basic, yet effective techniques that I know of. While the more advanced stuff is definitely fun to cover, a lot of the newer guys have trouble with it. That doesn't mean that I won't cover some advance technique in the future. It just means that it'll take some time to figure out ways to simplify it so everyone understands.

Okay, so we began class with some basic warm up exercises and then we moved quickly into drilling the armbar from the video above. I must say that the students who drilled the other version of armbar from guard last week had no difficulty with this one, so I'm confident that drilling for BJJ works. It really does. Quickly learning a move, trying it out a few times, and then moving onto something new may be a lot of fun, but it sure doesn't pound the concept into the students' heads. You gotta drill.

After the armbar, we moved onto the oma plata. That went pretty well as well. Some students had some questions and a few of them screwed things up at times, but that's to be expected. Next week, we'll continue on with that and then move onto something else. I'll let you know what down below.

To finish up class, I introduced the push pull sweep into the knee on belly into the shotgun armbar. Those two videos are in a post that's a few slots above. Those are a really great sequence of techniques that are actually realistic as well. It was a lot of fun and after some cleaning up a few issues here and there, everything went smoothly. The students seemed to like the class overall.

I do want to mention something else. I gave a little talk at the end of class and expressed how pleased I was with the drilling. I told the guys that we'd be doing a lot more repetition and that while it's fun to cover new and exciting material, it's better to drill, drill, drill. They seemed to agree and a few of the guys told me privately that they actually prefer the drilling over learning new things all the time. So there's that.

I also got a great idea this morning that may prove to be a lot of fun. I asked another black belt (actually the owner of the club) to co-teach with me on a few select evenings. We were playing with a few different escapes from triple attack position last night when I showed him what I knew. Then he showed me what he knew and that's where my idea was born. Why not have a night where we both cover our respective escapes and treat it sort of like a seminar? I love it and he loved it, so that's what we're going to do.

 

[JGaulard]

Just a quick break from my normal instruction log routine. I wanted to quickly mention that we promoted a classmate/instructor to brown belt last night. His name is Mike and he's an awesome guy. Everyone loves him and he's as tough as nails. I wasn't aware of this, but Mike recently turned 50 years old, which makes him the oldest of our crew. It's strange because back when I was a teenager, I thought 40 years old was old. Like, old man status. Now that I'm 47, I know better. I'm no where near old man status and neither is Mike. He can roll with the best of us.

To start out, Mike held instruction for about 45 minutes. He covered three different types of pressure passes, as that's a big part of his game. Each pass began on his knees as the typical over/under pass and then they evolved from there. Basically, it was the same pass three different ways. If you aren't familiar with the over/under pass in BJJ, here's an instructional video for you. There's a slightly different spin on the pass in the video, but most versions are similar to one another.

After he was done teaching, we did our typical shark bait, where everyone beats the promotee up, one at a time. The person being promoted doesn't stop and this was the case last night. It's been said that Mike rolled for 58 minutes straight, with white belts all the way up to black belts. Lucky Mike had five black belts in attendance last night and each of us rolled with him for six minutes. Crazy.

Anyway, congrats Mike! Well deserved. Now we've got another brown belt in our ranks.

 

[JGaulard]

Tonight is going to be fun. I've got some good stuff planned for our ambitious students. I've decided that I'm going to continue on with some open guard sweeps. I'll incorporate the hook, sickle, and de la riva sweeps into a wonderful and all encompassing lesson. But before all that, we'll do some warm up drills to get the blood pumping.

To start off with, we'll do a few stand up guard passing drills. We'll get started with the one I described above and then continue on with one that holds more onto the inside of the knees. Sort of like a different version of the bullfighter pass. And finally, we'll have one guy on his back in open guard position while the other guy stands in front of his feet. The standing guy will attempt to pass the bottom guy's legs in an effort to touch the bottom guy's head. This is a highly active and very entertaining drill that's rather exhausting. They'll love it. Actually, maybe we'll do this one first.

As for the learning portion, I think we'll start off with a nice hook and sickle sweep drill that I learned from watching Emily Kwok on BJJ Weekly. Check it out:

After that, I'd like to teach and drill the actual hook and sickle sweep themselves, ending up in a combat base. Last time, we used the momentum of our falling partner to pull us into a standing position, but we're mixing things up this time. And, if time permits, I'd like to toss in the de la riva guard that transitions into the hook sweep. All the while, transitioning from the open guard into the combat base. It should be fun.

To see what I'm referring to in regards to the combat base, take a look at this video by Chewjitsu:

 

[JGaulard]

Last night was excellent. It was probably one of the best classes I ever held. I was, as they say, "on my game." Not with my rolling, per se, but with my teaching. I had the guys drill a bunch as a warm up and received good reviews for that. The consensus is that getting a workout from Jiu-Jitsu related activities is much more beneficial than doing random exercises. I agree with that notion. Now I just need to find a bunch of basic warm up drills that I can incorporate into each class.

As for the class itself, it was sort of like just more drilling. I had the guys to the hook (push/pull, tripod) sweep for five minutes each. There were two variations of that one; one with a standing finish and one with a finish in combat base. Both were good. I was very confident with my instruction for these two techniques because I've done them forever. After the hook sweep, I quickly reviewed the sickle sweep. I emphasized the how minor the difference is between the two sweeps, which I think helped. Foot position can get tricky when trying to remember these two sweeps. Half way through that five minute session (for each guy) I said they could begin mixing the two sweeps together and alternating between the two. It was awesome seeing some of the students, who knew nothing prior to the class, alternate seamlessly between two of the most fundamental sweeps Jiu-Jitsu has to offer. It was a beautiful thing.

After that, I introduced the de la riva guard. I told the students that it was merely an introduction to de la riva and that we'd be going through a few actual sweeps next week. They loved it.

Next week, I think we'll be doing some escapes from side and scissor sweeps as warm up drills and then we'll again cover the hook/sickle sweeps as more warmup. Then we'll get into the de la riva for the instruction portion of class.

 

[JGaulard]

I've got some great stuff for tonight. Since we're on a drilling roll and since the guys are liking the drilling a lot, we'll keep going with it. For tonight's warmup, I thought I'd incorporate some basic side escape exercise for a few of our newer guys. What I'm finding is that many of the newer students aren't as well versed with the basic escapes as we'd like them to be. One of our white belts shows up to class about five times per week, but still has some hesitation when it comes to some of the easy technique. I'd like to address that. Also, we've got some police officers in our classes, so I feel it's especially critical to give them great side escape instruction. So tonight, I'll touch on that.

What I'd like to do is set up some five minute rounds. One student will hold another in top side control. The guy on bottom needs to escape. Now, we've done this before, so what I'm going to introduce is more of a flow. I'd like to see the top guy allow the escape so we can get used to a change in technique. Instead of having the bottom guy simply frame under the top guy's neck and push to the side to make space, I'll have him bridge and push upward towards his head. This will keep the top guy more off balance and will stop them from plowing right back into position from top. Here's a video from Chewjitsu that shows exactly what I'm referring to:

Also for the new guys, I'm going to explain exactly what a hip escape (aka shrimp) is. I suppose I'll demonstrate it as well. As I can see in the video below by Babs Olusanmokun, there's a sequence to what's supposed to happen. A lot of students fail at bridging up first and then pushing off the correct leg. I'll address that.

So the routine will be, one guy on bottom, one guy on top, holding the bottom guy in side control. The bottom guy escapes to closed guard. He'll then set up a scissor sweep and then execute the sweep. He'll likely end up in mount, where he'll transition into side control where the other player will go through the routine. We'll do five minutes of this and then we'll switch partners. I know a few new guys who will have trouble with these things because they're so new, but we'll get through it. Here's a great clip on the scissor sweep by Babs Olusanmokun. He's very clear and breaks down the technique wonderfully.

After all this is finished, I'll have the students drill the hook and sickle sweep for five minutes each again, alternating sweeps. You can see the videos above for those sweeps.

And finally, for the class lesson, we'll be going over the first in an entire series of de la riva sweeps. There is so much to this guard that I'm not even sure where to begin. I suppose at the beginning. So here's the first sweep that we'll be covering tonight.

I'll keep you updates on further sweeps in later classes.

 

[JGaulard]

We had another incredible night of practice and instruction last night. I'm very much enjoying where things are heading. I feel as though the trajectory of our students' learning has somewhat changed. Just a few months ago, a few instructors fell in the trap of demonstrating one "cool" move after another and then had the students practice that move a few times. We called that a class. We're much more focusing now on drilling and muscle memory. People love it.

Last night, we did all the things I said we were going to go above. The thing is, my timing wasn't so great, so we only dedicated about 15-20 minutes to the de la riva guard and sweep. Everyone got what was taught though - no problems at all, so we're definitely ready for the next basic de la riva sweep. Here it is:

While this one is a bit more complicated than the last one, it still works from the basic guard, so that's good. I think everyone has that down by now, so we'll be in good shape. We'll see what happens.

There is one area of teaching Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu that I'd like to discuss for a moment and that's student attendance. What I find myself up against is a few new students who don't show up for class regularly or consistently. I know we all have different schedules and much of this can't be helped, but it is a problem. Since I tend to prepare my classes sequentially, they build off one another. Most of the time, I'll have half of the class that was there the previous week and the other half that wasn't. So really, I'll be continuing on for the first half, but the second half will be brand new to what I'm teaching. The way to deal with this is to pair students up based on experience level. When I tell everyone to find a partner, I tell them to do so based on who was in attendance the previous week and who wasn't. This helps somewhat. And to empower the more experienced and higher belt students, I express to them that I'm using them as my assistant instructors. I love nothing more than watching as those higher belts do the teaching for me. Love it.

For next class, I'll be looking up some more basic drills to use as our warmups. I do love those things. I'll post them below when I find them.

 

[JGaulard]

I am sorry to report that since there has been a coronavirus spike in Maine, I've been unable to teach. I'm hoping to return to class very soon because I'm eager to cover the next de la riva sweep. I've never been an expert at any of these sweeps and going over them piece by piece is a lot of fun. So, when the COVID 19 cases drop in Maine, I'll return to my instruction. I keep an eye on the levels every day and Maine has been one of the best states in which to live through this pandemic. Hopefully there will be good news for this coming Tuesday. BJJ waits for no man!

 

[JGaulard]

Boy, it's been a long time. I haven't attended a Jiu-Jitsu class since the last time I posted here. That was in November. It's now February. The time has come, however, to return. If all goes well, I'll be heading back to BJJ this coming Tuesday. I won't be teaching - I'll be watching. Well, participating, but watching. I was discussing my return with Seth, the owner of The Foundry, and we decided it would be best if I was a student for the first class, just to see how he's got things running now. I believe he's been working through the blue belt curriculum because we've got a few guys who are due to get their belts in a month or two. That's fine with me.

This has been a challenging time for me. I am not the type of person who sits and watches. This has also been the longest I've been away from BJJ since 2008. The previous longest time was a month or two at the beginning of this disease. And before that was only for about a week because I moved to a new state. Word has it that we've got a few new guys down at the club. They're sheriff deputies, so they'll be extra special to roll with. I love the guys who come in strong from previous and existing training. I am so very much chomping at the bit to roll with them.

And of course, it's supposed to snow on Tuesday. So I may be returning Wednesday or Thursday. Who knows. But it's coming up.

 

[JGaulard]

Last night's class was pretty great. As I mentioned above, I was a student, which was sort of refreshing. I really do enjoy instructing, but every so often it's nice not to have to think. Although, I will tell you that I'm extremely excited to get back to my regular schedule next week. I've already got my lesson planned out. More on that below.

Last night Seth taught. He went over a stand up trip-type take down and then the scissor sweep. We're getting some of the guys ready for their blue belt tests and they need to go over the curriculum. That's fine by me because it's easy stuff to teach. After we learned for a while, we had open mat, which was, as always, a good time. I thought I'd be worse and more out of shape than I was. So that's good. I will tell you that I was hardly able to get out of my car upon returning home last night and today I feel like I was hit by a runaway train, but other than that, not bad for my age. Let's just say, I've seen worse. As long as I remain ahead of the crowd my age, I'm happy.

Next week, I'll be covering an elbow duck under takedown from standing and then after that, I'll cover the armbar from guard. Both techniques are fairly simple for those who have done them before, but even the more experienced guys get tripped up by these basic moves sometimes. There are a few brand new people in class, so I'll have to be cognizant of their abilities, or should I say, inabilities. They'll like this stuff though. Everyone does.

Duck Under Takedown by Brad Wolfson of Soulcraft BJJ

This is the guy who tied my purple belt around my waist. I trained under Jeff Giroux in Glastonbury, CT, but Jeff trained under Brad, so it was Brad who promoted me. That was a great night of rolling. Probably the best of my life. There were at least 30 people on the mats. I had many great matches.

White Belt Basic Arm Bar from Closed Guard by the Grappling Academy

I get a lot of my lessons from this guy. He's very awesome and an excellent instructor.

 

[JGaulard]

Great night last night. We had our very first kid's black (or green) belt promotion to an adult blue belt. One of our instructor's (Shawn) sons has been training for just about 10 years. He's competed in over 85 tournaments all over New England and Canada and has flown through the ranks of kid belts. Now that he's 16 years old, he's able to rank for adult belts and that's just what he did. So last night, we put him through the wringer and beat him up for 45 minutes or so. I must say, I was very impressed by his toughness and endurance. He didn't let any of us down and he fought some very skilled opponents who were much larger and heavier than we was. So great job Evan!

In other news, we had a great turnout last night of about 15-20 people. I didn't count, but there were a lot of us. This was my second week being back and I'm happy to report that it feels freaking great. My body was going straight to hell with no training and now I can feel my cells beginning to realign. No exercise is not good for a person, that's for sure. Next week, I teach. The week after that, we've got a black belt promotion for one of our good buddies who trains at the Rangeley school. We'll be holding the promotion down in Farmington though because that's where all the action usually takes place.

Here are a few fun photos from a few years ago other things. If you're not logged in, you won't be able to see the full-sized versions.

 

[JGaulard]

Excellent night of teaching last night. I covered the Brad Wolfson Duck Under Takedown which was originally taught by Marcio Stambowsky. I added a few notes to the technique, such as how to protect your neck from the Guillotine Choke after the duck under is performed. I also discussed how to "throw" your opponent's legs outward while you're performing the turn and eventual takedown itself. Sometimes, if your opponent is skilled and if he or she knows the throw that's coming, he or she will attempt to keep their legs aligned with you in the hopes of pulling you into their Halfguard. We worked around this threat.

I also covered the Armbar from Guard. This is a basic white belt technique that will be on the blue belt test for a few of our guys. This is need to know. I covered two variations of it; one for nogi situations and one for gi. The only difference between the two is the breakdown. For the nogi version, you can hook your opponent's neck with your hand to break them down while in the guard and for the gi version, you can simply take a cross collar grip to break them down. I actually like both, even when I'm wearing a gi.

Other than that, it was great to be back in the saddle again. I do love teaching Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.

 

[JGaulard]

I've got a great class planned for tonight. We're going to continue on with the blue belt curriculum in the sweeps category. I like teaching sweeps because they're fairly straightforward and people seem to like them. No matter how often I cover them, everyone has a good time. And for some reason, it's like they've never seen them before, so it's good we go over them a lot. Jiu-Jitsu students are sometimes forgetful, but appreciative, so it's all good.

There are only a few sweeps that are required for our blue belt test. They are the Scissor (with knee push variations), Elevator (or Reverse Scissor), Flower, and Bump. I've already gone over everything on this list in the past few weeks with the exception of the Bump sweep, so that's what we'll do tonight. During the warmup though, I'll ask the guys to practice the Scissor sweep with the knee push as opposed to the scissoring action and I'll also ask them to practice the Flower sweep. Both of these techniques should be at top of mind because we've gone over them very recently. We'll see what happens.

After that, I'll teach the Bump sweep and we'll spend the rest of the class practicing that. It's relatively easy, so I don't foresee any issues.

Here are a few videos of the techniques.

Closed Guard | Scissor Sweep, Push Sweep, and Spider Guard Sweep with Kris Kim

Low Risk Sweep From Closed Guard - BJJ Flower Sweep (Gustavo Gasperin)

Closed Guard Sweep Hip Bump Sweep (Jeremy Arel)

 

[JGaulard]

Last week, I inadvertently got into some sort of a half-triangle from top position. I meant to teach the hip bump sweep into mount position and then from there, finish with a triangle from top. I only got half way through the triangle from top though because I discovered a very cool armbar and neck crank, so I taught that instead. That was on the fly, so this week, I plan on getting back to something more traditional.

My plan is to try out a low hip bump sweep that I saw online a few days ago. It looks very effective and high percentage. Take a look.

Closed Guard Sweep Low Hip Bump (Great Grappling)

I'll try this one out on a student right when I get to class, just to see if it works. I've been stuck teaching something I saw online that has no chance of working in the past and, while not so embarrassing, a complete waste of time. I hate it when that happens, so I now go in with a backup plan. The backup plan for tonight is the spider sweep into mount. Any way I can get into mount is fine.

The First Spider Guard Sweep You Should Learn (MMA Leech)

So, I'll be happy teaching either one of these sweeps. They're both good.

After I get into mount position, I'm going to cover a triangle choke from top, where, if the guy on bottom decides to turn to his side, I'll wrap his arm under his head so he can't use it anymore and then sneak a triangle in there. It's very cool looking and any time I can grab a sneaky triangle, I'll take it.

How to Set Up the Triangle Choke from Mount/Gift Wrap Position

 

[JGaulard]

Older Women Loving Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu​

If there's one thing I've learned about Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu through the years it's that there's no set demographic to it. Yes, it's true that in one club I used to below to, most of us were in our 30s, men, and were all college educated. We'd sit there on Saturday mornings before training and discuss which books we recently read. It was different in other gyms I belonged to. In one of those others, there were many guys who were younger, say, in their 20s, who used to be in the military. So we'd talk about that kind of stuff when we should have been training. In another school (the one I belong to now), we're a very diverse bunch. We talk about homesteading, painting houses, splitting firewood, hiking, and so many other things. And we range in ages from 15 to mid-50s. One thing I've noticed through the years is that while a good majority of folks I've trained with are male, many more females are getting in on the fun. I actually wrote a blog post on women training Jiu-Jitsu a few years back that's gotten a lot of attention. I can't even remember what I wrote in that post, but I do recall responding to an inflammatory something that Keith Owen either wrote online or said somewhere. I personally love the fact that the ladies are getting into this sport more and more because, in my opinion (and I may be somewhat biased here), we all need Jiu-Jitsu. You can train as hard or as lightly as you want, it's good for you, it's very social, and you can make a lot of friends doing it. All of my friends in the past ten years have been made through Jiu-Jitsu. I'm not even kidding about that. Every single one.

On top of the friendly social aspect of training, you can gain a strong sense of accomplishment, confidence, and self esteem. Back before I ever trained in any type of marital art, I remember thinking about how nervous I'd be if I ever got in a fight. While I think I'd still be nervous, the situations I've put myself through since 2008 have definitely taken the edge off. I no longer think I'd freeze from the adrenaline rush that's inevitable when being confronted. I think I'd handle myself just fine. But now I'm selling BJJ again. I should really stop that.

Anyway, the entire reason for writing this post is to show you a photo of two older females at a BJJ competition. You have no idea how this picture makes me feel. I'm such an advocate for Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu as it is - this kind of things makes it all that much better. Take a look at the photo. I don't know, maybe they're in their 70s. How cool is this?