Grappling Tips Newsletter

Here’s a little trick, or technique, you can use to prevent your opponent from establishing posture and passing your guard when you are wrestling with the gi.

Several years ago I was training with Marcello Grosso, a Carlson Gracie Black Belt. I was in his closed guard and was struggling to make posture in order to try to pass his guard. Finally I planted my feet, stood up and lifted him off the ground. This gave me a bit of hope, because at the time my best gi guard passes all started with me standing.

Marcello had an answer for me, though. He kept his guard closed, reached up, and gripped each of my lapels with his hands. Then he started jerking the lapels so rapidly that my head was shaking back and forwards like a bobblehead doll on speed. Unable to keep my balance (and laughing out loud) I dropped back onto my knees, back at square one in my battle for posture.

Since then I have used this same technique myself when an opponent lifts me off the ground, sparring with the gi. If you are trying to break your opponent’s posture this way make sure that you grip the gi relatively close to your opponent’s neck. The jerks are rapid, sharp movements, which disrupt your opponent's balance and ability to remain standing.

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There is nothing worse than tapping out to a smother. It is one thing to get caught in a nice technical choke and having to tap out, but it really sucks to get slowly smothered as someone covers your nose and mouth with some part of their body. It's slow, it's frustrating and it's undignified. Sometimes the guy doesn't even know that he's doing it to you, which doesn't make it any better...

Here is a simple, but not commonly known, technique to survive the smother. When you feel like there simply isn't enough air coming into your mouth and nose, open your mouth as wide as it can go. Most of the time the increased intake area will allow enough air to get into your lungs to survive and start plotting your escape and revenge.

This is particularly relevant when you are doing gi-jiujitsu (although it is occasionally useful in no-gi submission grappling as well). If your face is covered by someone's gi and your mouth is just a little bit open, then you are trying to suck air through a relatively small area. If you open your mouth wide then you double or triple the area of gi you are breathing through, making life much better for you.

Labels: breathing, chokes, positions

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In this last installment on fine-tuning your sparring time I would like to talk about starting your sparring sessions from bad positions. Starting out in a bad position is a good way to rapidly improve your pin escapes and submission counters. It is also a great way to challenge yourself, particularly when sparring lighter or less experienced people.

Here are some potential ways to start your sparring:

• Your partner pinning you in mount, side mount or rear mount. He should make sure that he is attacking from that position, and is not just holding on for dear life. The sparring round ends when you tap or you escape into a neutral position (e.g. guard).
• Your partner in the armbar position with you clasping your hands together.
• You in the turtle position and him on top of you, with the grip of his choice.
• You in your partner’s guard and in a loose triangle choke, his legs crossed at the ankles.
• You standing and your partner grabbing both of your legs behind your knees, as if he’s just shot in on a double leg (you could also do similar drills from a single leg, high crotch or low single position). His goal is to take you down, and your goal is to escape or counter his takedown.
• Any other bad position you can think of, particularly ones that you have difficulty escaping from in sparring.
  

There are three ways you can do this drill. First: you could simply start your sparring session in this position, and if you escape then just continue sparring until the round ends or someone taps. Second: when you escape from your positional predicament stop and immediately go back to the same position. Third: you and your partner can change positions after each submission or escape, so that you can both get the benefits of being on top and on bottom.

These drills also benefit your partner. For example, while you are working on your mount escapes he is working on maintaining the mount position and attacking from there. No matter who taps, everybody wins!

Letting your sparring partner start in a dominant position is not a training method for people with fragile egos. Understand this: if you let people start in a dominant position you WILL get tapped out more often in training, and you WON’T catch your partners in as many submissions yourself. On the other hand, your ability to defend against submissions and escape from bad positions will skyrocket, and when you do get caught in a bad position it’ll be just another day in the office rather than a reason to panic.

Labels: positions, training

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