December 29, 2008
Slaughter on the Mats...
Today my BJJ sparring was a battle for survival.
Maybe you think it's because I sparred with a bunch of high-level black belts... Sorry to disappoint you, but that's wasn't the case at all. In fact, I was barely holding my own against blue belts with only a couple of years experience. And they were all lighter than me...
Let me tell you why this happened.
Yesterday I got back from 6 days of rustic living in a simple cabin with family and friends. At the cabin - between cross-country skiing and chopping firewood to ward off the minus 30 degree night-time temperatures - I was thinking about Brazilian Jiu-jitsu and grappling (surprise, surprise).
One of the BJJ-related things I was thinking about was a new guard pass I've been working on. It's still in embryonic form, so I'm not going to go into too much detail, but the Cole's Notes version would be: "pin his hips to the floor with one arm, post up onto both feet, and then circle left or right to pass the guard."
I've been experimenting with this style of guard passing for a couple of weeks, but have ONLY used it on whitebelts and some brand-new bluebelts. Up till now it's worked great against the relatively unsophisticated legwork of these junior grapplers.
Today I wanted to bump it up a notch and road test it against some more experienced opponents. So I warmed up by rolling lightly with some whitebelts, and then went against some good blue belts and purple belts, always starting in their guards.
Well, the most charitable interpretation is that there were mixed results...
Sure, sometimes the guard pass worked, and sometimes I ended up with a dominant side control position (and then went back into the guard). Most of the time, however, I was frantically defending (and barely escaping from) armbars, collar chokes, omo plata armlocks, triangle chokes and guard sweeps.
Basically I was on the run for about 70% of these matches.
Strangely enough, I consider this training session a HUGE SUCESS!! By getting my butt kicked, I learned about the vulnerabilities of this strategy. Now I can go back to the drawing board and try to come up with technical answers to some of the problems I encountered. Then I'll try it out on the same guys, and maybe this time it'll work better.
Will this guard pass eventually become 'the bomb' - once I iron out these technical kinks?
The truth is that I have no idea. Maybe this technique will eventually become my bread and butter guard pass, or maybe I'll drop it off in the graveyard of stupid BJJ ideas. I've had a lot of ideas in my day, and only a small percentage of them turned out to be great ideas.
The reason I have so much material to share in my newsletter, website and videos IS BECAUSE I'VE MADE SO MANY MISTAKES!
So give yourself permission to make mistakes, go down blind alleys, and try stuff that nobody thinks will work. Test your ideas, evaluate the results, modify your ideas, and test again. As I recently asked someone, "do you think that the very first airplane built by the Wright Brothers actually worked?"
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Maybe you think it's because I sparred with a bunch of high-level black belts... Sorry to disappoint you, but that's wasn't the case at all. In fact, I was barely holding my own against blue belts with only a couple of years experience. And they were all lighter than me...
Let me tell you why this happened.
Yesterday I got back from 6 days of rustic living in a simple cabin with family and friends. At the cabin - between cross-country skiing and chopping firewood to ward off the minus 30 degree night-time temperatures - I was thinking about Brazilian Jiu-jitsu and grappling (surprise, surprise).
One of the BJJ-related things I was thinking about was a new guard pass I've been working on. It's still in embryonic form, so I'm not going to go into too much detail, but the Cole's Notes version would be: "pin his hips to the floor with one arm, post up onto both feet, and then circle left or right to pass the guard."
I've been experimenting with this style of guard passing for a couple of weeks, but have ONLY used it on whitebelts and some brand-new bluebelts. Up till now it's worked great against the relatively unsophisticated legwork of these junior grapplers.
Today I wanted to bump it up a notch and road test it against some more experienced opponents. So I warmed up by rolling lightly with some whitebelts, and then went against some good blue belts and purple belts, always starting in their guards.
Well, the most charitable interpretation is that there were mixed results...
Sure, sometimes the guard pass worked, and sometimes I ended up with a dominant side control position (and then went back into the guard). Most of the time, however, I was frantically defending (and barely escaping from) armbars, collar chokes, omo plata armlocks, triangle chokes and guard sweeps.
Basically I was on the run for about 70% of these matches.
Strangely enough, I consider this training session a HUGE SUCESS!! By getting my butt kicked, I learned about the vulnerabilities of this strategy. Now I can go back to the drawing board and try to come up with technical answers to some of the problems I encountered. Then I'll try it out on the same guys, and maybe this time it'll work better.
Will this guard pass eventually become 'the bomb' - once I iron out these technical kinks?
The truth is that I have no idea. Maybe this technique will eventually become my bread and butter guard pass, or maybe I'll drop it off in the graveyard of stupid BJJ ideas. I've had a lot of ideas in my day, and only a small percentage of them turned out to be great ideas.
The reason I have so much material to share in my newsletter, website and videos IS BECAUSE I'VE MADE SO MANY MISTAKES!
So give yourself permission to make mistakes, go down blind alleys, and try stuff that nobody thinks will work. Test your ideas, evaluate the results, modify your ideas, and test again. As I recently asked someone, "do you think that the very first airplane built by the Wright Brothers actually worked?"
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December 21, 2008
I'm Outa Here
Tomorrow I'm off to a cabin in the snowy woods. It will be perfect. Wood stove. No running water. Unheated outhouse. No internet.
So I'll be offline until after boxing day. Also my DVD shipping warehouse closes down from December 24th to January 1st, so there will be a slight delay for any videos purchased during that time. Don't worry though, they'll get to you early in the New Year.
Have a great holiday and talk to you in a couple of weeks!
Stephan Kesting
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So I'll be offline until after boxing day. Also my DVD shipping warehouse closes down from December 24th to January 1st, so there will be a slight delay for any videos purchased during that time. Don't worry though, they'll get to you early in the New Year.
Have a great holiday and talk to you in a couple of weeks!
Stephan Kesting
Labels: Grapplearts DVDs
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How To Retain Seminar Techniques
I like going to seminars, but I find it frustrating when I can't remember everything that the instructor taught. The way I think of it, the seminar costs a certain amount of money and the instructor covered a certain number of techniques. details and concepts. The less I remember, the more expensive each retained technique becomes.
I paid good money for that seminar, and I want to get as much out of it as I can!
Sometimes an instructor will allow you to video the seminar - if that's the case, then you're laughing. You can review the techniques later just by watching the video. Many instructors have been burnt by video taping, don't allow it anymore. They're sick and tired of the material ending up on youtube and/or being traded by video pirates. As a video producer myself I can certainly sympathize with their point of view (the instructors, not the pirates).
My usual method of preserving the information is to take notes. I use a two-step method.
In the actual seminar itself I write things down as fast as I can, using abbreviations and paying no attention to neatness or organization. I can pretty much guarantee that if you got ahold of my rough notes they would make NO sense to you, (partially because my handwriting - when I'm going this fast - is about as bad as that of the average prescription-writing doctor...).
Then, within 48 hours, I write out the final set of notes, using the rough notes to help tickle my memory. In addition to having organized notes that I can refer to later, I find that the actual act of writing the material down a second time really helps me remember and internalize the techniques.
Recently though, I've been experimenting with another approach.
First I write the rough notes during the seminar, just as before. The goal here is not to write down everything, or be tidy - I'm just trying to create a set of triggers to help me remember the key points of the techniques.
Then, in the next few days, I grab my video camera and a willing body, preferably someone who was at the same seminar. I then film myself going through the material, referring to my notes as needed.
Now I have a video record of the seminar material, which is great, in and of itself. But even if I NEVER look at that footage again, the very act of reviewing and re-enacting the material helps burn it into the my memory.
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I paid good money for that seminar, and I want to get as much out of it as I can!
Sometimes an instructor will allow you to video the seminar - if that's the case, then you're laughing. You can review the techniques later just by watching the video. Many instructors have been burnt by video taping, don't allow it anymore. They're sick and tired of the material ending up on youtube and/or being traded by video pirates. As a video producer myself I can certainly sympathize with their point of view (the instructors, not the pirates).
My usual method of preserving the information is to take notes. I use a two-step method.
In the actual seminar itself I write things down as fast as I can, using abbreviations and paying no attention to neatness or organization. I can pretty much guarantee that if you got ahold of my rough notes they would make NO sense to you, (partially because my handwriting - when I'm going this fast - is about as bad as that of the average prescription-writing doctor...).
Then, within 48 hours, I write out the final set of notes, using the rough notes to help tickle my memory. In addition to having organized notes that I can refer to later, I find that the actual act of writing the material down a second time really helps me remember and internalize the techniques.
Recently though, I've been experimenting with another approach.
First I write the rough notes during the seminar, just as before. The goal here is not to write down everything, or be tidy - I'm just trying to create a set of triggers to help me remember the key points of the techniques.
Then, in the next few days, I grab my video camera and a willing body, preferably someone who was at the same seminar. I then film myself going through the material, referring to my notes as needed.
Now I have a video record of the seminar material, which is great, in and of itself. But even if I NEVER look at that footage again, the very act of reviewing and re-enacting the material helps burn it into the my memory.
(Some photos from seminars I've attended with Roy Harris, Roger Machado, Carlos Newton and Marc Laimon)
Labels: teachers, techniques
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December 17, 2008
More on the Unpassable Guard...
Recently I published a short article on how I improved my guard pass defense. Shortly thereafter I received an interesting and informative email from 'Scott' who trains at Colorado Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu in Denver CO.
Scott wrote:
"I just reviewed your article on the Unpassable Guard. My instructor David Ruiz (Rigan Machado BB) in Denver, CO has 3 rules that he teaches that really changed the guard game for me, and specifically the open guard game.
Thanks Scott!
I've said before (in A Roadmap for BJJ) that the guard is the most complicated position in grappling. Learning how to shut down and defend against your opponent's guard pass attempts is critical at all stages of your development. Since it's a complicated position every tip or insight helps, so I'm sure that your three points will help someone else take their guard pass defense to the next level too.
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Scott wrote:
"I just reviewed your article on the Unpassable Guard. My instructor David Ruiz (Rigan Machado BB) in Denver, CO has 3 rules that he teaches that really changed the guard game for me, and specifically the open guard game.
- Always maintain a maximum of 90 degrees between your torso and your thighs. It can be less (i.e. knees pulled tighter into your chest) but it can never be more than 90. For example if you opponent goes for a bull fighter style pass by pulling/pushing your legs to one side, you must sit up to maintain your 90 degrees.
- Always maintain foot controls on either side of your opponents body (e.g. a foot on either side of the hips, on his shoulders, spidered around one arm & one hip, legs X'd on either hip, etc.).
- Always keep your knees bowed/flared out. This makes passing around the guard much more difficult and leaves the best option for the opponent to pass through the center where your arms and grips can come into play more effectively.
Thanks Scott!
I've said before (in A Roadmap for BJJ) that the guard is the most complicated position in grappling. Learning how to shut down and defend against your opponent's guard pass attempts is critical at all stages of your development. Since it's a complicated position every tip or insight helps, so I'm sure that your three points will help someone else take their guard pass defense to the next level too.
Labels: techniques, the guard
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December 16, 2008
As you might know, things have been busy for me lately. The work I've been doing for BeginningBJJ.com has grown into my latest project - the Roadmap for Brazilian Jiu-jitsu Package.
I'm having a three day pre-release sale because tomorrow is the day I send the final components of the package off for final duplication. From experience with many previous new releases, that means that the final product is probably only two or three weeks away from being ready to ship.
==> www.beginningBJJ.com/package
To sweeten the deal even more, if you order during the pre-release sale, I'll also send you an additional $377 of free gifts that will kickstart your mat skills and have you tapping out your opponents like never before.
This is a BIG package. It includes a video DVD, an audio CD, a book and a whole lot more. It's primarily aimed at people who are new to BJJ (and to instructors who want to have more arrows in their teaching quiver). On the other hand though, I've heard from several reviewers (including one with more than 10 years of training) that this material firmed up their basics in several areas. They thought they knew the material, but it turns out that they either hadn't been shown it properly or had somehow missed it.
So if you pre-order before December 19th, you get the entire Roadmap for Brazilian Jiu-jitsu package at $159 instead of at the regular price at $197. Pre-ordering will not only save you money, but you'll be at the front of the line when the assembled package is ready for shipping (probably in 2 to 3 weeks).
Thank you
Stephan Kesting
www.beginningBJJ.com/package
P.S. There's really nothing else like this package on the market today. I'm going to remove all risk from your purchase and offer you one full year to check out the materials out. If you're not 100% satisfied with your purchase, then return it for a full refund.
P.P.S. The pre-release sale ends at midnight, PST on December 19th. After that I won't allow anyone else to order again until I've physically shipped your package out the door.
Labels: Grapplearts DVDs
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December 11, 2008
Emerging Soon From the Lab...
I've been down in the laboratory recently, cooking up the latest Grapplearts offering. Since we're in the final stages of production now, and because I thought you might be interested, I'll whip off the veil of secrecy and tell you about what's going on.
The new project is the "Roadmap for Brazilian Jiu-jitsu Package". It is THE guide to beginning BJJ. I want to help people new to the sport get it right, right from the start.
What I've done here is create something very different from anything else on the market. A Roadmap-based approach gives beginners a big picture first, so that they understand what's happening on the mats, remember appropriate techniques quickly, and figure out what moves they need to work on next.
I've created this book-CD-DVD package to make sure that people 'get it' quickly; it should help every beginner's skills improve by leaps and bounds.
I've also been getting feedback from blue belts who say that it's really helped them, and from instructors who say it's made them better teachers. (And they've only seen a small portion of the materials).
I'm confident that this will be a big thing, because BJJ is growing by leaps and bounds. There are a LOT of people out there who are serious about learning BJJ, but just don't know what steps to take to make that happen.
Since I'm excited about this project I'll obviously keep you posted...
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The new project is the "Roadmap for Brazilian Jiu-jitsu Package". It is THE guide to beginning BJJ. I want to help people new to the sport get it right, right from the start.
What I've done here is create something very different from anything else on the market. A Roadmap-based approach gives beginners a big picture first, so that they understand what's happening on the mats, remember appropriate techniques quickly, and figure out what moves they need to work on next.
I've created this book-CD-DVD package to make sure that people 'get it' quickly; it should help every beginner's skills improve by leaps and bounds.
I've also been getting feedback from blue belts who say that it's really helped them, and from instructors who say it's made them better teachers. (And they've only seen a small portion of the materials).
I'm confident that this will be a big thing, because BJJ is growing by leaps and bounds. There are a LOT of people out there who are serious about learning BJJ, but just don't know what steps to take to make that happen.
Since I'm excited about this project I'll obviously keep you posted...
Labels: Grapplearts DVDs, training
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The Unpassable Guard
A few years ago Denis Kang and I published an article in Grappling Magazine about passing the guard in MMA. In that article we said the following about the three stages of getting past your opponent's legs:
"If your opponent is using a closed guard (i.e. his ankles crossed behind your back) then you first have to open his legs. Once his legs are open you have to establish some sort of control over his hips and legs, and then finally you have to pass over, under or around his legs."
Now, if you think about it, the reverse also applies. Here's what I mean...
Let's suppose that your opponent is in your guard. As long as you consistently block him at one of these three steps (opening the legs, controlling the hips, passing your legs), he'll never be able to pass your guard.
After that article got published, ANOTHER training partner (with a very good and difficult-to-pass open guard) explained his secret strategy to me.
"As soon as I feel that my opponent is controlling my hips I go into emergency mode", he said. "At that point I push his head, I bridge my hips, I kick my legs... I do whatever I need to do in order to get my hips free again".
I'll admit that, up until that conversation, I'd been a bit complacent about allowing opponents to control my hips. Sure, I'd try and block the guard pass, but I'd only start fighting hard during the very final stages of their guard passing efforts, rather than 'getting serious' about it a step earlier (during the battle for leg and hip control).
Since that day my guard has improved. I think that most of the improvements are due to fighting for leg and hip freedom earlier, and trying not to allow my opponent to move forward and impose his guard passing plan on me.
Don't let your opponent control your hips!
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December 03, 2008
Starting BJJ Classes?
If you're thinking about starting BJJ classes in the New Year, then I want to give you another head's up about my new BeginningBJJ eBook and eCourse. About 2000 people have already signed up in the past two weeks for these free materials (which is a pretty overwhelming response)!
I'm getting really good feedback on this from all kinds of grapplers, ranging from brand new beginners, to jiu-jitsu blue belts, to BJJ instructors looking for additional ways to organize the material they already know.
So if you're enjoying the material I put out here on grapplearts.com, then I really think you should check out the additional information I'm putting out at:
www.beginningBJJ.com
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I'm getting really good feedback on this from all kinds of grapplers, ranging from brand new beginners, to jiu-jitsu blue belts, to BJJ instructors looking for additional ways to organize the material they already know.
So if you're enjoying the material I put out here on grapplearts.com, then I really think you should check out the additional information I'm putting out at:
www.beginningBJJ.com
Labels: training
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The Give and Take of Jiu-jitsu
I remember seeing a small magic show at a local library when I was about 10 years old. At the time I thought that the magician had a pretty good act, but I had no idea that I was also about to learn a valuable jiu-jitsu lesson.
There was this other kid in the audience (really, I swear it wasn't me), who kept on yelling bonehead things like "I know how you did that," and "that trick isn't so hard." The audience was irritated, and I'm sure it was driving the magician crazy, but he kept his cool and prepared his solution to the problem.
Eventually the magician asked the kid if he would help him on stage. The kid was beaming - he wanted the attention after all - and ran up into the limelight.
The magician produced a short piece of string and asked him to hold onto it...
...and then turned his back to the kid and proceeded to perform his next three tricks. He never used the string or his helper for anything; he just left him standing there, expectantly clutching onto a stupid little piece of yarn. He then took the string back, thanked the kid, and watched as his humbled 'helper' slunk offstage. Not surprisingly there were no more comments or cat-calls from that direction for the rest of the show.
So to bring today's tip back to jiu-jitsu and grappling: the lesson is that sometimes you need to give your opponent something to hold onto in order to get what you really want.
By doing this you get his mind focused on something irrelevant - the illusion that something is bothering you (when it really isn't), or that he's making progress in some area (when you've actually got other plans for him). All the while you're setting up your own cunning evil plan.
You might, for example, 'allow' him to fight his way past your guard in order to get the position and momentum that you need to set up a half guard sweep. In order to set this sweep up you first have to give him something to hold onto, namely the illusion that he's defeating your guard.
Another situation might involve 'letting' him go from side mount to full mount, when your real plan is to push his trailing leg between your legs, achieve half guard and take his back.
We're coming to a season of giving and receiving. Sometimes you need to give your opponent a little something before you snatch it away and receive a whole lot of goodies for yourself.
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There was this other kid in the audience (really, I swear it wasn't me), who kept on yelling bonehead things like "I know how you did that," and "that trick isn't so hard." The audience was irritated, and I'm sure it was driving the magician crazy, but he kept his cool and prepared his solution to the problem.
Eventually the magician asked the kid if he would help him on stage. The kid was beaming - he wanted the attention after all - and ran up into the limelight.
The magician produced a short piece of string and asked him to hold onto it...
...and then turned his back to the kid and proceeded to perform his next three tricks. He never used the string or his helper for anything; he just left him standing there, expectantly clutching onto a stupid little piece of yarn. He then took the string back, thanked the kid, and watched as his humbled 'helper' slunk offstage. Not surprisingly there were no more comments or cat-calls from that direction for the rest of the show.
So to bring today's tip back to jiu-jitsu and grappling: the lesson is that sometimes you need to give your opponent something to hold onto in order to get what you really want.
By doing this you get his mind focused on something irrelevant - the illusion that something is bothering you (when it really isn't), or that he's making progress in some area (when you've actually got other plans for him). All the while you're setting up your own cunning evil plan.
You might, for example, 'allow' him to fight his way past your guard in order to get the position and momentum that you need to set up a half guard sweep. In order to set this sweep up you first have to give him something to hold onto, namely the illusion that he's defeating your guard.
Another situation might involve 'letting' him go from side mount to full mount, when your real plan is to push his trailing leg between your legs, achieve half guard and take his back.
We're coming to a season of giving and receiving. Sometimes you need to give your opponent a little something before you snatch it away and receive a whole lot of goodies for yourself.
Labels: the guard, the mental aspect
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