My thoughts after 2 months BJJ

**bigstu31s** · Posted On: 9/09/2010 9:19am

Ok, so a little while ago I asked for advice as I was going to be taking some BJJ lessons whilst my Judo club was closed for the summer months and I was curious to know how my Judo Newaza would transfer in to BJJ. Once I revealed to you all that I had only been doing Judo for 4 months I was mostly told that “you are a grappling noob so nothing will prepare you” or “prepare to tap…a lot”
Well my Judo club reopens next week so I just thought I’d let those interested know what I have learnt.

1) I was a grappling noob and I did get subbed a lot by everyone, in fact even those who had only been training BJJ for a month gave me a good roll.
2) BJJ Blue belts controlled me, Purple Belts dominated me, Brown Belts could do whatever they wanted to do to me and don’t get me started on Black Belts.
3) My guard is too easy to pass and I suck at passing the guard.
4) Although I’m going back to Judo I will have to continue to train BJJ when I can, I love it.

Any advice on passing the guard or on improving my guard would be appreciated. I have had a little success with the “stack pass” but only against white belts, can someone recommend another pass?

And for those interested my blog has been updated accordingly
http://stuartjudo.blogspot.com/

**Rene "Zendokan" Gysenbergs** · Posted On: 9/09/2010 10:21am

There's not much to say at this level (noob) than:

- listen to your instructor

- don't try to make sloppy technique work by adding force to compensate

- drill, drill, drill

- randori is not shiai (so try to 'fight' with the techniques you have drilled, don't worry about getting tapped)

- sing 2 mantras:
+ Position before Submission (if the technique is good, you can perform it steady and even slow without your opponent having a chance to counter)
+ Posture, Posture and...Posture (Balance has to be retaint at any stage in the execution of your techniques)

Have fun, train safe.

**Southpaw** · Posted On: 9/09/2010 10:27am

The best advice I have for white belts universally is "slow down, you're trying to go too fast".

**judoka_uk** · Posted On: 9/09/2010 10:34am

As Zendokan said the STFU and train is the best option. Also keep his two mantras in mind they're very important.

One thing that can be problematic for a beginner is the technique tsunami. You know nothing and every week you see a new technique or a new sweep or a new this or that and so you keep on trying lots of new things but suck at all of them because they're new.

Pick 2 guard passes you've been shown and drill the heck out of them and keep trying them in sparring.

Pick 2 sweeps you've been shown and drill the heck out of them and keep trying them in sparring.

Pick two techniques from guard you've been shown and drill the heck out of them and keep trying them in sparring.

Pick two techniques from mount you've been shown and drill the heck out of them and keep trying them in sparring.

Pick two techniques from the back you've been shown and drill the heck out of them and keep trying them in sparring.

Now this sounds like a lot, but if you're smart it isn't I had a quick glance through your blog and saw you were taught a juji gatame from the guard.

Great now drill that as one of your techniques from guard, you've probably been shown or can get someone to show you a juji gatame from mount and a juji gatame when you have somones back. Now you've got just 1 technique but you get to it from three different positions.

So instead of practicing different things make your life easy in and specialise a little.

Also string these techniques together so that you have a sweep from guard that gets you to mount then you have a finishing move from mount the juji gatame.

You build patterns and drill those patterns Sweep 1 leads to mount which leads to juji gatame. Sweep 1 fails attempt juji gatame from guard, juji gatame fails attempt sweep two, etc... etc...

As for guard passes well I have heard that if you do a google video search for the second volume of a certain well known dvd about the science of jiu jitsu and you click on a link to a well known chinese video hosting site and then follow the links in there to part one of said well known jiu jitsu dvd that you may find some useful material...

**Rock Ape** · Posted On: 9/09/2010 11:55am

Wrong forum.

This is the Japanese TMA forum.

**bigstu31s** · Posted On: 9/10/2010 10:44am

Originally Posted by judoka_uk

As Zendokan said the STFU and train is the best option. Also keep his two mantras in mind they're very important.

One thing that can be problematic for a beginner is the technique tsunami. You know nothing and every week you see a new technique or a new sweep or a new this or that and so you keep on trying lots of new things but suck at all of them because they're new.

Pick 2 guard passes you've been shown and drill the heck out of them and keep trying them in sparring.

Pick 2 sweeps you've been shown and drill the heck out of them and keep trying them in sparring.

Pick two techniques from guard you've been shown and drill the heck out of them and keep trying them in sparring.

Pick two techniques from mount you've been shown and drill the heck out of them and keep trying them in sparring.

Pick two techniques from the back you've been shown and drill the heck out of them and keep trying them in sparring.

Now this sounds like a lot, but if you're smart it isn't I had a quick glance through your blog and saw you were taught a juji gatame from the guard.

Great now drill that as one of your techniques from guard, you've probably been shown or can get someone to show you a juji gatame from mount and a juji gatame when you have somones back. Now you've got just 1 technique but you get to it from three different positions.

So instead of practicing different things make your life easy in and specialise a little.

Also string these techniques together so that you have a sweep from guard that gets you to mount then you have a finishing move from mount the juji gatame.

You build patterns and drill those patterns Sweep 1 leads to mount which leads to juji gatame. Sweep 1 fails attempt juji gatame from guard, juji gatame fails attempt sweep two, etc... etc...

As for guard passes well I have heard that if you do a google video search for the second volume of a certain well known dvd about the science of jiu jitsu and you click on a link to a well known chinese video hosting site and then follow the links in there to part one of said well known jiu jitsu dvd that you may find some useful material...

Thanks thats good advice and makes perfect sense

**Res Judicata** · Posted On: 9/10/2010 1:43pm

But ... you need to find stuff that's appropriate for you. Drilling techniques that aren't well suited to you isn't going to be too helpful in the short run. I'm a single and especially double underhook pass whore. It suits my stocky, strong body. They may not be best for you.

You're long and tall, right? Your short road to success in BJJ is your guard. Work on it. Work the armbar/triangle/omoplata series from closed and open guard. Learn to play spider guard, etc. You'll be sweeping people in no time. See if there's someone like you physically, perhaps, and model yourself after them.

**bigstu31s** · Posted On: 9/10/2010 3:16pm

Originally Posted by Res Judicata

But ... you need to find stuff that's appropriate for you. Drilling techniques that aren't well suited to you isn't going to be too helpful in the short run. I'm a single and especially double underhook pass whore. It suits my stocky, strong body. They may not be best for you.

You're long and tall, right? Your short road to success in BJJ is your guard. Work on it. Work the armbar/triangle/omoplata series from closed and open guard. Learn to play spider guard, etc. You'll be sweeping people in no time. See if there's someone like you physically, perhaps, and model yourself after them.

The spider guard looks interesting, i'm gonna try and work on that.
Tbh when I started BJJ my goal was just to try and improve my guard passing and guard defense to help with my Newaza but its hard not to get sucked in to wanting to learn lots of submissions.

What i'm gonna do is find a couple of techniques that i like and that suit my body type and keep trying them and see where that gets me.
I'll report back in a month or so and let you know how im getting on

Cheers

***Plasma*** · Posted On: 9/11/2010 1:06am

Originally Posted by Hugo Stiglitz

Wrong forum.

This is the Japanese TMA forum.

Its ok, at the moment, its more a Judo thread, as supplemented with BJJ. Depending on where it goes, I may move it to the Technique Forums, as for now, it can stay.