BJJ Zero

I can't believe it's been so long since I trained. Life got in the way. Death in the family. Lack of motivation. My gym moved and it made it more difficult for me to train. More difficult, not impossible. But I wasn't prepared to spend the extra time getting to training. The occasional class. Dusting off the gi. Not really finding another gym where I felt comfortable training. Lots of places seem very competitive. People want to win more than they want to learn. And for a sport where ego is supposed to get checked very early, lots of people seem very very attached to winning at all costs. Contact sports have their share of injuries, but when everyone in a gym is broken....well it's just not for me. I'm not tough. I tap early. I would rather learn how not to be in a position where you can arm bar me than fighting my way out of an arm bar that's already pretty tight. It's odd to view the BJJ world online. Everyone seems deep into the sport. I often feel like

After spending far too much time researching UK based BJJ Gi suppliers , as well as soliciting advice from several people, I plumped for a Tatami Nova as my first real Brazilian Jiu Jitsu Gi. The Nova is, by all accounts, one of the most dependable inexpensive gi on the market. I've only racked up about 15 hours of jiu jitsu mat time and given that I only train once a week, the Nova seemed to be a sensible choice. I wanted something friendly on the wallet as well as relatively plain. The Nova ticked the boxes, though it does come with patches on the shoulders and trousers (which I have subsequently removed). On paper, the Tatami Nova looks like the perfect beginner Brazilian Jiu Jitsu Gi; maybe even the perfect gi for the occasional student - you know, the one who isn't on the mat every day. How does it perform? I've got an old Shogun gi from about 10 years ago. I've long since forgotten what size it was (and the label has faded past the point of recognition). I

Today we worked on the arm-bar. Here's what I remember. From the guard, keep the knees tight - cue bad joke about the German Guard (gudentight). You need to basically get yourself 90 degrees to your opponent to get a good arm-bar. That's a lot of movement, so you want to push him a little and move yourself a little. Put one foot on the hip. Whichever foot goes on the hip is the side of the arm that will be arm-barred. At the same time, make your body slightly U shaped. Bring the hips off the ground and the upper back off the ground. That way you have less surface area against the mat to move. So, right foot on the hip, hips up, head up. Left leg squeezes and pushes opponent slightly towards the right as you spin slightly towards the left. Right foot comes up and over their head, knees together and squeeze tight. Reach over and get their left hand and arm-bar. From there we worked on a transition, should they escape their arm which involved taking your right leg, w

It's inevitable that pretty much every new BJJ blogger writes a "Buying my first gi" post. So here's mine. Up until now, I've been training in an old gi that I got when I was training Aikido about 10 years ago. It's pretty solid - an "old school Shogun". It seems tough as nails, but it is heavy as hell with a skirt longer than most young ladies wear and sleeves wide enough to accommodate Napoleon's armies. From what I can see of BJJ that puts me at a disadvantage. There's more material to hold onto, more gi skirt to wrap around my neck and more grips than any of the guys at my gym need to thrash me on the mat. Don't get me wrong, I'm happy that I have the gi- I made the mistake of going to my first class in tracksuit trousers which for some reason chaffed my knees and left them completely raw (my gi was drying from being washed after being in storage). Since then, though, I've been using the gi. First night wearing it and rol

I've spent the past few weeks doing a bit of stand up MMA work. Been enjoying the combination of putting together all the striking, takedowns and grappling and learned a ton. Big things for me were learning a proper shoot - this is something that always looks easy when you see it live, but actually doing it right is more tricky. I'm pretty bad at shooting to be honest. It hasn't clicked for me yet and isn't really "there" when I'm under the stress of actually sparring. Next week I'm back to BJJ. Grappling is probably still my weakest link so eat bitter as they say.

Taking a small break from BJJ to do some MMA training. Some basic drills Jab and parry - you jab, opponent parries and returns the jab, you parry, continue. Cross and parry - as above with cross. Jab and parry and cross - as above, throw in a cross now and then. Double leg takedown Start with a hook - this gets you in range for takedown - one arm's length. Change height - i.e. drop your hips and shoot in Bring the back leg up so you are almost in a squat. Drive 45 towards his rear leg, lifting the front and subsequently the back leg. The concepts are - to throw, get your hips lower than his. To shoot, get in one arm's length. Defence - guillotine He shoots to your left, your left arm goes down round his neck, right hand snakes between your body and his shoulder to grab your left wrist. Drop left shoulder and pull with your right hand upwards. Stop the guillotine from stopping your take down Keep driving and pick him up, both legs, take him down, gain side con