Masafumi Matsumoto I love the following Travis Stevens quote, and I believe it’s worth sharing his insight over and over: It’s hard to get athletes to grow to an extremely high level when you allow them to use tricks and they’re rewarded for it. Because tricks only get you so far. Like, you can catch anybody once …
Let’s talk about something more concrete than what it feels like to apply submission holds correctly and effectively. If you are struggling with a certain submission, it helps to step back a little and figure out precisely what your problems with that submission are. Let’s say there are three stages to examine. 1. Entry: This …
When you learn and sharpen submissions, you need to understand what it feels like when these submissions work correctly. One of the best indicators is whether your opponent/training partner taps to your submission hold or not. If they tap to your attack, there’s a good chance it’s working. Whenever I teach a submission, people often …
There’s a mistake I made repeatedly until about I became a brown belt. I often see over and over people make this same mistake. The mistake I’m talking about is sitting down and insisting on playing the bottom position even after you end up being on top. So, the assumption here is that your opponent …
Many of my recent posts were about no-gi. This time, I will go back to gi and break down Tomoyuki Hashimoto’s back take from the closed guard. Tomoyuki is one of the best BJJ players Japan has produced and competes under Carpe Diem in Tokyo. When he visits the US, he trains with Caio Terra. …
I came across this meme the other day. What do you think — do you think it’s accurate? Or did you think black belts know everything about Brazilian Jiu Jitsu? If you are new to BJJ, you might have that conception. If you have been around long enough, you probably discovered already that’s not the …
Patience goes a long way when you try to pass your opponent’s guard. One of the misconceptions beginners tend to have is that you must pass the guard immediately. When you face a skilled guard player, it takes time to break the multiple layers of their guard, and it’s normal. When you rush, you make …
Although Lucas Lepri is more known as a gi competitor, his precise skills translate well into no-gi. Lucas’s back take against Lachlan Giles at ADCC 2019 is worth checking out — I will do a quick breakdown of this sequence. Take a look at this GIF first. Let me explain the context first. This clip …
It occurred to me recently that most people I’ve rolled with in no-gi, let’s say in the past few months, have a similar style or seem to work on developing a similar style. It’s more or less based on the current trends, and it’s not necessarily a bad thing… after all, most of the current …
I get the impression that the straight foot lock always had a bad rap. It was thought to be a cheap, power move, and especially with the rise of the modern leg lock game that orients towards heel hooks, even those inclined towards leg locks may consider the straight foot lock obsolete and ineffective. After …