Brazilian Jiu-jiutsu Training Notes

“It is the duty of every human being to look carefully within and see themselves as they truly are and spare no pain to improve themselves in body, mind and soul.”

Concepts

Alignment: Align your spine to fully apply force. If your spine is twisted you are week.
Base: A good base means you are able to recieve and apply force while keeping your balance and posture.
Escape: Transition from a poor position to a better one. Your goal is to end up in a dominant position although this is not always possible.
Guard: Defensive position used to control oponent with.
Position: Maintaining a good position to tire your oponent as well as defend yourself from attacks.
Pass: Transition from a guarded position into a dominant one.
Posture: A strong posture allows for a straight alignment of the spine and counters disalignment.
Transition: Movement between positions to retain an advantage over your oponent.
Submission: Make your oponent surrender by applying pressure to joints(pain), arteries or throat.

Philosophy

Position over submission. It's more important to be in a controlling position than attempting to submit the opponent. As long as you are not defeated you are winning.

Light grips. When establishing grips prior to engaging in a technique you should try to keep them light, as tight grips will signal your next move to the opponent.

Techniques

Rener Gracie vs Korean Zombie
Counter,Back take,Rener Gracie

Hip bump sweep counter
Hip bump,Sweep,Counter

Knee on Belly counter
Knee on belly,Escape,Renzo Gracie

Baseball Choke
Baseball choke,North-south,Renzo Gracie

Half/Butterfly Guard Pass to Mount
Roger Gracie,Pass,Mount

Lasso-Half Guard Pass
Roger Gracie,Pass, Lasso,Half Guard

Roger Gracie Guard Pass
Roger Gracie,Pass

Countering the elbow escape
Escape,Counter,Mount

Darce from arm drag
Darce,Arm drag

Darce from bottom
Darce

North south escape with sweep
North south,Escape,Sweep

Omoplata escape rolling the opposite way
Omoplata,Escape,Roger Gracie

Taking the Back from De La Riva Guard with Keith Owen
Take back,De la Riva

Open closed guard
Closed guard,Escape,Carlos Rosado,Guard

OSTAP Closed guard breaking tips
Closed guard,Escape,Guard

Knee slide variations
Knee slide,Pass

Cross collar choke from guard
Cross,Choke,Closed guard,Pedro Sauer

Armbar from mount
Armbar,Mount,Draculino

Scissor sweep wristwatch details
Scissor Sweep,Chewjitsu

Scissor and Flower sweep
Scissor Sweep,Flower Sweep,Matthias Meister

No grip armtriangle
Armtriangle

Escape half guard when uke has underhook
Escape,Half guard

North south escape via sidecontrol
North south,Escape

Armtriangle from mount
Armtriangle,Mount

Armtriangle from guard
Armtriangle,Guard

Armbar from mount when faking cross-choke
Armbar,Mount,Cross,Choke,Roger Gracie

Leo Neves showed how to control butterfly from top by pinching knees together and following up with a pass by working his hands down the back forcing opponent to straighten his legs, opening up for a pass.

Robert Drysdale gave a three hour seminar covering lasso guard escapes and passes. Lot of small details on how to break grips, lock down legs and stopping their re-guarding. During QA I got some tips on working the turtle with one hook in and taking the back without inserting the other hook first. A great seminar!

Hannette Staack visited together with Shanti Abelha showing a series from closed guard using a chest to sholder gable grip to control opponent. Followed by hook/elevator sweep and finnishing from mount, never releasing the sholder control.

Guram Kutateladze showed a nice basic takedown from armdrag and we followed up with chokes from the back. Simplicity that just works. New detail in the armdrag was the stepping in with one leg between the opponents to quickly establish control, before moving towards the back.

Shanti Abelha again visited and gave a class in turtle details. Things that I took away was

elevate your hip and put your toes into the mat, this made top pressure from opponent much easier to control as all the presure was aligned with the femur bone.
keep elbos right into your hips, not inside nor outside, minimizing hook threats and allowing hands free for gripfighting.
use head for base and don't be too wide on you knee base

Having your toes into the mat we followed up with two escapes depending on the opponents position high or low over hip. Both escapes started with gripping the sleeve and stiffarming.

2018

Fin Fu showed closed guard control aswell as some passes focusing on bringing the opponent to his week side.

Ilir Latifi held a short but intense competition like training class where the goal was to find your limits. We did intervals of 4 x technique in 40 seconds, 20 seconds rest

Shanti Abelha held class and showed concepts of controlling the back. Details in covered

upperbody control with your elbows as to free the hands for grip fighting
hipmovement beneeth the opponent for hip control and minimizing their escape. Using one hook in and the other foot outside with tight knee, depending on which side the oppenent tries to escape to

2017

Leandro Vieira showed multiple finnishes, chokes/armbars from closed guard.

Belt progression

Brown 2022-12-10, from Mikael Kretz
Purple 2019-10-12, from Mikael Kretz
Blue ~2017, from Mikael Kretz
Start ~2014