Ground Defence from Bottom of Guard

I’m just recently back from an amazing week in Barcelona Spain where I attended the World Elite Black Belt Society (WEBBS) World Congress. In fact I was lucky enough to be included as one of the instructors!

I was a great weekend and very tiring, with over 15 hours of seminars over the three days. A personal highlight was when I was awarded my 4^th Dan (Yondan) in Jukoshin Ryu jiu-jitsu.

As I’m still a little jet legged as I am sitting here writing this, I’m going to keep it easy and show you a video of a ground self-defence technique from the bottom of guard.

In grappling the guard is considered a neutral position but often the person on the bottom has far more option that the person on top. In a fight the person on the bottom is in the bad passion. They cannot get mush power behind their punches, much of their body is exposed to being hit. It’s just not a good spot to be in.

The following video show you one possible option for defending yourself when your back is on the ground. 

==>Bottom of Guard Defence<==

 There are a couple of other options that we will explore later.

I hope to have some videos and photos for you from the Barcelona WEBBS World Congress next week.

As always is you are looking for more great videos or to learn the wonderful art of jiu-jitsu please check out our web site at www.learn-jiu-jitsu-online.com.

Cheers,

Jamie Rickard (Sensei)

Head Instructor

Koketsu Kai - Tiger's Den Jiu-jitsu and Grappling

Located at:

The Academy of Martial Arts

851 Princess Street

Kingston, Ontario

www.tigersdenjiu-jitsu.com

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Don’t Stop… Carry on!

Here is something that I see my students do in class ALL the time, heck I’ve even been known to get caught doing this as well. This bad habit if not corrected could spell disaster in a real self-defence situation.

What bad habit could I be talking about?

When practicing techniques you stop and restart the technique if either you or your partner are out of position.

Have you ever done this? I think we all have at some time or another.

This is a really bad habit, one we all need to break out of. In a real self-defence situation you or your attacker WILL be out of position. Things WILL NOT go exactly as you have trained them, if they do then you are very lucky. What can we do to stop this workable habit, keep going, don’t stop, don’t reset.

Let me illustrate.

Your practice partner throws a straight punch instead of the hook punch needed for your hip throw (ogoshi), so you both STOP, reset and start again.

Now let’s look at what you should do.

Your practice partner throws a straight punch instead of the hook punch needed for your hip throw (ogoshi), so you outside palm block, kick to the floating ribs, shin kick to the thigh, stop to finish.

OR

Your practice partner throws a straight punch instead of the hook punch needed for your hip throw (ogoshi), so you outside palm block, palm heel strike to the chin, step in front with a reverse elbow to the diaphragm or floating ribs and THEN execute your hip throw.

If you train yourself to stop when you are out of position, then that’s what you will do in a real self-defence situation. Even if you do not stop you will pause and that maybe all that is needed for your attacker to get the upper hand.

But, if you train yourself to immediately switch gears into another technique, to react to your body position and to what you have been given by your attacker, then you have a good chance of keeping your attacker off balance until you can finally execute the finishing technique. This is where real self-defence lays.

Start practicing this way at your next class, if you’re an instructor talk to your students about this concept, sometime in the future you may be glad you did…

… or you can keep doing what you have always been doing and hope your attackers will be nice enough to do what you want, when you want and how you what so your techniques will work the first time every time!

As always is you are looking for more great videos or to learn the wonderful art of jiu-jitsu please check out our web site at www.learn-jiu-jitsu-online.com.

Cheers,

Jamie Rickard (Sensei)

Head Instructor

Koketsu Kai - Tiger's Den Jiu-jitsu and Grappling

Located at:

The Academy of Martial Arts

851 Princess Street

Kingston, Ontario

www.tigersdenjiu-jitsu.com

www.learn-jiu-jitsu-online.com

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WEBBS World Congress XIII

Tomorrow is the start of this year’s WEBBS World Congress and is shaping up to be a great event.

For those of you who may not be aware of what WEBBS is, it stands for World Elite Black Belt Society. WEBBS is a non-political organization created by Soke Bryan Cheek that is open to all countries and all forms of martial arts. Its mandate is to foster the growth of martial arts through the exchange of knowledge. Each year a world congress is held at a different location around the world ensuring that all have access high quality martial arts instruction in a verity of martial arts. This year’s world congress is being held in Barcelona Spain.

Every world congress takes place over four days, Thursday to Sunday. Thursday is the wine and cheese meet and greet / opining ceremony. Friday and Saturday are full days of training with a banquet Saturday night. Sunday is a half day of training and the closing ceremony.

You do NOT need to be a member of WEBBS to attend one of these events. You only need to be willing to learn and share your knowledge with others.

This will be my third world congress, I attended Montreal (Canada, 2012) and Lisbon (Portugal, 2013) previously and will be my second congress as one of the instructors.

If you can ever make one of these event I would highly recommend it as they are well worth the time and money.

Below are a few videos for the last two world congresses. This is only a small selection of the amazing instructors that have been at the last two world congresses shearing their knowledge.

==>Hanshi R. Panneton-1, WEBBS World Congress '12<==

==>Hanshi R. Panneton-2, WEBBS World Congress '12<==

WEBBS Congress 2012 Canada with Shihan Eduardo Sanchez

WEBBS Congress 2012 Canada with Shihan Finn Jensen

WEBBS Congress 2013 Portugal with Hanshi Eduardo Sanchez

WEBBS Congress 2013 Portugal with Renshi Brian Aylward

WEBBS Congress 2013 Portugal with Shihan Hanspeter Ruesch

By the way that’s me with Renshi Bryan Aylward, sore figures, elbows and lots of bruises but is was well worth it!

As always is you are looking for more great videos or to learn the wonderful art of jiu-jitsu please check out our web site at www.learn-jiu-jitsu-online.com.

Cheers,

Jamie Rickard (Sensei)

Head Instructor

Koketsu Kai - Tiger's Den Jiu-jitsu and Grappling

Located at:

The Academy of Martial Arts

851 Princess Street

Kingston, Ontario

www.tigersdenjiu-jitsu.com

www.learn-jiu-jitsu-online.com

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You don’t think women can be good at jiu-jitsu, watch this!

Shihan Monica is the Jukoshin Ryu Jiu-jitsu technical director for Portugal and one of the best martial artists (man or woman) that I have had the pleasure of working with.

I have had the pleasure of attending a number of her seminars as well as working with her at somebody else’s seminar.

The quality and precision with which she carries out her techniques is amazing. Her techniques are so smooth.

She has taught around the world, including at our club here in Kingston, Ontario, Canada, the Montreal WEBBS World Congress. She hosted the 2013 WEBBS World Congress in Lisbon Portugal and will be instructing at this year’s WEBBS World Congress in Barcelona Spain in two weeks’ time!

Her love for jiu-jitsu is evident, just take one look at her face as she demonstrates her techniques.

==>Escape from full nelson<==

==>Defence against a push<==

==>Escape from front headlock<==

If you are ever near where she is doing a seminar do yourself a favour and get in on the seminar, you won’t be sorry.

For the women out there, if you are looking for a role model you need look no further.

As always is you are looking for more great videos or to learn the wonderful art of jiu-jitsu please check out our web site at www.learn-jiu-jitsu-online.com.

Cheers,

Jamie Rickard (Sensei)

Head Instructor

Koketsu Kai - Tiger's Den Jiu-jitsu and Grappling

Located at:

The Academy of Martial Arts

851 Princess Street

Kingston, Ontario

www.tigersdenjiu-jitsu.com

www.learn-jiu-jitsu-online.com

Our Google +Page

Our Facebook Group

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Proper Grappling Technique Learning and Drilling

Today I want to talk about how to drill techniques properly. We are going to specifically look at this in relation to ground or grappling techniques but many of the concepts translate well to standing techniques as well.

Phase 1: Introductory

This is where you are first exposed to a particular technique or chain of techniques. You and your partner need to concentrate on performing the technique/s exactly as taught. Your partner should offer no resistance at this stage. Practice should be slow and smooth, concentrating on correct execution of the small details (the small details will often be the deciding factor if the technique will work for you or not!). Do not leave anything out, a small detail left out may well make the technique not work for you when there is resistance or in live grappling. Only when you feel you know all the parts should you move on to phase 2:

Phase 2: Isolation

You should drill the technique similar to phase 1, but at various steps along the way have your partner test your balance and control. Can they easily escape? Can they roll or unbalance you? The resistance your partner offer should be low (30%) and only at locations where you are most likely to be unbalances or have the least amount of control over them. If your partner does manage to escape, roll or unbalance you, correct your posture and grips until you remain in control. Adopt these changes into your technique.

Phase 3: Increased Resistance

At this stage your partner should now start to offer some resistance during practice, all the way thought the technique. Start with a low level of resistance (30%).  Once again if you find yourself being unbalanced, rolled or cannot control your partner as well as you would like make further minor corrections as required to maintain your balance and control. Remember it’s likely a small part of the technique that you are missing or not doing correctly that will make the difference. Once you’re able to perform the technique at 30% increase to 50% and repeat. Once you’re able to perform the technique at 50% increase to 70% and repeat the process. Never drill above 80% as anything above this level is live grappling. Remember to drop back to phase 1 and 2 once and a wile to make sure you have all the right parts in the right sequence. Working fast, using all your strength or too much resistance from your partner will cause your technique to suffer over the long run as these things will all cause your technique to suffer.

Phase 4: Live Grappling

This is the stage where you can now bring the technique you were learning into your live grappling matches. If you have followed the steps above the technique will now have a much higher % chance of succeeding. You can always try techniques from stage 1, 2 or 3 in live grappling but remember the chance of success will be much lower until you have followed the steps above.

As in anything cutting corners will not make anything shorter but will in fact make it longer. Many people struggle with a technique for years because they try to go from phase 1 to 4 without any real practice.

As always is you are looking for more great videos or to learn the wonderful art of jiu-jitsu please check out our web site at www.learn-jiu-jitsu-online.com.

Cheers,

Jamie Rickard (Sensei)

Head Instructor

Koketsu Kai - Tiger's Den Jiu-jitsu and Grappling

Located at:

The Academy of Martial Arts

851 Princess Street

Kingston, Ontario

www.tigersdenjiu-jitsu.com

www.learn-jiu-jitsu-online.com

Our Google +Page

Our Facebook Group

Our Facebook Page

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Street Self-defence from top of Guard

Anyone who has seen the UFC, videos fights on YouTube… knows that being on the bottom of any position in a fight is bad. If you’re not sure what the guard position is, it is when you are laying on your back on the ground with your opponent between your legs, your legs are around their waist and your feet are crossed locking them into position.

In grappling the bottom position of the guard is typically stronger than the top position. On the bottom you can attack you opponent’s whole body, whereas from the top position your attacks are typically limited to leg attacks. There ARE other attacks than just legs from the top of guard but you are still more limited than the person on the bottom.

==>Ground Self-defence from top of guard<==

On the street it’s very hard to punch with any effectiveness from your back. YES some people do train to punch from the ground and are good at it but most (98% of us) are not, we just can’t generate that much power while on our backs. Also while on the ground it’s very hard to guard all our vital areas (head, throat, floating ribs, diaphragm and groin) from attacks, much harder than it is in a standing fight.

So how or why would anybody in their right mind drag you down into their guard in a fight? Maybe they believe their grapping skills are better than your striking skills. Maybe that’s not really where they intended to end up after taking you to the ground, there are many ways you could end up in this position.

Top of guard in a fight is a good position to be, by far not the best but still good. You may be tempted to respond with grappling techniques to open the leg and pass the guard but this could be very dangerous. Remember if your attacker “jumped guard” on you they probably know how to grapple. Even if you know how to grapple, maybe even fairly good at it, always assume your attacker is better at it than you. So why play into your attacks strength? Responding with grappling techniques also breaks the first rule of ground self-defence, which is to get to your feet as fast as possible and incapacitate your attacker along the way.

==>Ground Self-defence from top of guard<==

We never what to get stuck on the ground in a real fight. Have a look at this article from BJJ Eastern Europe.

As always is you are looking for more great videos or to learn the wonderful art of jiu-jitsu please check out our web site at www.learn-jiu-jitsu-online.com.

Cheers,

Jamie Rickard (Sensei)

Head Instructor

Koketsu Kai - Tiger's Den Jiu-jitsu and Grappling

Located at:

The Academy of Martial Arts

851 Princess Street

Kingston, Ontario

www.tigersdenjiu-jitsu.com

www.learn-jiu-jitsu-online.com

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Our Facebook Page

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They won’t release their grip… wind them into the ground!

Today we are going to look at chain a couple of techniques together, or follow up techniques when the first technique does not go as planned.

No matter your belt level it’s never too early to start thinking about what you would do if a technique doesn’t work. I would argue that in most cases your initial technique most likely will NOT go as planned. Think about it. A sudden attack, panic reaction, your adrenalin in pumping, your attacker does not attack you the same as your partners do in the dojo, all this adds up to a failed first technique.

==>Rear Bear Hug to Outer Winding Throw <==

If your technique does work great BUT! If not you had better know where you can go from where you are. The only way to train for this is in the dojo. Start thinking about what you would do if… Then take it to the dojo and try it out. Did it work as you thought it would?

Start with a technique. Ask your partner how they would stop it or prevent it. What would you do in response? Can you use any of the techniques that you have already learned in response? Remember the technique does not have to be exactly as you studied it in class to work. There is likely more than one response to any given technique, play with the different ways to prevent a technique and your responses. Before you know it you just added a bunch of techniques to those you know and have made yourself more effective at defending yourself.

==>Rear Bear Hug to Outer Winding Throw <==

Think about it now because there won’t be time during the fight.

As always is you are looking for more great videos or to learn the wonderful art of jiu-jitsu please check out our web site at www.learn-jiu-jitsu-online.com.

Cheers,

Jamie Rickard (Sensei)

Head Instructor

Koketsu Kai - Tiger's Den Jiu-jitsu and Grappling

Located at:

The Academy of Martial Arts

851 Princess Street

Kingston, Ontario

www.tigersdenjiu-jitsu.com

www.learn-jiu-jitsu-online.com

Our Google +Page

Our Facebook Group

Our Facebook Page

YouTube Channel