Inverted Gear Blog
Tag: Jiu-Jitsu Advice
Game Sense in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu
Thanks to Black Friday deals, I built a new PC and started playing Overwatch, the team-based competitive shooter. While I’m still a dirty scrub at that game, I have enjoyed looking into the world of professional players to pick up tips. A concept that comes up frequently is “game sense,” and it has applications to BJJ that I want to talk about here. Stick with me even if you're not a gamer -- it will be worth it. Game sense is the ability to understand the current state of the game and predict what the opponents are going to do so you can act accordingly. Your mechanical skills are your aim, movement, positioning, reflexes, etc., while game sense is the...
Separating Knowledge from Physical Gifts
A meniscus (cartilage in the knee) repair, partial removal, or total removal may increase one’s risk of osteoarthritis and therefore likelihood of needing a total knee replacement. The number of patient who will experience permanent, chronic pain after a hernia repair (using medical mesh) is at least 4% by the most conservative estimates and as high as 45% according to some studies. These are my two largest health issues, one hernia repair and four meniscus surgeries later. In addition to the standard assortment of jiu-jiteiro nagging injuries—turf toe, occasional rib issues, sore knuckles, and a strained lower back—my health plays a huge factor in how I train. At 30-years-old, I am young by most standards, but I was not gifted...
What Is Your Security Blanket?
For the longest time, I thought I had a good bottom half guard game. When I put people there, they had a very difficult time passing, even people who had significantly more experience in jiu-jitsu than I did. I considered bottom half to be my go-to game, and “bottom half” was my answer whenever anyone asked me what my strongest position was. What I didn’t realize was that bottom half was not my strongest position: It was my security blanket. I thought it was where I was strongest because people had difficulty advancing from there, but so did I. I did not have a suite of options to draw upon, no A game, no B game, not even a ZZ...
The Four Stages of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu
Your progress in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu can be roughly measured by your development in these four stages: Survival Defense Control Offense Like you can see in the diagram above, these stages are built one on top of the other, starting with survival and defense at the bottom and progressing up through control to offense. This framework will help you understand what you or your students need to work on at each stage in your journeys. Survival is the sub-foundation that everything else is built on top of. You could lump survival and defense together because they usually go hand in hand, but I like to put survival as its own category below everything else. Survival skills include: Breathing OK under pressure (not holding your breath...
Distilling Technique Down to Concepts
All triangle choke entries involve one of two mechanics: You either pin the arm close to the body to enter the triangle position, or you extend the arm away from the body so that you can thread your leg out of the gap and over the shoulder. For the hundreds of possible triangle choke entries, that’s it. You pin the arm, or you stretch it out wide.Yes, there are mountains of details that will go into any potential entry, but my point is not to oversimplify. Instead, if you can see what every entry has in common, you can start to unite all of the muscle memory and troubleshooting you learned for various positions into one bucket. This way, you...
Ask a Panda: How do I stop overthinking?
Question: Could you do a post on “pulling the trigger” when rolling? The most common feedback I’ve gotten (across multiple gyms) is that I think too much. I especially get told this when I roll with higher belts. For example, after a recent roll, my partner told me that I have good technique, but that he could see in my eyes that I was thinking too much, and thus hesitating to go attempt a move—whether it’s a sweep, attack, etc.So, in spite of knowing various moves/technique, I often find myself hesitating in actually going for the move. One of my coaches observed that I would often let my partner get two or three steps ahead of me before reacting. Luckily,...
How to Maximize Learning Potential Every Class
As you progress in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, the burden of responsibility for your improvements shifts away from your instructor and onto you. It makes sense that a beginner should look to their teacher for guidance, but this dependence on being fed information can lead to frustration later on when your progress stalls out. Your instructor will always play a role, but they cannot be with you every moment to see your every rep, every round of sparring, and know your every thought. Clear your headspace Many of us struggle to carve out time to get to the gym to train. You are rushing to class after a long day at work, then rushing home afterwards to clean up, eat a hasty...
Mastering the “When” of Technique
When I was new to jiu-jitsu, a wide-eyed and bushy-tailed white belt, I struggled to grasp the idea of when to use a particular technique. I thought that if I mastered the series of steps that made up executing a move, then I would be able to use that move effectively when I rolled. In practical application, being able to do the move—as in the physical coordination and finesse required to move from the start to end of a technique—is only the most basic prerequisite of making the technique work in a live situation.You have to master the when, or the timing of the technique. In the flurry of a roll, that’s not always easy, so let’s break it...
Parallels Between BJJ and Magic: The Gathering
It’s no secret that many in the Panda Nation are big Magic: The Gathering players, including Nelson, Hillary, Reilly, and myself. The fantasy card game comes up almost every time we are on a podcast, and MTG terminology often sneaks into the Inverted Gear blog posts, like Nelson’s use of “metagame.” Nelson and I have packed MTG decks for Globetrotter camps. In fact, the first time I met Nelson and Hillary in person was when they stopped by to train and then play Commander, our favorite version of MTG.In this blog post, I want to draw parallels between Magic and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. Prepare yourself because we’re going full nerd for this one.A Game with Many Types of PlayersIn both MTG...
Ask a Panda: Significant Others Are People Too
Question: I have been training jiu-jitsu for a while (I am a blue belt), since long before I met my current boyfriend. He is a black belt and runs an academy, and since we have been together, I have taken on an unintended role as a woman in a gym dating the instructor. I help teach kids and do admin work. I watch the gym and open the door when he isn’t there, not teaching adults but making open mats possible. I didn’t start jiu-jitsu because of him and do not continue because of him but because I like jiu-jitsu and want something from it for me. I have not stopped having big dreams of my own; I train as...