Inverted Gear Blog

Tag: Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu

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...

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Meet the Pandas – From Grasshopper to Valhalla – Valerie Worthington, PhD

The Panda Nation is not only comprised of mat savages and sneaky-jiujiterios like Alex da Silva, who we introduced earlier, but it also includes true warrior-scholars. For this edition of Meet the Pandas we talk to Valerie Worthington. Black belt under the Carlson Gracie lineage, certified life coach, PhD in educational psychology, jabbing voice of reason in the BJJ blogosphere. Second degree black belt Valerie ‘Valhalla’ Worthington (47) has been involved with the art since the late nineties, learning under the legendary Carlson Gracie Sr. – amongst others. Known for her highly effective instruction at Princeton BJJ and Groundswell Grappling Concepts, Val is also a prolific writer on the gentle art with two influential books published. More importantly, thanks to...

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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...

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Ask a Panda: How do I stop overthinking?

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,...

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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...

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Mastering the “When” of Technique

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...

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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...

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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...

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Chasing the Good Ol’ Days Magic

10 years ago, the jiu-jitsu scene in Pittsburgh was radically different. Where most cities—like New York or San Diego or Seattle—had attracted multiple black belts and sprouted thriving jiu-jitsu cultures, Pittsburgh was still clawing its way to relevancy. When I started, there were no black belt instructors available, and it would be several years before there was more than one gym within driving distance to choose from. In those days, with so few training options available, many of us pooled our resources and our knowledge to make the most of our training time and to learn as much as we could. Back then, my blue belt was a hot commodity. A local professional fighter invited me to join him and...

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Meet the Pandas – The Power of Sneakyjitsu – Alex Da Silva

Not every member of the Panda Nation is a lean and mean competition death machine, like purple belt Abi Pacinelli, who we spoke to in the previous edition of Meet the Pandas. In this new interview, we shed light on Alex Da Silva: purple belt kids’ instructor, full-time dad and working man, photography black belt and aficionado of sneaky-jitsu. Growing up in Brazil, you sort of assume that purple Alex Da Silva (40) got into jiu-jitsu at a young age. But after immigrating to the United States at nine years old, it took many years and a trip back to the motherland to get his first real taste of the gentle art. Plagued with injuries and with life responsibilities getting...

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