Inverted Gear Blog
Tag: Jiu-Jitsu Advice
A Visual Guide to Hand-to-Hand Grips in BJJ
A reader of the Inverted Gear blog recently asked me if I could do a series of posts that define BJJ terms, much like a visual dictionary. With the aid of my hand model Nelson and the power of GIFs, let's look at the right and wrong ways to do hand-to-hand grips. Gable Grip Somewhere along the line, BJJ took to calling this palm-to-palm configuration the "Gable grip," after the famous wrestler Dan Gable. The wrestlers who I have asked about it do not use his name, for what that's worth. This is sometimes mispronounced as the "cable grip." You see this grip used ubiquitously, from bodylocks to defending armbars to attack with straight armlocks--any time you need to put your hands...
On Suicide in the Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Community: One of Those Stories I Wish Nobody Had to Write
I know I am not alone in feeling sad when I hear about someone taking his/her own life; indeed, sad is an understatement. It is extra surreal when I find out the person in question trained. It would be nice if the effects of jiu-jitsu were so magical that people who train never experienced depression, anxiety, or other mental illnesses. Then those of us who are evangelical about it would feel that much more justified.But jiu-jitsu is not magic. I know this because of the too-frequent reports of people in our community acting on their suicidal ideations. I know this because of the work of groups like Submit the Stigma and the more informal but equally well-intentioned efforts of people...
This Technique Doesn’t Work
Usually—and I have been guilty of this myself—this thinking is rooted in frustration. After many attempts to learn and apply a technique and failing, you give up on a move. Unfortunately, many fundamental techniques get this treatment. I was inspired to write this article in the first place because the scissor sweep is one of these misunderstood techniques, yet we recently saw Ricardo Evangelista hit one on Leandro Lo. Other techniques that get this treatment include Americanas, sit-up sweeps, and even the mount position as a whole. Side note: mount often frustrates students to the point that they don’t bother taking it in pure grappling matches, opting instead to work from side control and north-south. Side side note: I too...
3 Common Pitfalls As You Move Up the Ranks
Over the years, I have seen BJJ students run into many common problems. I am guilty of many of these myself, and now when I work with my students I try to steer them away from making this mistakes as well. My thinking is that if I can help you skip over the obstacles that slowed my own progress, you can learn more and advance faster than I did. Here are the top 3 pitfalls I talk to my students about: Becoming a technique collector. As a white belt, your biggest problem is usually that you simply don’t know what to do. Your instructor comes along and shows you a move for a certain situation. Now you know when you’re...
Ask a Panda: Who Has to Move It, Move It?
Question: I am a purple belt with four stripes. The other day I was rolling with a blue belt when two other purple belts, one with no stripes and one with two, collided with us. I asked them to move, but they said two purple belts outrank a purple and a blue, even though I pointed out that I have more stripes than either of them. The instructor agreed with the purple belts, but at the end of the very same class made sure I was higher in the ranking line than they were when we bowed out. What is the correct way to handle these kinds of situations? Does my rank trump two purples with fewer stripes even when...
Coping with Contradictory Instruction
When you teach jiu-jitsu, you will routinely encounter uncomfortable situations. You might have to discretely tell someone that they need to trim their toenails. You might have to explain why pressing one’s chin into a training partner’s eye socket is in fact not a good idea. And you might have to field any number of questions about jiu-jitsu and about technique, from the benign to the bizarre.For all the weirdness, one of the most difficult scenarios for me to navigate—both as an instructor and as a student myself—is the contradictory instruction problem. One instructor shows the technique one way, and another instructor shows it another. In isolation, the problem is less pronounced, but isolation is a rarity in jiu-jitsu.I’ve had...
Why It’s Good to Be Good at Being Bad at Stuff
A few weeks ago, Princeton BJJ hosted a book discussion group about The Art of Learning: An Inner Journey to Optimal Performance by Josh Waitzkin. In the book, Waitzkin, a chess master and Marcelo Garcia black belt, describes his love of learning and his realization that he is good at it, a realization he shares with the reader. The book systematizes the experiences many of us probably have when we try to learn something though may not have had the language to describe. Reading the book made me want to be a better learner. Well, it made me want to want to be a better learner. I do not love learning as much as I love having learned. You know...
Enhance Your Privates
In my early days of training, I was a broke college student. I convinced a few friends to start training around the time that I did, and the four of us would carpool for the hour drive from campus to the closest gym, pooling together what would have otherwise been beer money to pay for gas, tolls, and the occasional post-roll pizza. Since it was a drive and money was tight, we used up our two-class-a-week plan in a single Saturday. To train during the week, we removed the only set of mats on campus—ratty gross green ones—from the dance studio under the cover of darkness after an understanding school administrator “accidently” dropped her keys.I didn’t get to take many...
5 Things Every White Belt Must Learn Before Blue Belt
When you first sign up for Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu classes, you can feel like you're drinking from a fire hose. Everyday you are bombarded with new techniques, strange movements, unknown terminology, and somehow you're expected to just figure it out while you are out of breath, sweating profusely, and being smashed by all your training partners. To simplify things for you, here are the top 5 things you must learn at white belt: Good Hip Movement You will constantly hear coaching advice to move your hips better, and it turns out it's always true. That's why I created these two videos for solo hip movement drills you can do at home or as warm-ups before training: This video explains the value of...
Open Communication: What Language Learning and Jiu-Jitsu Have in Common
Every time I turn around, our two beloved Boss Pandas are in yet another far-flung locale, bringing with them good will, jiu-jitsu knowledge, and the latest training gear. This month I am getting to follow suit, at least a little; I am spending five weeks in Cascais, Portugal, just outside of Lisbon, with a side trip to Germany. I am here taking courses toward a counseling master’s degree as part of an overseas program my (U.S.-based) institution offers. So, I am getting some credits done while having an adventure. I still do not have nearly as many frequent flier miles as Hillary and Nelson, but I have already acquired enough on this trip to take me squarely outside my comfort...