When your opponent shoots in for your legs in a wrestling style takedown attempt and you were not able to neutralize the attack with either grips or changing the angle, your last line of defense is the sprawl.
Often the sprawl doesn't get the respect it deserves. Some competitors prefer jumping and spinning at high speed and with great athleticism to get past their opponents attacking arms and try to go straight to the back or at least avoid the takedown by causing a scramble. I can't say that jumping all over an opponent and trying to grab lapels, belts, or ankles in order to score in some super-athletic unpredictable fashion or cause a scramble is bad, but you have to be a significantly better wrestler than your opponent to pull it off consistently. If you go this route a few key points to creating and winning scrambles would be to keep your hips up/underneath you, capture and keep some control over the far side of your opponent, and attack, attack, attack.
I prefer a more fundamental defense - the sprawl. I want to be able to win scrambles but I want a good sprawl first. Against a weak sprawl, a good wrestler is going to keep his head up, keep his hips underneath him, and drive, drive, drive into finishing the takedown.
Shooting your legs back and dropping your hips to the mat might seem as easy as falling down, but there is quite a bit of skill involved in a good sprawl. There are quite a few details for baseline D - legs back, hips low, hips in, stuff the head down or away, fight hands, work for grips, crossface, etc.. A good sprawl will keep your opponent off your legs/hips and a great sprawl will allow you to control your opponent and go on the offensive yourself.
This video shows a great sprawl drill. Things to watch for - how he continues to push back after the initial sprawl before popping back up to his feet. On the single leg version he gets the "attacked" leg down and back, then that hip, then both hips, and again continues to push back before returning to stance.
Showing posts with label wrestling. Show all posts
Showing posts with label wrestling. Show all posts
Sunday, February 13, 2011
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
Wrestling in BJJ - Takedown Defense (Part 1)
This post is an effort to clarify and organize my thoughts on basic takedown defense (especially things I need to work on). It is not meant to be a definitive guide but hopefully some of you might find it useful. (And as always if you disagree or have additional detail please leave a comment.)
Takedown defense starts well before the shot. It starts with posture, positioning, and grip fighting.
Let me say that again - Takedown defense starts well before the shot. It starts with posture, positioning, and grip fighting.
Posture:
Head up. If your head is down and your shoulders get in front of your knees you are vulnerable to a snapdown, other leverage/control of your head, or an armdrag/collardrag. You want to stay low by bending your legs - if you bend your back to get low your entire torso is weak (think low=your hips below his hips not bending your back to get your shoulders below his shoulders).
You might notice Judo guys taking a fairly high stance compared to the description above. This is because the current competition Judo rule set encourages "throws" and essentially gives no points to "wrestling" single and double leg takedowns (although they are traditional techniques - Kata Garuma anyone?). So, they don't need to defend the legs the same way. As a BJJ competitor you still need to know how to defend throws (also mainly with your hips) but you will see a lot more attacks on your legs.
Positioning:
I prefer a slightly staggered stance, one foot a few inches ahead of the other, it provides better offensive mobility than completely square (it makes the double-leg more difficult and you know which single leg he is going to go after). Elbows in - if your elbows flare out it gives your opponent access to your body. Lead hand low to protect the lead leg - the back hand is the one that initiates grips - reaching with your lead hand leaves your lead leg vulnerable to an ankle pick, low single, or snatch single-leg (among others). Don't stay directly in front of your opponent, use footwork to create angles. Let me repeat that - don't stay directly in front of your opponent. You can neutralize a lot of his attacks if you can change the angle. You have to be light on your feet, weight on your toes not your heels (not on your tiptoes, think being able to slide a piece of paper under your heels). The way to have freedom of movement with a strong stance is to use short choppy steps, never cross your feet.
Grip Fighting:
Your hands, elbows, and head are your primary lines of defense. You can't let your opponent control any of them. Nuetral grips (simultaneous collar and sleeve grips) get you nowhere. You want to have "two hands on" your opponent to his zero or one (you want to be at least one grip ahead of your opponent). You want to always think "two hands on" if you want to attack or actively defend.
Everybody focuses on the collar grip but the collar is more defensive (it allows you to keep your opponent away from you). You want the sleeve. Most throws use the sleeve grip to initiate execution of the throw, but even more important I want control of his power hand. You can grab his same side sleeve directly, cross grip it and deliver it to your same side hand, or wait for him to reach and intercept it. (and there are a ton of setups that are too detailed to include here)
If your opponent gets a grip first, don't panic, work on breaking the grip. Once you break his grip make sure you keep control of that hand/sleeve and secure your own grip on that arm.
To break a collar grip, grab his gripping sleeve with your same side hand at the wrist rotate your palm down and pull down to take out the slack - your other hand comes across and aggressively pops/pushes his hand off the collar at the base of his palm/wrist while your same side hand pops/pulls his sleeve at about a 45 degree angle from your body. You don't have to yank your body and shoulder way back - this takes you out of stance and leaves you vulnerable.
To break a sleeve grip, point your thumb toward your chest/head and raise your elbow toward your opponents face (this takes the slack out) and then explosively pull your elbow back down and past your hip. Again, you don't have to pull that side of your body way back - keep your stance and a balanced posture.
(Next up in this series - The Sprawl)
Takedown defense starts well before the shot. It starts with posture, positioning, and grip fighting.
Let me say that again - Takedown defense starts well before the shot. It starts with posture, positioning, and grip fighting.
Posture:
 |
| A little extreme on the posture guys. |
You might notice Judo guys taking a fairly high stance compared to the description above. This is because the current competition Judo rule set encourages "throws" and essentially gives no points to "wrestling" single and double leg takedowns (although they are traditional techniques - Kata Garuma anyone?). So, they don't need to defend the legs the same way. As a BJJ competitor you still need to know how to defend throws (also mainly with your hips) but you will see a lot more attacks on your legs.
Positioning:
 |
| I like the stance on the right. |
Grip Fighting:
Everybody focuses on the collar grip but the collar is more defensive (it allows you to keep your opponent away from you). You want the sleeve. Most throws use the sleeve grip to initiate execution of the throw, but even more important I want control of his power hand. You can grab his same side sleeve directly, cross grip it and deliver it to your same side hand, or wait for him to reach and intercept it. (and there are a ton of setups that are too detailed to include here)
If your opponent gets a grip first, don't panic, work on breaking the grip. Once you break his grip make sure you keep control of that hand/sleeve and secure your own grip on that arm.
To break a collar grip, grab his gripping sleeve with your same side hand at the wrist rotate your palm down and pull down to take out the slack - your other hand comes across and aggressively pops/pushes his hand off the collar at the base of his palm/wrist while your same side hand pops/pulls his sleeve at about a 45 degree angle from your body. You don't have to yank your body and shoulder way back - this takes you out of stance and leaves you vulnerable.
To break a sleeve grip, point your thumb toward your chest/head and raise your elbow toward your opponents face (this takes the slack out) and then explosively pull your elbow back down and past your hip. Again, you don't have to pull that side of your body way back - keep your stance and a balanced posture.
(Next up in this series - The Sprawl)
Saturday, November 13, 2010
Weekend Wrapup -Takedowns
Finished a "perfect" week of training my backside off with two hours of No Gi Friday night (the culmination of Wheeee!...Ow! That's Going to Leave a Mark) . The session, after warm-ups, was spent entirely on drilling and then sparring takedowns. Just takedowns. Did I mention that we worked a few takedowns? All worked at a pace that would be pretty grueling for 20 minutes, much less two hours, but I'm not bitter ;-).
The first technique we worked on was a knee tap from neutral over-underhooks. Mechanically it is very simple - you drop your overhook hand to the outside of you opponents knee while at the same time driving up and across with your underhook. Your arms are driving across your body, one high, one low and your bodyweight is driving through your underhook (kind of like an Aikido tenchi nage - heaven and earth throw but with real world grips and pressure). The key to success with this technique is timing. Your opponent has the same initial grips, so you have to set it up by pulling with your overhook to expose the knee you want - works well during a pummel war.
The next technique drilled was a fast lateral drop starting again from neutral over-underhooks. You step back and pull on your overhook side to get your opponent to step forward and put his weight on that foot. You immediately step with your opposite foot (underhook side) to the outside of his same side foot and as you lift up with your underhook, pull down with your overhook, start to rotate perpendicular to his hips and slide your overhook side leg across his body to block his instep. You continue rotating as you drop your overhook side hip to the mat pulling your opponent over your blocking leg into a shoulder roll. Because of your over /underhooks you follow and control his roll and come up into top side control. This is a "sacrifice throw" - you hit the mat before he does and pull him over your blocking leg - as such, if you don't have good control with your over/underhooks and get his shoulders turning toward the mat before you drop you will be pulling him on top of you. It looks a lot like this with less emphasis on the back arch and more emphasis on the blocking leg to make the technique more effective against a larger opponent you would not be able to lift.
Last drill was a little work from the head tie-up, shrugging off the arm on the neck into a russian 2-on-1, countering with a step back and pull gaining head control and working from there.
The sparring rounds consisted of getting the takedown and then right back on your feet. Concentrated on working the "techniques of the day," so a lot work on controlling the clinch and working for the takedown from neutral over-underhooks (a lot of pummeling going on). Got a good feeling for the new techniques timing and set-up wise against full resistance. Noticed that when you are in the neutral over/underhook clinch if your opponent has his feet back and is "leaning in" to the clinch, the lateral drop works well. When he has his feet and balance more centered it makes it easier to reach his knee with the first technique.
When not working from the clinch, had decent success with a snatch single leg and using an arm drag both for a takedown directly and to set up a side or back clinch to takedown.
The next technique drilled was a fast lateral drop starting again from neutral over-underhooks. You step back and pull on your overhook side to get your opponent to step forward and put his weight on that foot. You immediately step with your opposite foot (underhook side) to the outside of his same side foot and as you lift up with your underhook, pull down with your overhook, start to rotate perpendicular to his hips and slide your overhook side leg across his body to block his instep. You continue rotating as you drop your overhook side hip to the mat pulling your opponent over your blocking leg into a shoulder roll. Because of your over /underhooks you follow and control his roll and come up into top side control. This is a "sacrifice throw" - you hit the mat before he does and pull him over your blocking leg - as such, if you don't have good control with your over/underhooks and get his shoulders turning toward the mat before you drop you will be pulling him on top of you. It looks a lot like this with less emphasis on the back arch and more emphasis on the blocking leg to make the technique more effective against a larger opponent you would not be able to lift.
Last drill was a little work from the head tie-up, shrugging off the arm on the neck into a russian 2-on-1, countering with a step back and pull gaining head control and working from there.
The sparring rounds consisted of getting the takedown and then right back on your feet. Concentrated on working the "techniques of the day," so a lot work on controlling the clinch and working for the takedown from neutral over-underhooks (a lot of pummeling going on). Got a good feeling for the new techniques timing and set-up wise against full resistance. Noticed that when you are in the neutral over/underhook clinch if your opponent has his feet back and is "leaning in" to the clinch, the lateral drop works well. When he has his feet and balance more centered it makes it easier to reach his knee with the first technique.
When not working from the clinch, had decent success with a snatch single leg and using an arm drag both for a takedown directly and to set up a side or back clinch to takedown.
Saturday, November 6, 2010
Wrestling in BJJ
I have been thinking about wrestling and BJJ a good bit since my post on American Jiu Jitsu a couple of weeks ago.
To me wrestling and BJJ aren't two separate things - they are both grappling. Where I train we have a weekly class that is just takedowns (as well as working them in other classes throughout the week). Sometimes the takedown of the day could be classified as more wrestling sometimes more judo oriented, but to deny that there is a ton of overlap between the two is just plain silly.
What also strikes me as silly is to think that these takedowns are not a part of BJJ. In BJJ we like to claim that most fights end up on the ground (true) - but they usually wind up on the ground because somebody A took somebody B down (not because somebody B pulled guard). To think that a BJJ player wants to be the guy on the bottom in this scenario is ridiculous. In a fight you almost always want to be on top and be the aggressor (unless you are disengaging to run away).
So in my mind takedowns and takedown defense are an inherent part of BJJ regardless of how pure or old school somebody's BJJ is. And thinking that incorporating wrestling is a new idea because of wrestlers currently making a good showing in MMA tells me that a lot of folks out there (students and teachers both) don't know about the history of their art. The "old guard" of BJJ practitioners always thought BJJ was the "best fight" (and they proved it on the mat/in the ring but they never thought it was the "only fight"). If something worked they were all over trying to understand it - both to defend against it and to use it themselves.
I love this quote from Renzo about how Rolls especially liked to color outside the lines - "Rolls (...) was the guy who actually completely changed jiu jitsu in Brazil. He started training a lot of wrestling, a lot of judo, he started training Sambo, and he was able to incorporate all that into jiu jitsu. He was the one responsible for all the evolution we have today. He was the pioneer of all that change."
If there is a test for a "true" BJJ school it should be "are they open to continuously learning and innovating, committed to the idea of understanding what works," OR "are they closed to new ideas - thinking that they must be inferior because they weren't invented here." You guess which answer is correct (you have a 50/50 chance of getting it right :-)).
Hopefully BJJ will continue to evolve based on what gets the job done (rather than devolve into another McDojo martial art).
To me wrestling and BJJ aren't two separate things - they are both grappling. Where I train we have a weekly class that is just takedowns (as well as working them in other classes throughout the week). Sometimes the takedown of the day could be classified as more wrestling sometimes more judo oriented, but to deny that there is a ton of overlap between the two is just plain silly.
What also strikes me as silly is to think that these takedowns are not a part of BJJ. In BJJ we like to claim that most fights end up on the ground (true) - but they usually wind up on the ground because somebody A took somebody B down (not because somebody B pulled guard). To think that a BJJ player wants to be the guy on the bottom in this scenario is ridiculous. In a fight you almost always want to be on top and be the aggressor (unless you are disengaging to run away).
So in my mind takedowns and takedown defense are an inherent part of BJJ regardless of how pure or old school somebody's BJJ is. And thinking that incorporating wrestling is a new idea because of wrestlers currently making a good showing in MMA tells me that a lot of folks out there (students and teachers both) don't know about the history of their art. The "old guard" of BJJ practitioners always thought BJJ was the "best fight" (and they proved it on the mat/in the ring but they never thought it was the "only fight"). If something worked they were all over trying to understand it - both to defend against it and to use it themselves.
I love this quote from Renzo about how Rolls especially liked to color outside the lines - "Rolls (...) was the guy who actually completely changed jiu jitsu in Brazil. He started training a lot of wrestling, a lot of judo, he started training Sambo, and he was able to incorporate all that into jiu jitsu. He was the one responsible for all the evolution we have today. He was the pioneer of all that change."
If there is a test for a "true" BJJ school it should be "are they open to continuously learning and innovating, committed to the idea of understanding what works," OR "are they closed to new ideas - thinking that they must be inferior because they weren't invented here." You guess which answer is correct (you have a 50/50 chance of getting it right :-)).
Hopefully BJJ will continue to evolve based on what gets the job done (rather than devolve into another McDojo martial art).
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
American Jiu Jitsu?
After Jake Shields appearance and win (not a dominating win but a win nonetheless) in this last weekend's UFC 121 there has been a lot of discussion of his grappling prowess and what he calls his "style" - American Jiu Jitsu.
Although this match was not his best (the drop to 170 took its toll), it was interesting to watch his game - going for the takedown, seemingly not worried by guillotine attempts, easily mounting another fighter with a very good ground game.
Shields calls this American Jiu Jitsu, based on his background as both a collegiate wrestler and a BJJ blackbelt. It has an emphasis on the high pace and pressure of wrestling with the skill and technique of jiu-jitsu. Or another way to put it is an emphasis on takedowns and top-game from wrestling and subs and sweeps from BJJ.
Calling his style American Jiu Jitsu has some people cheering and other people seriously bent. The cheerleading side says it is great that he is bringing more takedowns and top pressure into jiu jitsu, the naysayers claim he isn't really doing anything new and therefore doesn't deserve his own style name it is just BJJ.
My take is that calling what he does American Jiu Jitsu is as legitimate as any other style name in martial arts. Very rarely can a "style" lay claim to inventing something new. What is different between "styles" is where they choose to put an emphasis or use their training time. Such as TKD emphasizing kicks vs. many other styles of karate or Judo emphasizing throws vs. BJJ emphasizing ground work.
A good Judo guy is going to know plenty of ne-waza but his throws are going to be better because that is his emphasis - a good BJJ player is going to know throws but his ground game is going to be better because that is where he puts his time.
AJJ is saying that they spend more of their emphasis/training time on wrestling/takedowns than a typical BJJ school (and I don't think they really do any gi work at all). It is all about where you spend the limited amount of training time you have. A style/name is just a convenient label that let's people categorize things and let's the label's creator/owner differentiate himself and market more effectively.
Visually it might look like this (don't critique the artwork I took like 5 minutes ;-)):
There are only so many hours in the day and you have to divide your time up somehow.
Although this match was not his best (the drop to 170 took its toll), it was interesting to watch his game - going for the takedown, seemingly not worried by guillotine attempts, easily mounting another fighter with a very good ground game.
Shields calls this American Jiu Jitsu, based on his background as both a collegiate wrestler and a BJJ blackbelt. It has an emphasis on the high pace and pressure of wrestling with the skill and technique of jiu-jitsu. Or another way to put it is an emphasis on takedowns and top-game from wrestling and subs and sweeps from BJJ.
Calling his style American Jiu Jitsu has some people cheering and other people seriously bent. The cheerleading side says it is great that he is bringing more takedowns and top pressure into jiu jitsu, the naysayers claim he isn't really doing anything new and therefore doesn't deserve his own style name it is just BJJ.
My take is that calling what he does American Jiu Jitsu is as legitimate as any other style name in martial arts. Very rarely can a "style" lay claim to inventing something new. What is different between "styles" is where they choose to put an emphasis or use their training time. Such as TKD emphasizing kicks vs. many other styles of karate or Judo emphasizing throws vs. BJJ emphasizing ground work.
A good Judo guy is going to know plenty of ne-waza but his throws are going to be better because that is his emphasis - a good BJJ player is going to know throws but his ground game is going to be better because that is where he puts his time.
AJJ is saying that they spend more of their emphasis/training time on wrestling/takedowns than a typical BJJ school (and I don't think they really do any gi work at all). It is all about where you spend the limited amount of training time you have. A style/name is just a convenient label that let's people categorize things and let's the label's creator/owner differentiate himself and market more effectively.
Visually it might look like this (don't critique the artwork I took like 5 minutes ;-)):
There are only so many hours in the day and you have to divide your time up somehow.
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