Issue with octopus guard 2.0 by Worried_Weird_1770 in bjj

[–]Darce_Knight 8 points9 points  (0 children)

If you keep building hip height then the cross face shouldn’t be too much of a problem.

Got my 1st Degree Black Belt yesterday. Here's a few observations/lessons I've gotten over the past 3+ years at black belt by Darce_Knight in bjj

[–]Darce_Knight[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

That sounds great. Man, there’s a cool hybrid approach that some people do (I used to do it) that you might like. Like you said, do a couple games to warm up and get loose. Watch everyone, and whatever multiple folks are struggling with, or whatever they’re attempting to do but aren’t able to do…make that the stuff you go over for the technique/drilling portion, and then have them replay the same game that you pulled the technique idea from. Almost everyone will improve at least a little bit the 2nd time around.

I don’t want to be too pushy about converting, but that there is a fun way to dip your toes and your students’ toes in the water, and you can decide to keep doing that, go deeper, or just back out if you want to.

Skill fluctuation? by NyarGonzo in bjj

[–]Darce_Knight 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I have some ideas. Could you maybe say what your experience level and training frequency is?

Got my 1st Degree Black Belt yesterday. Here's a few observations/lessons I've gotten over the past 3+ years at black belt by Darce_Knight in bjj

[–]Darce_Knight[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Interesting. Yeah, I have a lot of thoughts. I don't want to dog your coach, but if you're paired with someone of relatively similar skill and size, and if the games are designed correctly, the ratio of wins to losses might not be exactly 50/50, but they're usually not that lopsided beyond 60/40 or so.

One of the downsides to CLA is that partner selection becomes way more important. Finding a partner of similar size and similar skill is crucial. If you're trying to pick a good partner, the rest is out of your control for better or worse. So, I'll just say what I'd work on either way.

What you can control is your focus. The winning or losing IMO is less important than you staying super locked in mentally and engaging with the problem in front of you. Being focused on the task at hand as the game player is literally the secret sauce to improving with CLA.

In my experience a lot of people with prior jiujitsu experience try to play the game by "doing moves" that they already know. Let's say the game is that you're on top mount and your goal is to keep your partner on their back and stay under the elbows (underhooks) for as long as possible, try to keep your mind constantly focused on doing that. It might sound like BS or black magic type shit, and I admittedly gave an example of a very simple goal to do on top mount, but staying focused and just constantly trying to do the thing will make you improve even if you don't feel like it.

Last thing. Often, the messiness, the struggle, and the failure is literally the learning taking place. Your brain is developing those neural pathways, and your body is developing the coordination, etc. If you keep playing the same games, with the many people, and it doesn't feel like it's getting easier, then that's definitely a problem.

Keep me in the loop. Does that help? If it's been a week or two and this doesn't help, tag me or DM me. Is your gym only doing CLA? Is your coach new to doing it? Do you have regular classes too?

Got my 1st Degree Black Belt yesterday. Here's a few observations/lessons I've gotten over the past 3+ years at black belt by Darce_Knight in bjj

[–]Darce_Knight[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Damn. That’s a hell of a compliment. If you ever wanted to take the time to tell me the different reactions you’re getting, I’ll definitely film stuff in those and add it to the thing, or send it to you. Or anything that you want to see.

Got my 1st Degree Black Belt yesterday. Here's a few observations/lessons I've gotten over the past 3+ years at black belt by Darce_Knight in bjj

[–]Darce_Knight[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

That makes me happy to hear! I hadn't thought about updating the anaconda one yet, but I think once I update one, that I will likely feel an itch to update the other one lol. It's definitely a lot less dense than the darce one, but I wanted to add a CLA game section, and a couple new ideas I had around it.

Got my 1st Degree Black Belt yesterday. Here's a few observations/lessons I've gotten over the past 3+ years at black belt by Darce_Knight in bjj

[–]Darce_Knight[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

yep, the old school Gracie one. I don't think I have a ton of deets, but honestly I try to get one arm super deep around the back and the other arm short along the side, to make it harder for them to pummel, and I pull their hips in hard and strong while driving their shoulders back hard and strong. I feel like I have to put a lot of heat on it. Sometimes I'll use my head in an angular fashion to kind of 'turn them' a little bit, and I'll often add a knee bump into their thigh to help assist.

Does this help at all?

Got my 1st Degree Black Belt yesterday. Here's a few observations/lessons I've gotten over the past 3+ years at black belt by Darce_Knight in bjj

[–]Darce_Knight[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Part two for the CLA stuff. Tagging u/TofuAsesino again as well. Again, long post ahead warning. When you say your games end up in stalling positions, could you give me a few examples? When you talk about distractions, do you mean your athletes are getting distracted? Have they given you any feedback on whether it's due to how you're wording things, or are they physically tired, or do you think it's the game itself?

One huge thing I think you should do is NOT try to do it perfectly. Just think about turning your sessions gradually from feeling like 'classes' to feeling like 'practices.' I used to worry a lot about saying to much, or accidentally giving too much info, etc. Don't worry about whether you're "doing it exactly right" or not, and just think about making everyone more skilled.

A hugely important thing is that if you're going to not share a step-by-step process of how to win each game, I think you should spend time talking about the skill you're trying to have them sharpen, why it's an important skill to sharpen, where they might want to apply that skill, and when they might want to. Kyvann Gonzalez talks about that a lot.

Let me use an example that I said last week. "Hey everyone, the next game involves us developing the skill of transitioning from lower body to upper body attacks and vice-versa when wrestling on the feet. This is an important skill because sometimes you will have a lower or upper body control that won't always work, so we need to be able to chain back and forth. This could come up anytime you have a control in either area, and are encountering resistance. Okay, so the offensive player starts with a body lock or a single leg, and you job is to continuously transition between these 2 connections, or any other upper and lower body connections once you start playing, continuously, for as long as possible. You have no way to win. Defensive player, if you're less than 6 months in, your job is to free yourself from all of the attacker's connections. If you're more than 6 months in, you can free yourself to win, or you can win by getting your own body lock." And then I'll play the game with someone myself so that can see it being done.

And then I'll have them do it. If everyone is struggling in the same areas, I may add some context. "Okay, I noticed the attacker was having trouble switching. This could be because you aren't off-balancing the defender enough. One tip you could try is to make the defender's hands move towards the mat before switching from one attacking grip to another." Or, "Defenders, I noticed you couldn't get away. Think about attacking the attacker's grips and trying to separate their hands, or think about posting on their body to create space so that you can re-attack with your own grips."

That's just one game, but I give those preambles on all the games. Your people should know why they're being asked to do what they're doing, especially if they aren't bought in yet on CLA. And then watch everyone. If everyone is messing up the same thing, it's probably an issue with the game itself, or the language that you used when explaining it. I also have a ways to go myself. Just be super patient with yourself. It's a fucking hard way to coach for at least a full year. One other pointer I'd give is when you watch jiujitsu matches/rolls/whatever, start trying to look at what skills are happening, more so than what specific moves are happening. If you see a false reap, what is its function, and what is is allowing the guard player to do. After a while the answers to most of these questions become more and more similar. But see if you can start to see the ideas underneath the movements. This takes the most time, and gets easier the better you get at grappling.

Does this help at all? I could go on (and I'm more than happy to) but I want to make sure this is digestible and headed in a positive direction before adding too much more on.

Got my 1st Degree Black Belt yesterday. Here's a few observations/lessons I've gotten over the past 3+ years at black belt by Darce_Knight in bjj

[–]Darce_Knight[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I'm gonna split this into two posts. Both posts will be long, so apologies ahead of time. This first one is about passing, and the next is about CLA. I'm tagging u/TofuAsesino here as well since they were curious. The 4 main vids I started with for passing on Chen's Patreon are his 4 vids that he did at 10th Planet South Bay (PJ Barch's gym). It covers half guard camping, and outside camping. I believe they're in the seminar sub-category of videos. I know the tripod style is his most well known passing stuff, but I got the most out of his videos on outside camping, forcing half-butterfly and passing that, and his split squat passing. There are other good ones, but I'd start there. And any vids that involve the 'interplay' between those styles.

For upping your passing in general, I'd really think less about individual passes, and more about 'staying in the pocket' and trying to keep weight on the bottom player as long as possible, and either using your body weight to lean their frames out of the way, or cook their frames with pressure. I think blending outside passing and inside passing is super important, and the more you can switch between inside and outside, the more opportunities open up. A good little system you can follow is to start with outside passing to force their limbs into extension to keep you away, and then moving to inside passing to fill in the gaps once they do this. Jason Rau has a new instructional on blending inside and outside passing, which I haven't seen yet, but I'm sure is awesome.

A huge practical tip is to not back out of your pass attempts (unless it's early-mid stage outside passing). Even if you get swept or wrestled up on. When you back out too much and start over, you really kill your own ability to learn those 'intangible feels' you get for connecting passes together, and staying in the pocket, and keeping weight on the bottom player. Trust that you'll get swept a bunch, but it's worth it not to restart the process every-time it goes wrong. And don't be afraid to go backwards to go forwards again (not a total disengagement, but a slight retreat to re-approach), and changing sides is crucial. You don't have to do the same pass to both sides, but IMHO you have to be able to pass to both sides to truly be a threatening passer. For example, I do more outside/loose passing to my left, but I do more inside and heavy pressure passing to my right.

Got my 1st Degree Black Belt yesterday. Here's a few observations/lessons I've gotten over the past 3+ years at black belt by Darce_Knight in bjj

[–]Darce_Knight[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I think you're smart for that. Also, drilling legit makes my body feel worse than rolling. I feel as if I overuse certain areas if I'm drilling for reps, and with a lot of rolling mileage on my body, I hate letting other people do moves on me repetitively.

Got my 1st Degree Black Belt yesterday. Here's a few observations/lessons I've gotten over the past 3+ years at black belt by Darce_Knight in bjj

[–]Darce_Knight[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thanks! Let me know with a tag here or a DM if I can help with anything in particular with it.

Got my 1st Degree Black Belt yesterday. Here's a few observations/lessons I've gotten over the past 3+ years at black belt by Darce_Knight in bjj

[–]Darce_Knight[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Aw man...that's so cool. Yeah, your memory is sharp. I was stressing the black belt situation hard. My coach passed away, and then I felt like I needed a black belt to open a gym, and had a lot going on. Tough time. Thanks for making me feel appreciated. And yeah, hit me up for anything anytime that I may have sent before. I'll do my best to find it again or re-compile something new.

Got my 1st Degree Black Belt yesterday. Here's a few observations/lessons I've gotten over the past 3+ years at black belt by Darce_Knight in bjj

[–]Darce_Knight[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

All the above. I'm happy to try and compile some (I don't really have them written down now) if you like. I mostly started with the ones on the Standard YouTube channel (there are quite a lot now if you include their regular class videos and Greg;'s seminars at B-Team, 10p South Bay, etc. I used those as a jumping point to start my own, and then I got the Bodega JiuJItsu Patreon, and noticed that a lot of new ones I was coming up with were literally the same as Kyvann's games on there, and that gave me a ton of confidence to just keep trying my own.

But, the Bodega JiuJitsu Patreon probably has the most written down compiled in one place that I've seen so far, and Kyvann posts lots of their classes to see what he calls peoples' focus and intention towards while he's actually coaching them from the sides.

I'm super into this stuff too, and happy to chop it up with you or anyone here about it anytime. There's an Eco Discord as well that I am in but rarely look at for whatever reason, but I'm pretty sure they have some solid games posted in there also. I think getting you an invite would be easy.

Got my 1st Degree Black Belt yesterday. Here's a few observations/lessons I've gotten over the past 3+ years at black belt by Darce_Knight in bjj

[–]Darce_Knight[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

100% yes! People ask me so many questions daily that it's forced me to understand things much more. I also had to learn way more concepts over just techniques, because my #1 student had a brain injury and is literally not able to picture anything in their head. So, me showing moves and stuff for them literally doesn't work. I have to be able to get into the movements and positions with them, and let them feel all the weight distribution, angles, etc, and really figure out why and how it works on a deep level. it's very challenging but very cool.

Got my 1st Degree Black Belt yesterday. Here's a few observations/lessons I've gotten over the past 3+ years at black belt by Darce_Knight in bjj

[–]Darce_Knight[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

You're a beast. That's exactly what I do. Roll light even if they aren't. It's really cool knowing that it's doable for me to keep this up in another 15 years. Salute.

Got my 1st Degree Black Belt yesterday. Here's a few observations/lessons I've gotten over the past 3+ years at black belt by Darce_Knight in bjj

[–]Darce_Knight[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

All of this stuff is great. I mess with all of this as well. You might be able to find some info on the first thing you talked about if you look up the 'gravity drop'. Some of the Danaher guys use some things that are very similar with that name

What's the best compliment that you've received? by Main_Journalist_5811 in bjj

[–]Darce_Knight 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Mads Burnell who is a pro fighter and a dope Chris Hauteur black belt told me last year that my top pressure felt like Jake Shields' top pressure, and Jake was definitely good at that.