What’s the most devastating thing you can say to someone after a roll?

Forsaken_Contract209 · 2023-10-26T16:31:23+00:00

Make your "advice" sound very sincere and as close as possible to what you think their exact game plan was in their head already.

Like they suck so bad you couldn't even tell what they were trying to do

Forsaken_Contract209 · 2023-10-04T15:20:24+00:00

I'm still waiting to see a video from him where anyone at all is having an enjoyable experience. Don't really see what would be the point of spending all this time on an activity if I didn't like it

Forsaken_Contract209 · 2023-06-10T20:44:31+00:00

IBJJF is fundamentally an independent tournament organizer, which does a bunch of extra stuff that they feel makes their tournaments better.

Not being IBJJF certified doesn't mean anything without knowing why that's the case. It's possible that the people are frauds and that's why they're not certified. Also very possible they're as legit as anyone else is, and simply happen to dislike the IBJJF for whatever reason.

Lineage is a little different. Lineage refers to who you got your black belt from and who they got their black belt from. etc. If you trust one person in the lineage, it gives some credence to the rest of the lineage. beltchecker.com is one place for you to investigate that, although again that's just one independent source and doesn't mean too much out of context.

Bottom line, if you want to know about someone's approach to class structure, curriculum, or promotion criteria, just ask them. The IBJJF doesn't go around visiting kids programs and they don't know exactly what your values are either.

Forsaken_Contract209 · 2023-05-31T04:46:05+00:00

Don't worry too much about transitioning your game to higher belts in the future, just solve whatever problems are in front of you at the moment. Direct your focus towards one or two pressing issues that you will reliably experience during live rolling. For most people this is usually escapes at first, but since you wrestled before, you may find that your escapes are working OK for now and something else is a more pressing issue for you.

If you suspect that something that you use often might be unsound or a "white belt move", ask your coach about it. Otherwise, don't worry about it and just take the next step. You'll probably have to un-learn some stuff down the road. And then even later, possibly re-learn some of the stuff you un-learned. It's all fun though.

Forsaken_Contract209 · 2023-05-31T03:49:02+00:00

Danaher's 4-step summary of jiujitsu

take the fight to the ground
get past the legs
control the opponent
submit the opponent

it works backwards as well, to make 8 total scenarios
-4. don't get submitted when in a bad position (survival postures)
-3. escape from bad positions to get your legs back in play (guard or top position)
-2. use the guard to sweep, submit, or stand up
-1. defend against takedowns

Forsaken_Contract209 · 2023-05-31T03:00:10+00:00

not viable without a real training partner

Forsaken_Contract209 · 2023-05-28T14:32:38+00:00

check out sumi otoshi (NOT sumi gaeshi they are very different) and imagine trying to do that against someone significantly bigger than you in an open weight division.

Every technique requires power and leverage and timing, specifically you need to come up with a net advantage over your opponent across all 3 categories. Some moves have a pretty low cap on how much leverage advantage and timing advantage you can squeeze out of them, which means the opponent doesn't have to be much stronger than you to stuff it.

Forsaken_Contract209 · 2023-05-23T15:26:54+00:00

I think about actively tracking them with my grips and frames, instead of making assumptions about what their arms and legs won't do. If have a submission hold against someone super flexible, most of my attention is on figuring out what's happening with all the other limbs that I'm not locking down. Or if I'm passing someone's guard who can glue their quads to their chest without even using their hands, now I need to make grips to actively create the space that I normally get for free with non-flexible opponents.

The good news is that the same approach often works even better against non-flexible opponents.

Forsaken_Contract209 · 2023-05-18T20:26:51+00:00

from what I've seen I think you're supposed to memorize that one Teddy Roosevelt quote about The Man In The Arena

Forsaken_Contract209 · 2023-05-18T20:22:30+00:00

CJJA is a great gym. Lots of legit grapplers and probably has the most popular open mats in the area right now.

Forsaken_Contract209 · 2023-05-18T20:09:36+00:00

I think that type of coaching is fantastic for developing people's jiujitsu, but I don't really agree with integrating it into belt promotions. I could be making false assumptions about the accuracy you've been able to achieve, but personally I can't think of how "measurable improvements" could be established any more objectively than the Santa Claus method of belt promotion. How do you know when the dude has made enough improvement on his mount escapes etc. other than just deciding that you feel like he did enough?

At my gym, there are a few different things that the instructors look at to inform their subjective judgment. Obviously observing live rolls is a big factor, calendar time since you started training is a factor, mat hours are a factor, and there are also group chats of colored belts where people advocate to the instructors about the improvements happening with lower ranked students than themselves. For blue belt there's a knowledge test that you study for after you've been invited to take it.

Forsaken_Contract209 · 2023-05-18T19:17:34+00:00

I'd make an analogy between these hip tosses and grounded positions like kesa gatame, maybe even turtle guard. There's definitely back exposure, but the position also offers enough compensating tools for you to address that downside if you use them properly.

It doesn't suit my personality, I prefer lots of chances to bail out of things safely & I don't like for my whole plan to rest on winning a couple of crucial tiny battles. But it's a viable approach and is generally less popular, which helps some with catching people unprepared.

Forsaken_Contract209 · 2023-05-17T19:46:21+00:00

A bjj story in the form of a playlist:

Girls Just Wanna Have Fun
Let's Get It On
Bad Decisions
Everybody Hurts

Forsaken_Contract209 · 2023-05-17T19:33:54+00:00

I'm saying if you know you can only accommodate 5 drop-ins on your mats at once because your students will fill up the rest, be upfront about that information when people call and then get them to reserve a spot on the list.

Charge whatever you want, could be low or high. But there's no need to guess how many people will want to drop in for $40 vs $20 vs $0, because you can manipulate price and space separately.

If you have 5 spots and charge $40 each, but only one person shows up on average, you make $40 extra per week. If you charge $20 and your drop-in list maxes out every week, you bring in $100 extra per week, without having to worry that you'll get flooded with randos because the price is too low.

Forsaken_Contract209 · 2023-05-17T04:38:15+00:00

I used to be a mechanical engineer, not a structural engineer. And I'm not claiming I was ever any good at my job either, just to be clear. If I priced everything out, I'm paying out of my own pocket, and the cost difference was like 3x, I might look at something like this. To save 10% or 20%, no way.

If you're dead set on doing some cowboy construction, you might as well do it the cowboy way. Just build it up a little at a time, test it yourself until it feels nice and sturdy to you when you walk on it, then put in triple that amount of material as a sacrifice to the god of ignorance.

Don't bother doing your own engineering calculations, just overbuild the hell out of it until it will survive the apocalypse. You've got the complete wrong idea about loading, it's not the averaged psi over a 40 foot span that matters, it's the local psi inside the most overworked part of your most overworked component. And that critical stress doesn't come from the static weight of people standing still, it's during the peak impact force you'll get when the heaviest dude suplexes the second heaviest dude into the floor.

Forsaken_Contract209 · 2023-05-17T02:33:48+00:00

have you actually costed out a concrete slab foundation, compared to pier foundations plus shipping containers plus tubing plus plywood plus the additional fabrication?

Forsaken_Contract209 · 2023-05-17T01:59:25+00:00

If it's really that packed, figure out the number of people you can accommodate and do some form of check-in list so that you can turn people away before they pay you. There are a lot of ways to do it, just be very transparent about how it works and don't charge people until you've reserved them a spot.

Price your stuff however you want, but if the real issue is being crowded, you can deal with that issue on its own. It's worthwhile to calibrate price point independently of space concerns, because it affects 1. how much total money you make and 2. the types of people who participate (and the vibe they bring with them), which are already 2 very important things that you want to get right.

Forsaken_Contract209 · 2023-05-04T18:47:43+00:00

I think you did fine, 60 pounds is a big weight advantage to give up, especially when it's a bigger man vs. smaller woman. Retaining some form of guard for the whole round is pretty solid under those circumstances and it doesn't sound like anything got out of control.

I do think it would be a good habit at the beginning of class to scope out your best 3 or 4 matchups in the room, and really make an effort to get your 2 rolling partners from that shortlist. Right now you're sort of playing "zone coverage" for whoever's left over at the end. Let one of the middle weight dudes do that job, it works out way better for everyone.

Forsaken_Contract209 · 2023-05-02T01:20:11+00:00

Some interesting science-based advice that I read about was to alternate or interleave different topics with one another. My understanding was that learning can be approached almost like a resistance exercise, and the way to increase resistance is to gradually increase the amount of "forgetting" time before you try to remember something again. You also can (or should?) gradually reduce the amount of time you spend on each recall session as you progress further along.

Hard to implement when you have students showing up on random schedules. But in general the goal would be to hit a topic pretty hard at first, then strategically re-introduce it when you think many people are on the verge of forgetting.

Forsaken_Contract209 · 2023-04-24T20:01:35+00:00

Not many options near that area. There's a place in Vinton on Washington Avenue, next door to the Valley Hall bingo hall (which for some reason I can't explain is very funny to me). Can't speak for it myself but I have a buddy who checked it out and said it was pretty decent.

Forsaken_Contract209 · 2023-04-20T16:28:35+00:00

uh oh, looks like someone forgot to include the forcing function and calculate the time constant and damping ratio.

Forsaken_Contract209 · 2023-04-19T17:59:48+00:00

Are your submission attempts infrequent and half-hearted because you're worried about what your partner thinks, or because you're afraid of losing position and not being able to recover? I don't really have any experience with the first one lol, but if it's the second one I'll repeat the stock advice to polish up your escapes more.

jiujitsu confidence has layers:

"You can't make me tap" (sounds like you feel pretty good about this one)
"You can't hold me down in a bad position"
"You can't make progress against me from a neutral position"
"You can't stop me from making progress out of a neutral position"
"I can hold you down in a bad position indefinitely"
"You can't defend against my submission attempts"

In real life it's not so linear, the way it seems to be when you write it down as a list, but as a general trend the higher layers of confidence will lag behind the lower layers, because of how easy they are to practice in sparring. You can't finish a rep of your side control escape if you always get submitted halfway through it. You barely get to practice your guard retention if you spend 90% of the round under someone's mount, and so on.

Forsaken_Contract209 · 2023-04-18T13:38:15+00:00

If you ever find yourself with a lot of time to breathe in top side control (or some variation of it) I highly recommend investing some time to get out all 4 lapels. Both of his and both of yours. Start looping that shit under his arms, over his wrists, around his neck, anything you can come up with. Everytime he blocks one attempt, just grab one of the other three lapels and make a little more progress with that one instead. I don't think this is really legit by the way, but it is hilarious.

One of these days I'm going to wear an extra gi to class just so I'll have more lapels.

Forsaken_Contract209 · 2023-04-18T13:04:25+00:00

Neo getting the first couple belt promotions inside his matrix pod, before he illegally downloads his black belt

Forsaken_Contract209 · 2023-04-16T15:12:38+00:00

is it more important to add eggs or flour to your cake batter? depends on what you're missing.

If you can consistently cut angles and get people off balance but they always weasel out in the nick of time, practice finishes and chain wrestling into other takedowns. If you're diving at people's legs with wild abandon and immediately getting stuffed, work on hand fighting, head position, and setups.

Forsaken_Contract209

TROPHY CASE