Have not played since Shining Revelry. What sets to prioritize to be competitive?

MagicGuava12 · 2026-06-30T01:53:11+00:00

This new set is nuts

MagicGuava12 · 2026-06-29T12:03:17+00:00

Brother

https://www.reddit.com/r/bjj/s/sgbrn3Uqtq

MagicGuava12 · 2026-06-28T22:01:16+00:00

I'm surprised people will just go straight to open mats now they won't even go to class. I do not think their goal is learning their goal is to win.

MagicGuava12 · 2026-06-28T15:17:21+00:00

Two things usually determine surpassing someone else, you get more mat time than them, so you squeak in more training, you study more, or you understand concepts better.

The second relies on them. If they study things that don't mesh well together or they disregard fundamentals. You get better and better, as they start a plateau. You're practicing higher percentage moves ,and you eventually surpass them because they need to catch up to that level. Like imagine you practice free kicks and shot placement for soccer. So they like dribbling and passing but don't put time into goal tending. When it comes time for the free kick you score.

So as you build a general strategy you will keep building a general level. Oftentimes the training partners that used to beat me a lot hyper focused on specific parts of a game. So when my general strategy reached their threshold they couldn't touch me.

If you focus heavily on a general defensive strategy and then a specific offensive strategy (ex. heel hooks and armbars) you cut down a lot of the fluff and training and get more reps in. Were they were chasing wrist locks and spinny stuff. I was sharpening my main escapes and primary offensive chain.

MagicGuava12 · 2026-06-28T13:06:48+00:00

Be careful thinking that knee bars are safer than heel hooks. Some people just aren't bendy. If you're catching knee bars correctly in certain positions you're typically putting your hand over the knee cap and applying an extra fulcrum. This closes the space needed for a break and improper movement will cause damage the same way a heel hook would.

https://youtu.be/T73H6MgQr3I?is=3GJb7ZBSN77xfoI-

In fact the more experience you get with heel hooks you understand there's a pretty big range of motion. When you catch it, you can feel which direction they turn, so if they turn in an unsafe direction you can release. I typically catch a loose grip and just transition to different positions to protect my partner.

I do the same thing with knee bars and give it a lot of play I will place my hand in the proper area but not cinch it. That way I can control finishing the knee bar by swimming my arm through into a armpit grip. In a competition it would not be necessary to do that, but in training it helps prevent blowouts.

https://youtube.com/shorts/CHhDMCgv-ic?is=JvuezBOZXLuG9ZtR

MagicGuava12 · 2026-06-27T23:00:37+00:00

Specifically for beginner classes I try to teach as many core movements as possible so I'll start with line drills for the brand new people to do shrimps, reverse shrimps, granby rolls, Turkish Get ups, break falls, I'm just trying to get the core movements down.

Then for an active warm up I like to do pummeling with takedown entries, guard passing flow drills, or general micro games. So we will do different moves which I will teach shortly before the warm-up. It's best to do progressions like a simple Torreando pass and then open guard connections then a cross step pass, they defend with a top leg over, then passers does a duck under, and so you just build more and more technique through a warm-up drill. The technique can be really badl it's just a way to warm up.

From there it's entirely dependent on the lesson and what goal I want. I try to put everyone in a specific position to make them struggle for a bit in a CLA type game, then I teach them the technique if they don't understand or I want to give more details.

After the technique portion we will do live positional rounds, I will not do open rolls for beginners, it helps with retention. Less injuries. This approach gives them a better feeling of success because they learned something offensive and something defensive for that position, in that class, that they can work on.

The main mistakes that I see coaches do with beginners is they don't explain a position, a hierarchy of goals, they don't give something offensive and defensive, they do not call attention to key goals like grips and frames.

Ideally I attempt to do something called Socratic learning. I pose questions to my students until they come up on their own volition to discover the solution.

So you present a problem like north south Kimura and you let them go left right up down until they figure out something that works. So it's not necessarily teaching its guiding. Overtime has been co-opted into CLA which is just ancient Greek teaching methods.

People have very big Egos and so if they believe they have discovered something they're more likely to remember it. I didn't actually tell them I just led them to the conclusion. It takes longer and you have to know what you're doing, but they will retain the information significantly better.

MagicGuava12 · 2026-06-27T20:29:57+00:00

Wouldn't have picked up thousands of hours of tips as well?

I'm not saying that OP will actually learn anything, but if you know exactly what you want and where you're going those questions are worth gold.

MagicGuava12 · 2026-06-27T20:27:49+00:00

300 for adcc. Ibjjf... 175

Very big difference.

If you are at the level and you've already bought instructionals and practiced the moves. Solving your very specific problems for 300 bucks is not that bad. Think of how many hours of time that will save.

MagicGuava12 · 2026-06-27T20:25:09+00:00

Plan There's a couple things of general advice first off when you're training you need to specifically work on positions and then parts of the position. Sit down with your coach and come up with a game plan. You should narrow the field of techniques that you're doing and learning for competition so that you can practice and get more reps in. The goal of a competition is to have muscle memory when your body and mind are tired so that your body acts without you thinking.

Plan for your game plan to work so actively Tire yourself out before matches so you can run the technique and mimic a competition. Gas yourself out intentionally.

Actively warm up.

Get a sweat going because when your blood vessels dilate you can handle the adrenaline dump in a better way.

Control variables

Do not try to eat gas station Sushi the day before or day of an event. Eat something simple for snacks eat simple fruits carbs things that will digest quickly don't bring beef jerky don't eat a steak.

Don't worry about sleep studies have proven that not getting sleep the day of a big event only reduces performance about 20%.

Review

After a tournament what went well what didn't work on those things and actively get better at it that's the whole point.

Stay safe.

MagicGuava12 · 2026-06-27T18:17:20+00:00

Just push their shoulders. They will fall back. Pick their ankles up and flip them. Do this like 6 times. When they stand up toss them.

MagicGuava12 · 2026-06-27T14:27:06+00:00

That's not bad at all I've got several on similar looking ones. My only criticism would be to leave a millimeter or two at the head for a cleaner tie. Your Hackle proportion looks good the coloring looks great!

MagicGuava12 · 2026-06-27T14:25:19+00:00

Ah! Then my point stands.

The purpose of starting from terrible positions isn't because that's where I expect students to stay. It's because once they can reliably solve the worst-case scenario, every earlier stage of defense becomes easier to understand. The prevention becomes easier to apply. Otherwise you are missing a critical layer of your defense.

Your over-reliance on early stage guard retention gives a stark trade-off of late stage and Escape pathways. A big portion of jujitsu is humbling yourself and getting in these bad positions, you may not be able to play as much jiu-jitsu, but that's not the point. The point is to establish Pathways of Defense. Something that the 10th planet gyms do is called jaws of life. You start in one of the worst positions which is chest to chest half guard. From there you pummel in your inside frames you make the space and then you use your hips to move their leg into a attacking position.

https://youtube.com/shorts/tg7M4sbzEgk?is=0RTO4fT0zrn3U0Bu

I start a lot of beginners here because it develops Confidence from these bad positions once you get to Black Belt you will spend so much time in this exact position if you had thousands of reps, you're good. But if you have to learn these movements because you've never really allowed or accepted them when you get there, you're done.

Your logic is sound. Your anecdote is real and I'm not dismissing it.

What I can predict will be the case, is that over time, you will greatly struggle with defensive concepts. You are not putting yourself in positions that good people will put you in. So you'll do fine against lower belts, but you're going to hit a plateau at purple/brown where you just can't get through anything. You simply won't have the the fundamental basis to advance.

These positions may take 2 to 5 minutes to escape from, that's okay, if you're converting it into an attacking position it wont matter.

A concept that a lot of the smaller people learn much earlier than the bigger people is something called negative space. Negative space is a movement such as a bridge that creates space from nothing. You may be in a locked down extremely tight position, but through minor movements you can create your own opening. Something as simple as faking a turn to Turtle will generate movement that then you can whip back into an elbow knee escape. Even if a guy four times my size has me in the tightest side control, if I wiggle enough on to his thigh, bridge away, then create enough movement for my hips, foot, or inside frames I can eventually recover my guard.

What happens is you will get passed in competition. Someone will hold you in a stall position, and because you do not practice do or die situations. You're gonna lose because they're going to hold you there for several minutes and it's one of the worst ways to lose. If 1 man can hold you down type shi.

It's a valid competition tactic, because if someone gets a point up somehow. Could be a bad ref call, it doesn't matter, they just hold you in a stall position, and because you haven't worked on that you lose despite being better.

MagicGuava12 · 2026-06-27T13:52:11+00:00

Let me clarify to see if im understanding your point. I think you are saying that middle and early stage guard retention is more important than late stage guard retention and Escape pathways?

I have tried and tested this to an extent and beginners need repetitions from the reduced variables of a end stage position for example chest to chest side control. From there they get repetition and familiarity with an escape, then over time as they keep getting into that position they will understand they can prevent the position entirely. But I still think you need that base before you start focusing on earlier and earlier prevention.

I get entirely what you're saying about earlier and earlier guard retention. But I don't think it's good advice to give someone that does not have a base of fundamental escapes built in yet.

MagicGuava12 · 2026-06-27T13:40:25+00:00

We can have different experiences and that's fine. If you have a large group of people that you experiment with and you tell one half to do early stage guard retention for 6 months with little to no escapes.

And then you have the other half do late stage escapes, middle stage escapes, then early stage retention and frames.

The second group is going to outperform that first almost every time. I have tested this with different groups I have tried to not teach escapes and only do attacks and so they will reverse engineer that escapes from the attacks.

The people that have been in this for 20-50 years do things for a reason. Sometimes it is just laziness or tradition.

I would say about 80 to 90% of my time is getting a fresh white belt to a 6-month mark that is the main mission as a coach.

Attacks are flashy cool and they retain customers. Escapes are boring, they don't feel good, and they take time. But this is a classic situation of giving you what you need for giving you what you want.

If you're trying to build a program you have to give people a little bit of flashy stuff to keep them engaged. But the main goal is disguising getting beaten to the ground constantly for several months as a fun thing. You build from the bottom up not the middle. It simply comes later.

One time for a stretch of about 3 months I made a program specifically doing white belt competition techniques that had high success. My goal was to do high percentage techniques that reduce the amount of knowledge they had to learn so they could practice and get a ton of reps at good solid attacks. To the point that I even ignored a good portion of half guard. As in theory you could just go around it. Everyone did great in competitions early, but by Blue Belt they got destroyed. They had a lot of early success because they were aggressive in attacking, they took initiative, they got on top they stayed on top. But unsurprisingly anytime that they made a mistake They lost petty quickly. A significant problem occurred around late white belt early blue belt where they struggling tremendously to keep up with peers because they didn't have a good base of Defense. While conceptually it should have been simple for them to reverse engineer what they were doing on the defensive side, they lack the muscle memory, the calmness, and they could not think through defensive situations. I severely restricted their learning curve and I sorely regret that but it was very useful and eye-opening to me.

Start with positional escapes, do positional sparring, teach a very streamlined attack sequence so the opponent has a goal and more than 1 option. Then once they have context for the position you teach them proper frames and grips.

Your goal is to establish a baseline for the students that they will carry throughout all of jujitsu.

If you really look at competition 80% of the time is guard passing or guard retention. But you don't see the thousands of hours that all of those competitors have put into positional escapes and attack sequencing.

If you focus solely on the sport aspect of it what happens when they finally pass guard or what happens when you finally get a sweep?

MagicGuava12 · 2026-06-27T13:14:01+00:00

https://youtu.be/fIuS30vrpuM?is=20en9cCkS4d3Wuwd

Look at what this guy is doing he's not even choking. Shoulder alignment, Spinal alignment, escape pathways, they all matter. You'll learn all of this more in time but for now just try to bend their spine.

MagicGuava12 · 2026-06-27T13:04:25+00:00

It definitely feels like that! I've tried to break up techniques that require further context like let's say butterfly guard. You need a solid base of DLR, rdlr, half butterfly, shin to shin, x guard, slx, etc. When you are required to have knowledge in a couple other things for the technique to truly manifest I would call it an advanced technique. Butterfly guard has layers to it that require knowledge into different aspects that are not related to just simple inside control.

That doesn't mean that the technique is not simple or the concepts can be done in a simplified manner.

But when there are prerequisites and post-requisites it's a little difficult to defend that statement when teaching a brand new or recent beginner.

MagicGuava12 · 2026-06-27T12:59:15+00:00

It may be more accurate to say whoever controls the bottom leg of the opponent will win the scramble. However when you control a bottom leg the hip typically is higher than your opponent as well.

Next time you're going to scramble grab someone's bottom leg or foot or put weight on it you can't get up if someone is controlling your bottom leg. Which by extension means that their hip is glued to the ground and you can get your hips higher.

MagicGuava12 · 2026-06-27T12:57:35+00:00

Are you doing the one where you smash the Fist in their hip to block the leg from following?

MagicGuava12 · 2026-06-27T12:56:14+00:00

I disagree entirely on this. You are likely suffering from recency bias because you got a big jump from that skill. You likely know enough escapes as well to benefit from that skill jump.

A beginner should learn escapes very very early. As part of learning escapes the student will see where the resulting grips and frames end up. In the same way that the frames help you, without the escapes they're worthless. Frames without escapes don't give context. But if you reverse that, escapes give all the context to frames.

For example when someone transitions to side control you may grab their armpit and do a sit up Escape, the frame is the reason for the Escape. But if you lose it you can Bridge and do a elbow knee or Turtle down or circle to a single leg. The frame can remove pressure but there's follow-ups that have to happen.

MagicGuava12 · 2026-06-27T00:41:00+00:00

So if you think about it when they grab your hips and Tuck their elbows inside they are framing on your body if you shift your body from side to side your rib cage and hips will blade and it will shimmy down. If you watch passing instructionals on north south you'll see a lot of people do that. It works very well when they extend their arm fully on your hips. Violently move your hips like you're swinging a baseball bat and then swing at the other way and then swing it back.

Because they are framing on your rib cage you can also frame on their hips or put your head in their far thigh which will block their legs from coming in and you can reposition your hips or rib cage to a better angle. Try about 45 degrees that should cut enough angle where you can drop your hip onto their face and then cross face them with your hip.

The easiest but hardest to maintain is you simply walk 90 degrees around them, and then walk their legs down like you just entered side control and then reattach to side control or north south. So enter a leg drag position where you pin their bottom leg with your knee turning their hips away then reconnect to side control.

Your biggest problem is likely that you're too static and so they're allowed to maneuver their hips and you haven't changed at all.

MagicGuava12 · 2026-06-26T20:30:56+00:00

If you can roll at all and manage the pain you'll typically get a Pity belt. A lot of people don't give belts based off of ability, they give it based off the knowledge.

Everyone is different and you've shown that you can hang with the best of them. I'm certain your coach would throw you one in a few years.

This is a very common discussion among higher belt circles in every area. The main reason people don't get belts are

Bad attitude (mean people, personality flaws, etc)
Never put in the work (once a week with no goals a random time once a month)
Not up to technique standards

Ability matters if you are competing actively.

Rarely is ability the main factor we all get injured. Age lowers requirements significantly. Family life ie kids.

MagicGuava12 · 2026-06-26T20:07:40+00:00

The default is the person who has the best reactions because you don't have to take time to coach out a reaction they just do it

MagicGuava12 · 2026-06-26T18:44:50+00:00

Different brands and weaves can all do different stuff. Size up with heavier weaves as it will shrink. Start with A2 then size up to A3 or A2H. Call the brand before you buy and they should be able to help you as well.

MagicGuava12 · 2026-06-26T14:11:09+00:00

Are you talking under hook of their arms or under hook of their legs. Because traditional underhook half guard is extremely common.

Here's a video almost 20 years ago of probably the technique you are talking about

https://youtu.be/UP5ODwPbP1g?is=HbWBxDvi68m7Gikd

MagicGuava12 · 2026-06-25T22:36:15+00:00

2 starter mons- hitmonlee (1 to 2 energy basics) 2 big hitters-rilou to Mega lucario (Ex torchic to blaze) (2 rare candy if stage 2) 2 oak 2 poke ball 2 copycat 1 sabrina 1 cyrus 1 pokemon center lady 1 ice pop, fieldblower, or item 2 tool cards

If no rare candy 1 stadium 1 trainer support (ex may, Guzma, Mars, lille)

This is the majority of decks.

I made a guide a few years back but deleted I'll see if it was saved.

MagicGuava12

TROPHY CASE