Another great weekend of jiu-jitsu at Crossroads Brazilian Jiu-jitsu! With classes every of the week there is never any excuse not to get on the mat and get some great training in. Starting with our Saturday afternoon fundamentals of BJJ class and our Sunday morning open mat everybody was able to get on the mat and work on perfecting their skills while getting a great workout at the gym.
Our Saturday fundamentals of bjj class covered the bottom mount position, a very dangerous position to be in in a self-defense situation, and a position where things can easily go from bad to worse if we are not paying attention to the rules of BJJ. The strength of the mounted position is that in a fight if you are on top you can punch your opponent but they can’t punch you, so it is critical that you learn to escape. Because there are only a few submissions from this position if on the bottom we can use good fundamentals of jiu-jitsu we can make it very difficult for the person on top to submit us. In the first part of class we covered how to properly defend the cross collar choke. The Cross collar choke is one of the most common attacks / set ups used from the mount position so if you don’t understand how to defend it than it will be impossible for you to escape. After understanding how to defend the cross collar choke we went on to cover two variations of the bump escape. In BJJ the bump escape is a very powerful move because it moves you from a very dangerous position to one where you are on top and can begin to use gravity and pressure to impose your will on your opponent. In BJJ it is always position before submission, you must always be looking to make your situation better.
In Jiu-jitsu it is always better to react sooner rather than later, this allows you to deal with situations before they become much more dangerous, defending the cross collar choke and working to escape the mount position is the same. If we can trap our training partners first hand before they achieve a deep grip on our collar/ neck it will be much easier to defend the choke, which makes it much easier to escape the position. However as a new student it is rare that you defend any submission or position early. This is why as a new belt you find yourself tapping more often than winning, simply because it takes time to achieve the necessary reaction time to defend submissions early enough to escape them. This is why the two variations of the bump escape that were covered this past Saturday during BJJ class dealt with two different levels of timing. One if you are able to start your escape before the top player brings their second hand over to finish the cross collar choke and a second jiu-jitsu technique for when they are already starting to put the second hand in the collar.
Between Saturday and Sunday everybody had lots of time to practice their jiu-jitsu and get in a great workout during the open mat after Saturdays Fundamentals of Jiu-jitsu class and Sundays open training session. The best way to gain reaction time and increase your coordination on the mat is to spend time rolling and drilling techniques. Jiu-jitsu works against resisting opponents because we all train against resisting opponents. It is essential to train against somebody who is trying to stop your techniques and implement their own because that is what will actually happen in a fight. So after we spend time drilling cooperatively we must train with an uncooperative partner. Defending somebody else’s attacks allows us to gain balance, timing and coordination, and these are all of the intangible elements of a fight that you will need to successfully defend yourself. If you have never trained against a resisting opponents you will panic and forget every technique you have ever learned when you actually need to use them. If you are interested in learning more about Crossroads BJJ and would like to come down and watch or try a class check out our Contact page, reach out, come down and give it a try. The hardest part of jiu-jitsu is walking through the door.