Tap or I Snap!!!!

Tapping is an important part of learning BJJ. Even the best black belts have tapped a thousand times on their journey to become the best. Tapping keeps you from getting injured, and keeps you honest, knowing that you have been cought. 

In a BJJ class scenerio, it is never the objective to intentionally injure your training partners. However, there are some people who will never tap, and will hold out hoping that you will let go. What do you do? Let go? Or snap/put them to sleep?

In my early days of teaching, I more or less kept quiet on the subject, and it seemed that my students started letting their opponents go even when the submission is tight, they never applied it. 

However, the last few years I have let it be known clearly that I believe the other opinion is correct. If your opponent does not tap, you put them to sleep/snap

This is not to say that you intentionally go out to hurt your opponent. But when you get your submission, apply it slowly, but with clear intention that you will continue to sink your submission in deeper and deeper until something snaps, or your opponent goes to sleep. 

Learning to tap has to be learnt at your own home gym. Its no use being known as the tough guy in your gym because you don't tap, and end up seriously injured when visiting other gyms. Going to sleep, or a tweaked elbow for a week or two is not a big price to pay for such an essential lesson to be learnt. 

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Sam Wee is the head instructor for Brazilian Jiu Jitsu (BJJ) at the KDT Academy (www.kdta.com), Malaysia and has been teaching BJJ since 2003. 

Mental Aspect in BJJ

In BJJ, more important than physical conditioning, more important than how many or what techniques you know and more important than speed, strength or any other attributes you may or may not have, is the mental aspect of BJJ.

By mental aspect, I am not talking about whether or not you are an aggressive player or defensive counter attacking player or whether or not you can handle pressure in an MMA match, BJJ competition or even real life street fight. Those mental aspects are too complicated, rely on too many factors and too individual to cover in one post, and different coaches, psychologists and other so called mental performance specialists all have their own differing opinions on the subject.

What intend to post about is the second to second mental attitude as a BJJer you should take in every grapple with every opponent, no matter if you are grappling the newest and most helpless white belt, to grappling Rickson Gracie.

John Will once told me the difference when wrestling someone like Rickson, Rigan or John Jacques, compared to anyone else is not simply that they are technically excellent, but that they are always pushing the buttons, holding the reins or forcing the issue. It seems simple enough a concept, but took me many years to assimilate this into my game. Its only now that I try to do this to everyone, in every position that I am in.

What does it mean?

It means that in all positions, you must always keep your opponent on the back foot. Keep your opponent always on the defensive mentally, although you might not be in the best position to attack.

If you are on top, you should crush, smother, suffocate, irritate, attempt multiple submissions, and completely scatter your opponent's attention to the wind.

If you have guard, never EVER let your opponent get comfortable enough to even start thinking of initiating a pass. Thus you disrupt his balance and posture endlessly, making him forever adjust, force him to defend sweeps, your getting to his back, and submissions. As the guard player especially, you have to keep attacking until he cracks (you sweep, get the back or submit). The moment you stop keeping him on the back foot, THEN he will initiate a pass.

If you are in your opponent's guard, even if he is a good guard player, and you are being pushed to the limit defensively, especially against a good open guard player always give a threat of a leglock. This does not necessarily mean dropping backwards at every opportunity, but for example, grab the ankle as if you are going to for an ankle lock. When he defends that, thats the time you can go for your pass.

If you are underneath, especially against BJJ players, you never let him settle in any position. No doubt its tiring, but you must always be initiating an escape, blocking his positioning, and forcing him to chase after you to get position, all at the same time avoiding easy "obvious" submissions. Easier said than done, but although its tiring, forcing him to fight for position is better than defending from a good solid position and defending submissions.

Lastly, especially against players who are undoubtedly better than you, you just have to bear in mind that even black belts go for basic submissions. So while you defend against the obvious chokes, arm submissions and even leg locks, if possible do something that is not obviously going to give him a submission, yet even if futile, make him mentally defend. For example if under a knee ride, one handedly grab his foot as if you are going to initiate a toe hold. It might not do anything, but it hopefully will force him to think of defending, and that few seconds while he is not attacking, is where you might escape.

Not ground breaking stuff, but a reasonable goal to try an achieve. If you can do all that on a constant basis, you will be a nightmare to roll with, and thats good Jiu Jitsu!

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Sam Wee is the head instructor for Brazilian Jiu Jitsu (BJJ) at the KDT Academy (www.kdta.com), Malaysia and has been teaching BJJ since 2003. 

Fight a Boxer, Box a Fighter

I am a firm believer of variety of techniques

I have attended classes and seminars by high level BJJers. Many of them will tell you the same thing, that they only teach and believe in the basics, because its what works for them. Unfortunately, most of these guys, being high performance athletes can do their moves to anyone, because they are typically big strong guys.

There are no basics that work for everyone. One thing I have realized teaching in Malaysia, is that the students here come in all shapes and sizes. My lightest student weighed in at 40kgs and my heaviest 120+kg.

There will be moves that work for the lighter one that won't work for the heavier one and definitely vice versa.

There is an old saying "Fight a Boxer, Box a Fighter". This exact phrase is used by John Will and Gene Lebell as their basis of their success in their individual autobiographies. This is the reason how they climbed to the top in their fields (John in Silat, Gene in Judo).

What it means, is that you use techniques that your opponent is unaware of, not good at or unprepared for. You don't go head to head with a particular technique, strategy or game if your opponent is better than you at it. 

Every technique, there is a counter. So if you do basics only, the counter will quite easily counter it. Furthermore, different instructors have different ideas what the basics mean. Even a simple technique, say armbar from mount, 10 black belts will give you 10 different emphasis on the same move. So most instructors will say learn the basics, but more often than not, they are all talking about different sets of techniques.

To me the beauty of BJJ is the variety of moves. I try to teach as many games as possible, and the techniques that make up those games, although perhaps physically or attribute wise, I am not able to play those games at a good level.

Roleta's Helicopter Sweep

Thus I have students who play rubber guard as their primary guard, and one particular blue belt plays a mean upside down guard with triangles and oma platas as traps. My purple belt plays a mean Z and De La Riva guard, and another blue belt plays primarily half guard.

The De La Riva Guard

Does that mean that these guards (or othe techniques) are useless and we should only learn "the basics"? Eddie Bravo, Ricardo De La Riva, Gordo and many others would take offense with that.

Eddie Bravo's Rubber Guard

In a class I typically teach my students perhaps 4-8 techniques for a particular position. That is not to say I expect them to remember all of them. In fact I expect them to remember only those that fit in to their game.

This is my montessori way of teaching BJJ. You pick and choose what you want to learn, and how fast you want to learn is up to you.

Two of my students messing around with the twister

BJJ first and foremost requires intelligence. As instructors, I believe our place is to show you the way, give you the tools, but it is up to you which path you take, and the level and direction of your growth. We help you develop your game, answer your questions the best we can. But at the end, there is no "best" game that everyone leans. There is a best game for you, that only you can develop.

There's always the flying rubber guard!

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Sam Wee is the head instructor for Brazilian Jiu Jitsu (BJJ) at the KDT Academy (www.kdta.com), Malaysia and has been teaching BJJ since 2003. 

Don't Worship the Move, Learn the Flow

Coming from an traditional martial arts background, there is a tendency for martial artists to "worship" moves.

This is even more prevalent for Asians, and this can be seen my the numerous kung fu movies in the market. In many of the movies, there is always the hero or bad guy spying on the master, learning his secret Buddha Palm that the students are not taught. And this move is used by the hero at the end to save the day, or the bad guy uses it to destroy the master, whereby the hero has to find an even more powerful move.

In the martial arts circle, many practitioners too fall into this trap. It is all too easy to start labelling this move and that move is attributed to this or that martial art, and giving more importance or less importance to that move based on the art its attributed to.

Unknown Comic Book

History's Greatest Disciple Kenichi

While labeling a move, attributing it to a martial art is not wrong per se, names are useful after all for communication and describing the move without demonstrating it. However, it becomes a mental barrier when your move that your instructor taught you is the only way to execute it, and you think that move is the be all and end all. 

I remember a story from either my instructor John Will, or another BJJ Black Belt instructor (my age is catching up with me), on when he was teaching a BJJ seminar hosted by a JKD school. The students told him that they knew all about armbars, so he asked them to demonstrate. One by one they demonstrated an armbar, but at the end of the move all of them strangely used one hand and pointed a finger to the roof. He couldn't quite figure out why all these JKD guys were doing that until one of them showed him a picture of how Bruce Lee does it.


Its a funny story, but it goes to show how worshipping a move made by someone you revere basically makes the move less effective than it should be. 

Specialization is not the problem. I have had fellow training partners who were experts in a particular choke, experts in armbars, experts in escaping and a particular sweep etc. The problem is the people who try to emulate this, thinking that thats the way to go.

Truth be told, there is no magic move that can finish off all your opponents. For every technique there is an counter, and a counter to the counter, and so on and so forth. So even if you have can do a technique textbook perfect, if your opponent knows you are going to execute that move, and knows the counter, there is a good likelyhood he will escape. 

There are also those with freakish abilities. I've encountered a student who is nearly immune to chokes, at least 3 students whose shoulders can rotate more than 90 degrees for kimuras and americanas, a student whose ligaments are flexible enough to hold out in a fully extended armbar and kneebar. 

What I have discovered as I go up the belt ranks, and watching better grapplers grapple and grappling them, is that their flow is different. No doubt blackbelts have each their own ways to making certain techniques work for them that don't work for us. But more importantly, it is their flow, their timing and their "in between" moves and positions that make them better. 

Unfortunately, those are the things that are hardest to teach, and learn. So most instructors cannot teach this, and most students will have to learn it the hard way. 

So the next time you watch or grapple someone better than you, don't just look at the techniques performed, but look for the flow, the timing, the "in between" moves and positions. For example, analyse why some black belts can do "BJJ No Nos" in bad positions and yet stay safe from submissions, small moves that they do in between positions, so that their opponent cannot recover. Study combinations that work for certain people, and why certain black belts escape a certain way, and not the normal way you were thought.

So remember the old saying: "Its not the size of the boat, but the motion of the ocean".... oh wait, thats for something else......

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Sam Wee is the head instructor for Brazilian Jiu Jitsu (BJJ) at the KDT Academy (www.kdta.com), Malaysia and has been teaching BJJ since 2003. 

Culture of the gym

One of my students, Albert Lim is opening his gym on New Years Day 2009 in Kuching, Sarawak. Check out his and his wife Serina's web site. Its the coolest gym web site I have seen (sorry Vince, its true, unless you can make me look as good as Serina on the KDT site).

Starting a class from scratch, this brings back memories of my first class at the Ding's Martial Art Gym, and also my second time round with Vince at the KDT Academy and what I did differently.

Being a part time instructor myself, I gear my class towards the typical part time student, ie non professional martial artist. That is not to say that my students are substandard. They may not be as intense as those from "fighting gyms", but many belt ranks from overseas who visit can attest that my students do deserve their ranks.

Also, being from the Machado lineage, my attitude is not so much one of challenging everyone else in the world and I don't hold back when I teach my students. There are no hidden techniques (except the wushi finger hold, that I teach only to my son).


Not a Fighter Gym


My gym is not a fighter gym. That is not to say we don't have the appropriate skills, but just that I don't subscribe to the whole philosophy.

The typical gym of that sort normally feature boot camp style intense workouts, high emphasis on techniques that require strength and/or athleticism, and fight till you puke rolling sessions. The techniques thought also only reflect what works for the teacher to the exclusion of all other techniques.

However, the problem with such gyms is that those who get good are only those with the same attributes as the instructor, everyone else becomes cannon fodder. These gyms also have high injury rates and the boot camp style workouts are designed to separate the wheat from the chaff (ie make people drop out)

Unfortunately many instructors take this as the template to follow, as this is typically the way top successful competition gyms train. But if you think about it, they are successful because there are no more weak links, the non performing students have dropped out leaving only the champions.

First and foremost, I would like to state that I do not disagree that the above mentioned methods work. They do work very well indeed for gyms who regularly compete and the certain type of students who thrive in such gyms. They do produce champions that way. However, these gyms are typically intimidating and perhaps not suitable for most but the most hardcore.

My instructor John Will once told me that the secret to a successful gym is to identify the bruisers in the gym, and get rid of them, as they make other students drop out. This disruptive influence is typically the alpha male student, who injures others regularly and who most other students do not want to roll with.

Unfortunately, if you market yourself as a fighter gym, your typical student attracted will be of this bruiser variety. A whole gym of them, you have lots of injuries, ego problems and a hostile atmosphere for training.

It is possible, and I have met many top fighters who are nice guys, and not necessarily be of the bruiser variety. They are the nicest people I have met, not what you imagine to be top MMA fighters or BJJ champions. So all the fighter culture is unnecessary and ultimately harmful.

Thus the style and culture that I strive to achieve is a fun, relaxed gym culture, and is accessible to the average person, not merely the super athletes.

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Sam Wee is the head instructor for Brazilian Jiu Jitsu (BJJ) at the KDT Academy (www.kdta.com), Malaysia and has been teaching BJJ since 2003. 

Leverage in BJJ

Leverage. I have heard the boast from many martial arts, including BJJ that they/we use leverage, not strength to do whatever we/they do.

But after John's recent seminar, talking about general vague words that we use but don't really know the meaning behind, like experience, control, I wanted to really look into this claim, and what it means. Especially for BJJ, is there an overall theory or thought behind this claim? Or is it anecdotal, referring to a submission here, and a sweep there. Fortunately or unfortunately, sitting on my butt for 16 hours in a car on a bumpy road gave me lots of time to think about it.

When we think of leverage, we think of levers, and the most common thoughts spring to mind, well for me its mostly rocks and sticks....
... and pulleys
But an overall concept or theory on leverage for BJJ? Ultimately when someone talks about leverage, they are talking about using minimum effort for maximum effect. In a martial arts sense, generally we are talking about ways of controlling/moving/effecting someone whereby a smaller person can do so to a bigger guy with minimum effort.

Leverage is about using levers. Medically, there are many levers in the body. But in a BJJ context, we are mainly talking about the levers on the skeleton. The primary lever is the spine, from the top of your head to the tailbone, and the 2 major levers the shoulders and the hips. The purpose of the shoulders and the hips are to control the spine.

This concept carries through to the minor levers too. So for example, the tarsals control the tibia & fibula, which controls the femur, which in turn controls the hips, which ultimately controls the spine.

Similarly, the carpels control the ulna & radius, which controls the humerous, which controls the shoulder, which again ultimately controls the spine.

*yawn* ok that was boring, and I won't go into the 3 classes of levers in each case I will give, so this is the gist of the theory. When we say we use leverage, what we mean is we control the spine, and thus control the whole body using the levers that I have mentioned.

More specifically for BJJ, we use leverage to bring an opponent to the ground and to control him/her there. That is the emphasis of our game.

Standup

There are quite a number of martial arts that use leverage to control and throw their opponent. When you bend the spine, the person is off balance. And while many theories are banded out on how to get an opponent off balance, the gist of it is they manipulate the levers to bend the spine, and while the opponent is off balance, finish off their opponent.

As a quick disclaimer, I know that the other arts I will mention below have different emphasis on what they do, and why their throws etc works, for example the judokas teach kuzushi with an emphasis on the making an opponent make a step, but as a uniform concept, I want to concentrate on how all those things ultimately manipulate the spine, which makes the throw/takedown happen.

Spine

A direct manipulation of the top of the spine is used in clinches to the head. Other martial arts like Muay Thai and Greco Roman wrestling, and to a lesser extent judo too use clinching to control the spine. Once the spine is bent, the opponent is thrown or elbowed/kneed.

Shoulders

As stated earlier, when you manipulate the shoulders sufficiently you will be manipulating the spine as well. This sets up many throws

Many Judo throws are set up with manipulation of the shoulders. If you look at the concept of kuzushi (unbalancing), with any typical judo grip on the gi, a manipulation of the shoulders is the primary motion, whereby the spine is bent making the opponent off balance and forced to shift his weight or step to re-balance. This off course is followed up by a hip throw (which is an attack of the hip levers), leg trip etc. But the act of moving the shoulders made the entry.
Similarly in Greco-roman wrestling, many over and under hook grips are primarily to manipulate the shoulders. If you manipulate one shoulder higher than the other, the opponent is off balanced, and a throw happens, whether by the unbalancing itself, or with an addition of a hip throw like in judo, or leg attack.

An aikidoka too manipulates the shoulders. Using wristlocks, the pain induced together with generally a circular sidestep, the practitioner will throw the opponent exactly when the opponent's one shoulder is moved in front of the other.

Hips

All hip throws and high leg takedowns, whether single or double legs, are about making the hips move. The moment the hips are no longer centered, the opponent is thrown/taken down.

All lower leg trips or low leg takedowns indirectly affect the hips via the minor levers.

On Knees

For the BJJer, in training we often times start head to head, on our knees or initiating guard. Here are a few basic ways we BJJers manipulate the levers.

Spine

One way to manipulate the spine is by moving to the side of our opponent's head, and driving with our whole body, oft times blocking the far knee. Another way is by grabbing the opponent in a Thai clinch, and pulling the head down and sideways while ourselves driving forwards.

There are examples of the opponent moving their spine themselves, letting us take advantage of the movement at the precise moment they are off balance.

An interesting example my instructor John Will showed me years ago is a sweep Dave Meyer used to do. In guard, with both feet on opponent's hips, arms grabbing their knees, wait for the opponent to move his head. The instant it moves, extend your own hips and pull the knees for a sweep.

I have used a variation of this, but in closed guard. Similarly, I wait for when my opponent moves his head, at that instant pulling my legs forwards and then kicking out sideways, similar to a flower sweep but with legs still closed. I reckon 70% success rate for me. Not bad considering it is a no risk sweep, my guard is still closed, and my hands free to choke or do whatever I want.

Shoulders

Besides under-overhook attacks, the easiest way that I use is just to pull one shoulder down while pushing the other shoulder back, whilst driving forwards. Works on even the biggest opponent. Another example of this is using the spider guard. Using one foot on the shoulder or bicep, you push that shoulder behind your opponent's head, while pulling the other arm deep into your guard twisting him sideways, leaving him is off balanced, and swept.

Hips

Many sweeps from the guard are a manipulation of the hips to bend the spine. Any sweep where you move the hips, whether scissoring with your legs, using hooks, tangling their legs or simply pushing the hips, most of these sweeps will include pulling of their top body whether pulling the opponent's gi or arms using your arms. Thats basically describing 90+% of all guard sweeps there.

On the ground

All these tactics from standup or on the knees, the goal is to take someone to the ground and establish a dominant top position. In fact, in BJJ terms, perfect control on the ground is the ability to hold your opponent down completely helpless, and the only reason they can move is that you allow them to move into some submission or better position. This is a goal of wrestling and judo as well.

When controlling someone while on top in a control position, we aim to ensure that both ends of the spine, both the shoulders and both sides of the hips are pinned into the ground. When an opponent tries to lift one shoulder, or move their hips to one side, control is retained by pinning it back to the ground. This way, a smaller guy can pin a bigger guy indefinitely as long as he can feel the shift in movement, and put his weight on the lever that is being lifted off the ground.

Conclusion

There you go, my uniform theory of leverage for BJJ. The goal is to bring your opponent to the ground, and keep them there, and from there setting up your submission.

This is done either by being super strong, or if not by using the levers on your opponent's body to manipulate the throw/takedown, and then furthermore using the same levers to keep them there.

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Sam Wee is the head instructor for Brazilian Jiu Jitsu (BJJ) at the KDT Academy (www.kdta.com), Malaysia and has been teaching BJJ since 2003. 

Big Bad Baby Brown Belt

I got promoted to Brown Belt by my instructor, John Will over the weekend.

Its something I hoped for, but yet when it happened was completely unexpected.

I always tell my students when I grade them to blue belt, that the belt takes time to grow into. It will probably take 2 weeks to a month before you feel comfortable with the weight of expectation the new belt carries. I also tell them that its like magic, the expectation and pressure is there, but with it comes confidence, and a 20% improvement of their game.

I hope my advice works on me too.

I believe I may have grown too complacent and comfortable wearing my purple belt. However with this promotion, I already feel spurred and inspired to improve myself further, both as a BJJ instructor as well as practitioner.

My goal for the coming year is to build depth in my understanding several games, as well as work out being in the "first cab off the rank" in as many places in my game as possible.

Hope my students enjoy the ride

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Sam Wee is the head instructor for Brazilian Jiu Jitsu (BJJ) at the KDT Academy (www.kdta.com), Malaysia and has been teaching BJJ since 2003.