More work from the guard last Thursday with a fascinating insight from Gary Hewson on destroying your opponent’s lead grip – very interesting and I look forward to learning more and adding this to my Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.

We carried on breaking down the back take and included detail on how to create space to put the hooks in.

Our sparring session lasted a full 45 minutes and was pretty exhausting and great for our grappling cardio.

Nice also to see a good BJJ blue belt from Rio de Janeiro  – who trains under Royler Gracie’s association and a second blue belt with considerable experience. Thanks go to Sam and George for introducing Ben to the team. Oss.

Great training session last night – the start of a new era. A privilege to be coached by Jon Purssey, former Commonwealth and British Judo champion. After ten months of Judo for BJJ, everyone is starting to look really good on their feet – for those that have been consistent, the hard work is paying off.

Our new training structure has received positive feedback – our drilling concept is helping people to define their routes.

Jon and I have agreed today that last night’s session was the best so far – with intensity and realism – we’re excited about the team’s progress. The BJJ session revisited some of our previously drilled techniques – everyone picking up our guard to back take to rear naked choke sequence very well.

The evening ended with a long sparring session with all matches on the timer, started from the feet.

Pictured with Leo Negao and Lyubo Kumbarov – my friends and coaches – I have learned so much.

Everyone welcome. Friday nights, 6.30 – 7.30 pm. Cost £5. Sparring only.

We train at the Sea Cadets centre – 5 minutes walk from Kingston train station. We are located just behind TGI Friday’s, near Turk’s Launches by the Thames and 100 yards from the John Lewis goods entrance.

Contact Diccon on 07974 303 147 if you would like to come along.

Back on the mat – this Saturday 10th October at Lifestyle Team in Kingston. If you haven’t yet attended one of Lyubo’s takedown sessions – come along – we are now offering a pay as you train option of £10 per training session for non Lifestyle Team members.

Amazing set-ups, slick takedowns – learn how to control the fight to give yourself positional dominance on your feet when practicing No-Gi BJJ.

Jonathon Purssey, former British and Commonwealth Judo champion, has begun teaching at BJJ Lifestyle Team in Kingston.

We feel absolutely privileged to have such an exceptional teacher and accomplished Judo champion, on our mat. Almost two years to the day that Lifestyle Team was started – we now combine Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, Freestyle Wrestling and Judo for BJJ.

Jonathon teaches a refreshing style of Judo that he has tailored for our BJJ needs – with a strong focus on preparing our growing team for competition.

Our first Judo for BJJ training session was exciting and inspiring. Those that teach full-time and have practiced their chosen art since childhood – move with such incredible precision and within minutes of our first training session starting, it was just so obvious that we were being taught by an incredible practitioner.

At BJJ Lifestyle Team in Kingston we now have two exceptional former champions teaching us – Lyubo Kumbarov, 4 x Bulgarian Freestyle Wrestling champion and Jonathon Purssey, former British and Commonwealth Judo champion.

The second part of our Monday night training sessions are entirely BJJ driven. Mondays now start with Judo from 7 until 8 pm and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu from 8 – 9.30 pm. Our BJJ training sessions are growing rapidly in terms of the number of people getting on the mat – friendships and team spirit are growing and the atmosphere is relaxed with a seriousness about training and advancing in technical ability.

Our beginners are really looked after by the team’s more advanced players. New team members are arriving on a weekly basis and we are making sure that those new to the team are learning the fundamentals of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.

Our beginner’s program is equipping the newer team members quickly – most showing early signs of talent and promise. Our team policy is to develop well-rounded grappling skills, bringing in exceptional coaches – underlining our intention to grow a super strong team.

If you want to be trained by highly experienced grappling coaches that are committed to developing every team member to their fullest potential – it is the perfect time to join BJJ Lifestyle Team.

We want to make our training sessions available to everybody – and keep membership costs as low as possible while providing amazing coaching. Costs are £60 a month or £40 per month if you are a student. We just want people to come and train with us and start their BJJ journey. We give those with a full-time job or who are in full-time education – the chance to train like a sports professional. Mondays:Judo for BJJ and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, Thursdays: Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, Saturdays: No-Gi takedowns for BJJ – come along and meet us – beginners are very welcome.

Learn to dominate people 20 kilos heavier than you with pure technique at BJJ Lifestyle Team in Kingston – growing from strength to strength – join us to be part of it.

If you are a blue belt that hasn’t trained for a while or has relocated to the Kingston area – come and join us for free training for three months. We are so keen to grow our team – highly skilled, competitive blue belts are arriving on our team – we all need each other to progress our Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. The bigger we get, the stronger we will all become.

BJJ Lifestyle Team have just created a competition team – for white and blue belts. Join us now if you want to be part of it – serious training in a relaxed environment. Oss.

Additional blue belts are arriving on the team and they’re all saying that they can feel the difference our wrestling makes in sparring. We practice our wrestling basics every training session – refining our posture, our hand positioning – our set-ups – gaining confidence and vital mat time on our feet.

Our training sessions are a mix of stand-up work and Gi and No-Gi training. If you are a blue belt that hasn’t trained for a while – we’re offering free training for three months if you’d like to join our Monday and Thursday, two hour training sessions.

At Lifestyle Team in Kingston we combine superb wrestling takedowns with Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. Working plenty of No-Gi BJJ and Gi training, we focus on the big positions and submissions of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.

We will teach you guard passing, side control, knee on stomach, the mount and all the defence you will need to become an accomplished grappler. Add to that the No-Gi takedowns we practice on Monday and Thursday nights – and the exceptional and demanding Saturday takedown training sessions and you have the full grappling package.

Our takedown training sessions are a true team highlight of the week – where we learn detailed mechanics – it’s all in the set-up and we will teach you exactly how to hit slick single and double leg takedowns – combined with subtle arm drags and ankle picks to take your opponent to the mat in order to dominate with relentless pressure.

If you have been thinking about learning Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu – we would love you to join us. The bigger we get – the stronger we will all become. Start your journey.

Saturday training is just getting better and better at Lifestyle Team in Kingston. Complementing our BJJ perfectly – we are working on two-on-one arm control and the front head lock drag down from a deep undertook. Learning the mechanics from Lyubo is enlightening – our stand-up games are building quickly and we are all improving with the application of leverage and correct shoulder and hip positioning.

Our team is growing – people from academies in London are joining us on Wrestling Lifestyle Team membership (www.kingstonbjj.com for more information and WLT membership price) – the atmosphere is one of true team spirit where we are all training with one common goal – to become the best grapplers we can be.

If you would like to join Wrestling Lifestyle Team and learn from Lyubo Kumbarov – former Bulgarian national wrestling champion – get in touch. Beginners and experienced BJJ players very welcome.

Beginners, white, blue, purple and brown belts very welcome at BJJ Lifestyle Team in Kingston. We are growing quickly and it’s the people on the mat and the big class numbers that make Lifestyle Team the place to train. The bigger we become as a team, the stronger we will all be.

Beginners are our future – we are teaching all of the basics with plenty of detail and no prior experience of BJJ is needed. We have a large team of beginners and they are all growing together. The atmosphere is amazing and we have lost count of the number of people who have said that our ‘serious training in a relaxed environment’ is perfect for them.

Learn to take people down, pass the guard, secure side control, mount and submit people.

BJJ is great for self-defence, sport, fitness and the feeling of truly belonging to a team – if the time is right for you to start your Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu journey, come and visit us at BJJ LIfestyle Team in Kingston upon Thames – training Mondays, Thursdays and Saturdays.

We are nearly at the end of a fantastic BJJ training year – well done everybody – the team has grown considerably and there have been some strong performances in sparring. There are now well over twenty of us – the bigger we get the stronger we will become.

2015 is going to bring a new team syllabus that has been designed to focus on core fundamentals – the areas we must practice over and over again that are going to make the biggest difference to our performance.

Thank you to everyone for their loyalty and commitment to Lifestyle Team – we look forward to a bigger team in 2015 and some significant achievements. January 2015 is the perfect time to join us as we launch our new training syllabus. Beginners very welcome – we are just two minutes from Kingston bridge.

Our No-Gi takedown training sessions for BJJ take place on Saturdays at 10.30 in Kingston just five minutes walk from Kingston station. Join our sessions and learn good posture and footwork, how to use your body weight to tire your opponent and create pressure, technical set-ups and entries, single and double leg takedown combinations and strong finishes.

Training sessions are led by Lyubo Kumbarov – four times Bulgarian Freestyle Wrestling champion who uses his eighteen years of wrestling experience to coach the team to their full potential. To find out more visit http://www.kingstonbjj.com

At BJJ Lifestyle Team in Kingston we combine Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu with Freestyle Wrestling takedowns. There are four training sessions every week and we are coached by one of the very best No-Gi takedown specialists in the UK, on Saturday mornings.

If you are serious about No-Gi BJJ training and want to develop a highly technical takedown skill-set based on angles, combinations and efficiency, contact us to find out more.

BJJ Lifestyle Team was formed in September 2013. We have a number of very talented White belts that need more experienced sparring partners. We also have a growing number of highly experienced Blue belts on the mat, with a number of years training behind them.

If you are interested in joining our Kingston based team or just want somewhere different to train – contact Diccon Lynes through the ‘Contact Us’ page on our website to arrange your first visit. We are just five minutes walk from Kingston train station.

Practicing Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu on Mondays, Thursdays and Saturdays for £60 per month.

If you’ve ever thought about learning Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and wished there was a club in Kingston – read about us on our website and see what we can offer you.

We are serious about developing athletes – coaching people with a full-time job who like the idea of training hard and consistently to become as good as they can possibly be.  People who can’t be a professional athlete but would like to train like one with the time they have available to them.

The coaching team is ambitious and seek competition success – if you share our dream of realising great things – come and bolster a growing team and be one of the original first year members. We already have people on the mat who are showing great promise and we are about to embark on the team’s competition story. There is however, no requirement for people to compete if they don’t want to – cheering for your teammates at competitions is about being part of the team too.  Some train as a hobby, some train for recreation, train to get fit and learn new skills, some want self-defence skills.

We are coached weekly by Lyubo Kumbarov – 4 x Bulgarian national Freestyle Wrestling champion who has extensive experience as a high level athlete – he provides his professional level coaching knowledge to develop our athletes. In addition to our weekly wrestling for BJJ sessions we train and practice a considerable amount of BJJ (Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu) – training sessions are available on Monday, Thursday and Friday nights – also Saturdays from 12 until 2 pm.

Come along for a very friendly welcome – we want people to thoroughly enjoy the training experience we provide and wish to grow the team into a substantial and successful force.

Check out our ‘Team Location and Training Times’ page for full information. Use the ‘Contact Us’ page to express your interest in becoming part of the team. Beginners VERY welcome.

If you are already a Blue, Purple or Brown Belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and are considering joining a new team – come on-board to learn incredible wrestling takedowns from one of the best takedown coaches in the country.

The history of Gracie Jiu-Jitsu is very interesting, there is much to read and the stories are many. Researching the Gracie family and the early days of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu right up to the first world championships held in 1996 and beyond, is fascinating. Gracie Jiu-Jitsu gave way to Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu also referred to in short as ‘BJJ’.

In Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu we often hear people referring to ‘lineage’ – in other words, who their teacher’s teacher was and who that teacher’s teacher was right back to Mitsuyo Maeda a Japanese Judo practitioner who taught Carlos Gracie.  Helio Gracie developed a system to emphasise leverage, giving smaller and weaker people the opportunity to defend themselves. Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu continues to evolve to this day.

We can trace our lineage and here it is:

Mitsuyo Maeda > Carlos Gracie > Helio Gracie > Rolls Gracie > Romero Cavalcanti > Fábio Gurgel> Leo Negao > Me > You

Pictured at the top of this post is one of my all time favourite Gracie family pictures – a very famous picture within our community. Pictured left to right back row first – Rickson, Rolls, Carlos, Helio, Robson, Mauricio Motta Gomes, Royler, Carlos Jr, Crolin, Rorion, Rolker, Royce Gracie.

I hope some of you start to research the Gracie family and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu – I think it’s important to know about the origins of the art we practice.

Featured photo – Andre Galvao, a true believer in drilling to win

BJJ Skill Development – creating behavior

I am extremely interested in the principles of teaching – and coach myself in the hope that I can make progress quickly. My interest in teaching extends to BJJ Lifestyle Team’s training sessions and I believe that rapid progress can be made with a well designed plan. My performance as a teacher impacts the team – everyone is making good progress due also to their interest in and commitment to becoming exceptionally good at Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. We are goal setters.

We all realise that we individually govern our ultimate success  – and also take strength from the fact that we are a team pursuing the same goal. We are motivated, have strong desire and ambition. If you would like to join us, we would all welcome you in our pursuit of high level BJJ.

I have written the following to support my approach to teaching core BJJ techniques – if you relate to this concept, become part of our team – our team HQ is by the Thames, in Kingston.

• Choose a high reward, low risk technique
• Mentally commit to the technique and focus positively
• Believe totally and visualize yourself becoming unstoppable
• Welcome the fact that repetition is key – drilling is a path to winning
• Enjoy the journey and believe that every repetition takes you closer to where you want to be
• Do not doubt the technique and focus on being relentless in achieving your goal
• Understand the importance of every stage of the technique
• Work on technique initially, resisting the temptation to add speed
• Be deliberate with every stage of the technique – make each stage count
• Continually assess your success
• Continually assess the weaknesses that your training partners expose
• Analyse the weaknesses >> eradicate the weaknesses
• Strive to become supreme in your mastery of the ‘route’
• Do not give up, never stop believing, use all experiences positively
• Enjoy the process of owning more and more of the technique
• Strive to increase the positive outcomes
• Work the technique endlessly with resistance to have a full understanding of all the possible things your training partner or opponent can do to stop your forward progress
• Practice the technique on as many different training partners as possible
• Never give up utilizing the technique – frequency ensures sharpness

BJJ Lifestyle Team has big ambitions – and we are building a beginner’s program to bring the benefits of BJJ to as many as possible and also hope for future champions.

We are building weight category teams within the team. If you would like to be part of our BJJ journey – it would be my pleasure to meet and teach you.

For me, after eight years of training, there are no ‘downs’ in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, just valuable lessons. We have all felt as if we aren’t making progress, have hit a plateau or can’t seem to get any better, but as long as every training session is viewed positively, there is only progress. It’s natural to compare yourself with others but I believe we should be happy with our own advancement and providing you are attending training sessions, you’re progressing.

Getting to training has been a challenge for me in the past. I have had long periods without obvious progression or so it seemed at the time, but now I feel that every time I step on the mat, I’m taking a few more steps forward.

Natural instinct makes us all want to fight and want to win, but now the key to success in my opinion is to go to training to learn. If I tap someone I learn, if I’m tapped, I learn. With this mentality, I never lose.

If my training partner taps me, he’s shown me where a weakness is – thank you. I wish I’d had this approach years ago, I think I would be much further on – although all the frustrations have made the successes sweeter. I hope this little post helps people to travel the Jiu-Jitsu journey with greater ease than I sometimes have.

In terms of relaxing, I’m still not quite there though. I need to open up more in sparring, take more risks and try new things – the cost is dear if I don’t find the mental strength to try new ideas, new techniques. The cost is nothing if I get caught, I’ll just tap, and try again. I’m truly trying to become ego-less, not just someone who has heard the saying ‘leave your ego at the door’ – I don’t want an ego, full-stop. Once that last little bit of ego is chipped off, and I’m close – I believe the start of the path to real technical development will have been reached. In the past it’s only been me that’s held myself back, by allowing myself to become tense when sparring, not allowing myself to use my full arsenal of skills because I haven’t wanted to run the risk of finding myself in a bad position – I now believe that if I can relax more and let my skills go, I’ll slowly start to flourish.

I’ve read that Rodolfo Vieira taps at his team home with teammates – he tries to really let his game go in training. He’s one of the best in the world and rarely taps in competition.  I would imagine he understands the difference between training with friends and competing against opponents in competition – this I expect helps him to constantly improve his skills in new areas so that when competing – the tapping has already been done and he can unleash a huge highly refined, technical skill-set.

Every tiny success needs to be enjoyed and savored as another little step in your Jiu-Jitsu evolution. Analysing every outcome will make us stronger and keep us interested – that’s the beauty of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. Enjoying the obvious successes and replaying in your mind, the moments that led to achievement and analysing also, what led to us needing to tap out – using the experience positively to start to close another chink in your armour is essential. Looking forward to playing Jiu-Jitsu all over again – is key.

Be tense, don’t take chances and use the same tried and tested techniques week in week out without being brave enough to flex newly acquired Jiu-Jitsu skills and the journey will be less interesting and take more time – in my humble opinion, you will struggle to acquire a repertoire of silky smooth BJJ.

If you and I can reach the stage where our best is always good enough and look at every outcome positively, we’ve got huge potential to become technically very good. I look forward to walking down the path of pure technical BJJ development.

Featured photo: Marcus ‘Buchecha’ Almeida on the hunt for a submission while fighting Rodolfo Vieira in the Absolute world championships final this summer..

The very best Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu athletes have incredible defence. I love studying defence and escapes and would have an entire evening dedicated to the study of defence and escapes once per week, if time made it possible. What I will ensure is that we all have a rock solid defence and escape system for dealing with the most common submissions – arm bars, triangles, guillotines and the Kimura.

The defence and escape system we practice will involve a number of aspects:

Understanding why we might be vulnerable to attack

Anticipating attack and shutting attacks down before they get started

Recognising attacks quickly under pressure

Responding to attacks with the most appropriate defence

Dealing with attacks once they have progressed

Escaping efficiently

If you have a well rehearsed plan you can execute for all the common submissions – you will have great confidence. We will all be working hard to achieve this – and will be building a lot of repetition into the defences and escapes we practice, so that we can deal with attack when put under pressure.

Featured photo: Roger Gracie teaching his famous choke from Mount during a seminar – a great picture of the students at Rilion Gracie’s academy – the academy looks like a lovely place to train.

Of all the things that have made a big difference to my performance when sparring, I would have to say that posture and hip movement are without question – the most important breakthroughs.

Rickson Gracie is one of the genuine legends of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and whenever I have found interviews on him on the Internet, or articles in magazines, I have read them thoroughly with great seriousness and interest. I have read several times that Rickson Gracie thinks that of all the things that make a difference, good posture is the big one.

Good posture when you are in someone’s Guard is paramount. In my opinion, there is no point in trying to break someone’s Guard open until you have managed to sit with good posture. I believe posture is so important I constantly test my posture under conditions of complete resistance with a training partner. I sit with good alignment and simply ask the person underneath to break my posture – I want to feel the pressure and learn to readjust myself according to where force is being exerted from below. I want that person to hammer me with submission attempts, too. I not only want to learn and practice, I want to take my confidence as far as I can, as well.

When you start Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, it can feel as if you are constantly fighting for survival when you are in someone’s Guard and they are aggressively looking for submissions. I distinctly remember my first few training sessions in Brazil in January 2007 and I honestly lost count of the number of times I was submitted. Humbling to say the least.

Good posture is not only the platform for advancement  when in guard – it also keeps you safe from submission attempts. My first defence against Guillotines, Triangles, Arm Bars and collar chokes, is good, strong posture.

I have listed seven things on this website under ‘accelerate your training’, that have made a big difference to my game and every one of the principles or concepts I have listed is highly important in terms of overall, what has made the biggest difference to me. Some arrived early on within the first year or two – some later, it’s all a journey. Things that come easily in life are not as satisfying as things you have to work hard for. I have had my posture broken hundreds of times which has often led to a fight for survival – it’s the hundreds of times I’ve had my posture broken that has made learning the changes necessary to keep posture, so rewarding.

Roger Gracie, a master of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, teaching a seminar at Rilion Gracie’s academy in the US – I love this picture. Photo courtesy of http://www.mikecalimbas.com

Management of the space between you and your opponent is essential when defending. This short article is about maintaining adequate space when defending from the bottom position – but just to make a point – your best strategy when attacking from the top position is to stay tight to your opponent and take space away. You need to maintain space to defend and execute submissions. If someone manages to shut down the space you need in order to defend and submit, of course you need to carry on defending and will need to open up space to become comfortable again – but the job of making space becomes a far harder one. You are dealing with weight, strength, gravity and technique. Once someone gets their body weight over you, particularly if they are heavier than you are, you are in trouble.

There are two skills that I feel are important to acquire if you are going to successfully maintain space in order to defend yourself and stop your opponent from progressing to a stronger position. Space is critical if you are going to have a chance of submitting your opponent, or yet to be mentioned, sweeping your opponent.

The first principle:

Simple to understand, harder to apply, don’t let your opponent get near you. To close the space the person on top needs to come forward – I know how much space I am comfortable with – I know how much I need to have a chance and successfully operate – so if some of the space is taken when someone comes forward, you need to take it back by physically moving back. You have a chance of doing this because there is still sufficient space in order to move. If you don’t move back when the person on top enters your imposed danger zone, your chances of survival are halving and will soon disappear altogether, presenting you will the tougher next battle, which is creating space once body weight is down and locked in with technique. Much better to become highly skilled at managing the radar and stopping people from entering the danger zone in the first place. If they come onto the radar and stay there, they need to be dealt with and removed from the danger zone. This can be achieved by a combination of moving back, mostly, and moving them back with your feet.

Basically, I want just under an arm’s length of space to successfully operate, if someone comes forward, I move back an equal amount to preserve my ideal amount of space. I protect that space as a top priority, they move a little, I move the same amount of space back – they move forward a lot, I move back a lot. Whatever my opponent does in terms of coming forward, I retreat the same amount of space – this way, my protected area remains constant and I’m not forced to deal with increased weight and power. The space is maintained by moving the hips back – one of the big keys to Jiu-Jitsu. The only time I allow someone into the danger zone is when I want them there – they will have tried unsuccessfully to come forward a couple of times, and I will now let them through and providing they are committing too much weight forward and have through frustration started raise up a bit to clear my legs – I will attempt to sweep them, failure to sweep results in retreat to put myself out of range of them, again. By moving back, I put them back outside the danger zone I manage. You can also let them come forward if you want to attempt a submission or an arm drag, but things are on your terms, they are your invention.,

The second principle:

Put simply, make sure you bring your knees up to create a shield. For your opponent to dominate you they need to get their body down across you between your hips and your shoulders. If you bring your knees up, it’s very difficult for your opponent to get their body down tightly onto you. If your knees fill the danger zone, you can ensure there is enough space to push back if necessary to establish your ideal amount of safe operating space once more. I remember distinctly, this break through and it allowed me to keep bigger people off me. Lie there flat and all they need to do is drop themselves on top of you. Pulling your knees up towards your chest and bringing your elbows down creates a very effective defensive barrier.

Maintain space and you are always in a much stronger position than you would be if the space has been lost.

I am finally getting there, I am treating BJJ as a game – it’s taken years. I want to accelerate my Jiu-Jitsu development as quickly as I possibly can and I know that to do this, I must relax, try new ideas, concepts and techniques and not be bothered about tapping. It’s a balance. You want to do well when sparring, but doing well at all costs will destroy your chances of becoming technically better or considerably slow your development down. It makes it much easier to go training if you can treat BJJ as a game – there’s no fear, it’s impossible to lose. I don’t mind letting you know that I’ve missed training sessions in the past because I didn’t want the pressure of having to fight and win. I wish I’d had the game playing mindset back then, I would be much further on with my technique development.

I now know that training is about learning and not just winning.

I read a great deal about Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and constantly find articles and interviews that express the views of the champions and the resounding theme is that you must be ego free, try new techniques and not worry about tapping. If you are tapping you are learning. I don’t want to tap all the time, but if I do, it’s only training. Sometimes you just get caught – it’s a learning experience.

It is important to train with people who can dominate you and tap you out. If you are not being pushed by others, your skills will not rise as quickly as they would if you were training with people who are better than you. They are often better than you because they are further along the BJJ journey. I remind myself that we are just trying to make each other give up – it’s a game.

It is very tempting to use the techniques you are best at in sparring – the ones you see the most success from – but how will you develop new techniques and bring them to a high level if you have not tried and developed them in sparring situations? What is for sure is that when you try new techniques and concepts, it is highly unlikely they will work first time, but this is the process of development. If you cannot allow yourself to try something you have recently learnt because you are scared of losing position or being tapped – you will never ever become skilled with that technique and although you may win many sparring matches with your limited game – the ultimate loss will be yours.

Are you really ‘winning’ if you don’t grow your repertoire but you tap the same people week in week out with the same limited game? One day, someone more experienced and more athletic than you will absolutely smash you and you’ll wish you had developed a deep technical defence and a fluid, ever-changing, difficult to read and deal with, offence. I have been cut to shreds by eleven stone guys in Brazil and it was humbling, totally technical and absolutely impossible for me to stop – despite the fact that I was stronger than them. This is the level I dream of getting to – and I know that consistent training, relaxation and a willingness to experiment with new techniques is the key.

I am not promoting myself as an expert with all the answers because I know I still have an incredible amount to learn, but if I can help people progress faster than I did, that would be very satisfying. I am trying to develop my Jiu-Jitsu on a daily basis and my development includes analysis of recent performance, visualisation and mental preparation for my next training session. I often drive home from training sessions and think deeply about how and why I was dominated, if of course I was, how I was tapped and why, and reflect on my successes, too. Little successes, little steps forward are very satisfying for me. Tiny improvements, perhaps managing to get into a particular position and feeling and experiencing what it is like to be there for the first time, but not quite getting it right and losing position – an improvement on a previous week’s effort to get to the same position. I know that if I keep on trying new things, despite the failures and set backs, I’m likely to get a bit further still if I persist in future training sessions. I’m treating my BJJ as a game.

None of what I have described is possible if I define success purely on the basis of whether or not I tapped my training partner. I know that finally treating Jiu-Jitsu as a game is putting me in the fast lane for getting to where I want to be – which is to be as technically good as possible.

Featured photo: Team Alliance – HQ, Sao Paulo, Brazil – at the 2013 world championships. Why can’t we become a big UK team…?

I have revisited my motives for starting BJJ Lifestyle Team and my reasons are as follows:

• To have a Kingston based training opportunity
• To build a big, successful competition team
• To become as good as I can be as a teacher and competitor
• To involve as many people as possible with the team

I am excited about developing many training partners – I would like us to become a recognised UK team and look forward to travelling as a team to competitions in the UK and abroad. I would like to create a sense of team loyalty and pride.

I want to make the opportunity to join available to as many people as possible. I certainly don’t want to lose the chance of teaching people with huge potential which is why I have set the monthly membership fee at £60. I want to constantly make progress on what we offer too and will be working hard to make BJJ Lifestyle Team THE team to belong to.

I will be reinvesting in the team and would like to be in a position to fund travel to competitions, to have social evenings and afford new mats when we need them, provide additional training times, team clothing and other things that will benefit the team. I benefited greatly from attending a St John First Aid course and would like to put other team members on the course.

If you haven’t ‘Liked’ BJJ Lifestyle Team on Facebook, yet – please do, I want to build the Facebook group up. I will also be ‘tweeting’ regularly so staying in touch with what’s going on couldn’t be easier if you follow BJJ Lifestyle Team on Twitter.

Keenan Cornelius – a phenomenal competitor…

I have been buying GracieMag since 2006 and find reading the magazine a real pleasure. I would strongly recommend subscribing to the magazine, it is a great source of technical information and serves as a training motivator, too. Magazines are shipped from the States, but don’t let that put you off becoming a subscriber, it’s easy to sign up and not that expensive. I look forward to my magazine hitting the doormat every month – and read it while drinking a nice cup of tea!

I am going to post a GracieMag article review every month – picking out the most interesting parts of my favourite article. I think you can learn so much just by reading and thinking – and I can usually pick a few things up from each magazine issue that give me something extra for my Jiu-Jitsu game. I feel inspired by the champions of our sport and look to their observations and experience to improve my own performance. I hope that the beginners at BJJ Lifestyle Team become as technically interested in sport Jiu-Jitsu as I am – I look forward to sharing and debating new ideas, concepts and techniques with those on the team. I am very interested in all aspects of BJJ and seek as much knowledge as possible.

I know I can no longer be the fittest, strongest or fastest – so I must be as technically good as I can be. I have already written the following on this site – but love this line, so here it is again – it was stated by a highly experienced Brazilian BJJ black belt:

‘What is more dangerous, strength or technique, I say technique…’

I read this line a few years ago and it has always remained at the forefront of my Jiu-Jitsu mind – I thought at the time and still believe it is a very powerful statement. I referenced the line to Leo Negao a year or two ago and he responded – ‘of course my friend’ – and that’s coming from someone who is more athletic and powerful than most.

So, onto July’s GracieMag article – my favourite in the magazine this month ‘Deconstructing Keenan’…

For those that are not yet fully familiar with the current world sport Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu scene – Keenan Cornelius has been devastating in competition since Purple Belt. He is a feared man on the mat, has won numerous big competition gold medals including winning all four of the major IBJJF competitions in 2012, as a Purple Belt. He doesn’t win the odd big competition, he wins them all.

I have read the article two or three times, making a mental note of the things that I believe I can take to improve my own performance. Keenan trained at Lloyd Irvin’s in Maryland until recently and one thing the medal chaser team were renowned for was their pure Jiu-Jitsu training intensity. I personally have limited time to train each week because I work in an office for 40 hours, like many others. I know that the more repetitions I do of a technique, the better I will become at performing it. I also have a mindset of wanting to be good and have a high expectation of myself. I am also realistic, but try to strongly emulate the competitors that impress me. I cannot afford to waste my limited time so try to remain focused because every minute I spend on the mat is precious.

I train with intensity because I am on the mat to work and get better. Keenan emphasises the intensity at Lloyd Irvin’s as a key contributor to his success and this reminds me to train with purpose. Each repetition I perform, I perform with good form and increasing accuracy. If you look at how the best freestyle wrestlers train in the States, they drill hard and sessions are intense. I try as hard as possible to ensure everything I do on the mat is done well – sloppiness of technique creates bad habits. Practice with poor technique and you learn to do something badly. Keenan’s intensity can be followed – you don’t need special physical attributes, just a strong mind and desire. Keenan also comments within the article that he ‘learnt to have a work ethic’ – at Team Lloyd Irvin. I personally believe in creating a behavior – and will bring this to our mat. I am not going to lose sight of our need to relax and have fun, but I want to develop our Jiu-Jitsu, too. Keenan finishes on the subject of intensity by adding – ‘I do a lot of repetitive move drills.’ Noted.

Although everything above is critical to success – a further and even bigger factor in Keenan’s success is his ‘mental state’. I am especially interested in this subject – the mindset of a champion is fascinating. I will not explain my personal thoughts on the subject in this article review – but we will be big believers at BJJ Lifestyle Team.

Keenan talks about how his Jiu-Jitsu has become more aggressive and how he now attacks more during fights and ‘sets the pace’. I have often read about people trying to impose their game. Marcelo Garcia states – ‘the more I attack, the more he has to defend’.

If you have to endlessly defend, you can’t attack. Whenever I get dominated, I feel as if I have done nothing but defend. Whoever I have sparred with has successfully imposed their game on me and I haven’t managed to get mine started – largely because I’ve had to constantly defend.

Keenan believes that whenever you have someone ‘killing you in training, you are improving’. How true this is, although it’s hard to think this way when you are getting smashed.

The last part of the interview that I have taken something from is Keenan’s self-analysis of his guard passing game. He believes that everyone has strengths and weaknesses and he has identified an area of his game that he thinks he can improve. He believes he needs to apply more pressure when passing guard. He has decided that he needs to work on the way he puts his weight over the opponent to pass the guard and keep the opponent under control.

This is an interesting area of Jiu-Jitsu and one that I am constantly working on. I have read a great deal on guard passing and learnt an enormous amount from Leo Negao. Leo’s guard passes are so heavy that I have to give him the pass because of the pressure he exerts. All of this he generates through correct body positioning and technical use of weight. He is an expert at making himself feel much heavier than he really is. A point of note, Leo constantly presses the need to ‘keep position’, the only time you start to lose a fight in terms of position is when you give your opponent too much space and don’t successfully apply your weight.

I read a superb article by Fabio Gurgel once where he stated that he gets his students to ‘count to ten’ when they are passing someone’s guard. The forward pressure applied is delivered slowly to a count of ten and this ensures that space isn’t given and weight feels at its maximum – making the opponent feel very uncomfortable.  Fabio is credited with being one of the best guard passers in the world.

Technically heavy, dominating passing is Leo Negao’s guard passing style and I am trying to replicate his style of Jiu-Jitsu. Big, heavy, dominating passes impress me and in my opinion, this is a style that you can maintain despite your age.  Speed and agility are not governing factors. Keenan’s self-analysis has further compounded my thoughts on guard passing and got me thinking.

In summary – a great and inspiring article with the main messages being train with intensity, have a strong work ethic, impose your game – setting the pace – be TECHNICALLY aggressive and don’t worry if you are getting  dominated, you are learning all the time and will develop if people are tapping you.

Featured photo – Rodolfo Vieira receiving heavyweight Gold at the 2013 IBJJF world championships (Mundials) – I hope we can achieve many podium places in UK BJJ competitions.

BJJ Lifestyle Team Update

I have been looking into the cost of mats and will be purchasing a set of new Judo mats that will be 40mm thick – so that we can have nice comfortable training sessions. I will be including a lot of freestyle wrestling takedown practice as part of what we do – and I want to make sure our landings are well cushioned and easy on the body. The mats are costing thousands of pounds but we will have the use of them for many years.

Good quality, thick mats are essential to consistent takedown practice – I will be making sure that Leo leaves us with a good Gi takedown to practice when he visits. I also know an exceptional national standard Judo player who I intend to invite along from time to time to teach us some nice Judo sweeps.

I am also in the process of having a team logo designed by a professional design agency – this will feature on our Gi’s, on the website and in marketing.

I have booked myself onto a St Johns First Aid, first aid for sport course – and club insurance will be in place by 9th September.

I will also be arranging to have a huge team flag made – this will become the backdrop to our training sessions – we may not have this for 9th September but I hope to have a team flag by the end of the year – before the first BJJ Lifestyle Team Christmas dinner!

I would like to have pictures of our humble beginning and ongoing training sessions – I have bought a very good Sony camera and will be posting pictures to the BJJ Lifestyle Team site for everyone’s enjoyment!

The team HQ will be at Kingston & District Sea Cadets Centre, Thames Side, Kingston-upon-Thames, KT1 1PX

I have chosen this centre because it is in a quieter part of town, by the river and also provides a large training space. I considered other halls but partly chose the Sea Cadets Centre because it is a charity providing a great experience to children. I would prefer to pay hall fees to a charity rather than a commercial organisation – it all sits well with my morals.

For those that are unfamiliar with the area, the Sea Cadets Centre is very close to Turk’s Launches,  John Lewis and behind TGI Fridays.

Parking is available outside the centre and costs £1.20 per hour – the centre is 6 or 7 minutes walk from Kingston station.

Training Days and Times:

Mondays and Thursdays 7 pm – 8.30 pm. I would be keen to hear from people with regards to preferred start time – we will go with the popular choice. E-mail me at: bjjlifestyleteam@gmail.com to let me know which start time you prefer.

Our ethos will be to train in good company with team spirit, to learn without pressure for enjoyment, and to have a strong work ethic.

Our first two training sessions will be on Monday 9th September and Thursday 12th September, 2013.

Depending on interest – I may organise a one hour sparring session on Saturday mornings – once we’re established.

Really looking forward to starting – and looking forward to meeting everybody.

Diccon

Featured photo: Gui Mendes winning at the 2012 World Championships – courtesy of http://www.mikecalimbas.com

Developing correct posture and fluid hip movement has made an enormous difference to my Jiu-Jitsu – I’m looking forward to teaching the details at BJJ Lifestyle Team…

Long before I was a Blue Belt, sometime in 2006, I was training in a group class at Roger Gracie’s academy. Taking the lesson was Mauricio Motta Gomes, Roger’s father.  Something he informed the class that night I will never forget. We were ‘shrimping’ up the mat and Mauricio announced ‘what you are doing now is one of the most important and useful things you will ever learn’. I’m not sure how many people heard Mauricio’s statement as we were all exercising hard and many I expect couldn’t see the relevance of ‘shrimping’ – everyone was trying their best to shrimp as hard and as fast as possible up the mat, though.

Carlos Gracie Junior also stated in an article I read in Graciemag once, that hip movement took time to develop and really started to become fluid when someone becomes a Purple Belt – good hip movement was absolutely critical.

It can be difficult to move your hips, but developing movement is essential to success in so many situations. In my opinion, if you’re not moving your hips into position, you’re not practicing effective Jiu-Jitsu – I truly believe that. Not only are the hips highly important in defence but they are also very important when executing attacks. You need to move your hips to maintain your base when sitting in front of your opponent, you need to move your hips to keep your opponent at distance and you need to move your hips to Sweep your opponent – moving your hips when executing a Sweep gives you the leverage to make your opponent light.

The reasons for moving your hips are many – everything hinges around the hip – most defences and escapes need strong hip movement.

I caught a guy in a Head and Arm Triangle choke when training in North London once. I was on the bottom and the guy I had caught was in his early 20′s and aggressive. I was squeezing with all my strength because I really wanted to tap my opponent – it was a very physically demanding match for me and I wanted to finish it. Leo Negao walked past and said to me ‘get your hip out’ – I did of course and bang – the choke went on with little strength used and the guy tapped – a lesson learnt that evening.

I also believe that when you are playing open Guard you have an amount of space that you feel comfortable with – this may be more or less space depending on your size. My rule is always – if he takes 6 inches of space off me, I move my hips and take 6 inches back. If he takes 10 inches of space off me I take 10 inches back – if he comes smashing through – I retreat my hip aggressively to account for the amount of space I think my opponent is going to take – shrimping being the killing factor in terms of nullifying my opponent’s efforts.

In summary – hip movement is one of the two big things that have accelerated my training – posture, being the other one. If you don’t move your hip, expect to be dominated and have your Guard passed.

Featured photo – Ciao Terra. At 8 stone 9 lbs, this man is a human weapon – pictured applying a Triangle choke.

Truly a passion of mine – I have spent a lot of time looking for answers to submissions people have applied to me. I made the decision to hunt for answers to submission attempts early on as a grappler wanting to have at least one well-practiced escape for all common submissions. Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu is a fascinating art and the more you study the more your passion grows.

It isn’t always possible to be the victor in every match – but if I can’t dominate my opponent and submit them, I want to at least survive the onslaught. Good defence is critical and often you can shut attacks down before they become more dangerous. Having a good understanding and recognition of the steps someone needs to take to achieve a submission can be a very good start to understanding how to survive. If you can read the opponent’s intentions you can make sure you are using preventative measures to slow down and then destroy an opponent’s attack. Good positioning and understanding what gives an opponent openings will keep you safe.

Sometimes the person you are fighting will use set ups to force you to commit to being in a certain position or you may have no choice but to expose yourself slightly to deal with a submission attempt made by your opponent who is working hard to progress their position. This game is played by very experienced grapplers and when they force you to react a certain way they will already be waiting for you – possibly with another submission attempt.

The best time to deal with a submission attempt is early on in the first stages of the sub being applied. I read a fantastic book once which was co-written by Helio and Royler Gracie. They described ‘being early’, ‘being on time’ and ‘being late’. Recognising submission attempts in the early stages helps you to shut down a potentially dangerous situation. If you are ‘late’ – you are in trouble and will need to rely on the submission escape you have practiced that really is your final chance of survival before needing to tap out.

There are submission escapes for all submissions and I believe having a super strong defence and battery of escapes brings confidence that helps you focus on your attacking game. As a further area of interest, understanding defences and escapes makes you better equipped for attacking because you will understand what someone needs to do to defend or escape and can cleverly spoil their defences to force them to leave openings.

Once you know how to technically escape from being triangled, arm bared or guillotined, you are well on your way to having an easier time when sparring. As I’ve said previously though, I believe you have to struggle and suffer to really appreciate the beauty in the art that arrives with the breakthroughs. The first time I visited Brazil, I lost count of the number of times I was tapped – and because of this experience, finding the answers was very rewarding.

We will all have limited time to practice at BJJ Lifestyle Team – but I want to make sure we are dedicating a lot of time to defences and escapes so that we can all survive in difficult sparring or competition situations.

When you start Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu you will be a White Belt. It takes a long time to receive belts in BJJ so you need to be prepared to be patient – there is a lot to learn and your ability is apparent because we spar with full resistance. If you train consistently, you will become more skillful and your success will be clear when sparring with others. Everyone can get there, but hard work and persistence are essential.

It took me 18 months of training to receive my Blue Belt – the second belt given in Jiu-Jitsu and it’s considered quite an achievement to get to this level. You will without question be considered no beginner on the ground. It is possible to receive your Blue Belt in a shorter period of time but to be honest, once you’ve got a Blue Belt tied around your waist the white belts will be very keen to tap you out so waiting until you really do feel comfortable on the ground and are experiencing consistent success when sparring with your peers really isn’t a bad thing. It does feel mightily good to have a Blue Belt tied around your waist and the more often you train the faster you are likely to be recognised as worthy of belt promotion. Personally, I don’t think anyone with less than 12 months experience should be given a Blue Belt. When you wear a belt of any colour you should be able to defend it as far as I am concerned. First and foremost, I believe belts should be awarded for technical ability when sparring and in competition, but other factors such as depth of technical knowledge and consistent training are factors considered, too. That said, I couldn’t award a belt to someone who couldn’t hold their own – getting technically good just requires consistency and hard work.

After the Blue Belt comes the Purple Belt – this is the first of the ‘big belts’. I started training in June 2006 and received my Purple Belt in August 2011 although I’m told it had been waiting for me for a while – but it gives you an idea. Trust me, the night this one is tied around your waist they will come at you guns blazing, but it’s all enjoyable and for me, being given my Purple Belt made me up my game – receiving it was also a proud moment. The first night I wore my Purple Belt, there were only five or six people on the mat plus Leo Negao and we had the fortune of being visited by a 6 ft 2 inch, very athletic guy from a well-known MMA gym. He wanted to see how good our grappling skills were – boy was I pleased I had five or so years of training behind me because our visitor wasn’t taking prisoners and did everything he physically could to dominate me. Thankfully I held my own at 5 ft 7 , 75 kilos and 20 years his senior and my thoughts since are that this was all a very good experience.

From Purple you are given your Brown Belt and finally, after many years of dedication, hard work, personal research and sacrifice you are given your Black Belt.

Likely timescales are White to Blue – 12 – 18 months, depending on how hard and how often you train, Blue to Purple, at least another couple of years, Purple to Brown – the same again and Brown to Black Belt – probably another year, maybe more. But once you have all that skill and experience and enjoyed the journey, you’ll be a hell of a grappler and the holder of a belt that really is an incredible achievement – for many, one of a few lifetime achievements. Of course I would like to progress, but it’s not a race and when I finally get my Black Belt, I hope I will still have many years to proudly wear it.

It’s natural to want to know how long it takes to be promoted but the day you start training you become a grappler – and hopefully you will dedicate yourself to the sport – the time it takes to receive belts becomes less important and you just do what you do – the belts will come when you are ready to receive them.