I had jujitsu class again yesterday, and I got my ass kicked again. Primarily cuz im too fat, and therefore too heavy, and too fat and therefore too slow. Too fat, and too slow. We did these things called “animals” at the begining of class. These are activities that make you walk like the particular animal described. e.g. snakes, gorillas, things like that. I could BARELY do those too.
What can I do to get good at jujitsu? e.g. faster? and lighter?? do i need to do a lot of ab work???
Also, the guard position. Where your legs are rapped around the persons torso, waist, upper body. The grip with my legs is ok, nothing special, how can I get this grip TIGHT? thanks
Hey bro if you need to lose weight by all means go for it. But it sounds like you have just started ju-jitsu so my advice is to show up to class with an open mind and do not let your ego get in the way.
Also you should follow saku’s advice and roll after each class. Best of luck
About making your guard tighter. When you have closed guard press your heels in towards your butt. That should tighten up your guard. But the point of the guard is to attack with submissions, reversals, etc. Just clamping him between your legs wont accomplish much.
It will all become clear the more you go and the more matt time you put in. In the beginning accept that you are going to get beat alot and learn from your mistakes.
I agree with the above
Check the ego at the door, It’s training to improve your performace no need to injury your training partner and matt time is only going to get your endurence up to roll,… look into “Body Flow” some of the movements are exactly how you want to move yourself in JiuJitsu
Agreed on mat time!
Not to worry on the gaurd. Keeping a more open gaurd can be quite competitive. (I’m assuming you are concerned more with competition in your dojo at this point and not necessarily self defence.)
Quick tip: Learn heal hooks as SOON as your Sensei will show them to you! Oh yeah!!..they’re the quick and DIRTY way (not to mention dangerous for the other dude) to end a match…watch out for 'em and roll like crazy WITH the hook if YOU get one slapped on ya. If you can’t roll…TAP early and tap often. (no flames, please…you know you love to slap a heal hook on an unsuspecting oponent just like I would!)
Hey, just how DOES a snake “walk”? Just kiddin’… Man I miss the mat right now.
In term of warmup, you will adapt after a few weeks and find it a bit easier.
Getting better at jujutsu, i assume you mean skill-wise. Do you go training with a friend? If so what i would suggest is getting together sometime and drilling techniques. For example say you are doing juji gatame where he starts off in your guard. You have a time limit of say 2 mins in which you perform it with good technique and flow first and foremost. Start off slow and build it up. Getting it right is more important than getting it right at first.
You then swap over and uke does the same. You can then repeat and increase the level of resistance put up by the other person. Another thing to try is for both of you to fight with 50% strength so you can work on skill. Strength is a great equaliser but tends to be used instead of skill.
When wrapping legs around tight aim to get it around the floating rib area as this is more painful. If you are flexible enough try to get one foot hooked underneath your other knee. Then pull down with the leg on top as you push your groin up (you’re not leaving the floor though) Another way is to hook the feet together and straighten them out pushing away from you (keeping uke close) and squeezing your thighs together. You can get submissions with this technique (do jime, i think) but it is illegal in some comps as you can break a rib quite easily.
You can also use your legs (and you should) to control uke. Pulling him in close or away from you (if done hard enough you end up in full mount). You need good hip drive and strong abs.
Remember to use your whole body, legs and arms. Also when trying to submit your opponent, say with an armlock try to disguise it otherwise uke will know what you are doing and you’ll never get it. If a technique isn’t going on during a fight don’t keep trying with all your might, move on to another. Try to work out some flows.
Are you doing traditional ju jutsu? You say you are heavy, use that to your advantage. Learn some holds where you are on top and bring that weight to bear. You will drain their energy from where you can move onto a submission.
Don’t fight from the bottom if you can help it. You have to move your body weight and his. It feels comfortable because that is how you spend a third of your day. You need to be more skillful to fight off your back and you want quick wins otherwise your energy is being drained.
not an expert, but have been a beginner before (after a couple yrs & still a beginner). I would agree with the first 2 responses (Saku and the dude after). Mat work aka more practices for the early yrs of training to work on learning. Without a controlled diet weight loss and size loss may come with just the exercises and movements alone. But controlled eating can speed it up.
Ask yourself this first “How often are practices and what do I do on my days off?”
From there you might be able to plug some extra conditioning in the form of the animal-like moves and some mild work for the joints like swimming and even free diving. Everyone will say mat work is the best conditioning or cardio and while that is true not all of us can live at the dojo everyday, so what to do outside is limited to what you can afford to do (bike, swim, power walk or hiking for time, run…).
I started out training Judo heavy, big, but in shape. I learned with my size difficulty, low flexibility and adapted to the demands of the style. So while you will speed up or be more fluid, don’t let the THOUGHT of what you are right now stop you from learning. Just go to practice and learn. In the learning stage you can forget about problems and just “flow with the go” and everything will follow.
Thanks for all the responses guys. I figured that mat time was prolly the key to it all. I really have a lot of fun at these things, but then i go home and think about how I shouldnt have lost some of the sparring matches. Im gonna continue, and although my attitude sounded shitty in my first post, I do go in with a really open mind and Im not gonna quit. I love this crap.
Just watch other people and see what they do. Jiu jitsu is a very feel and visual thing. A good place to see mathces are at onthemat.com
Whatever you do don’t learn heel hooks without learning the basics. You might rip off your training partners knee if you don’t know when to let go. Literally. in a match if its there, its there.
If I understand your previous posts you started a week ago, so what’s the problem? You are supposed to get beaten. The important thing is just to try to learn the basic thechniques and to learn from the losses. It’s very easy to try to compensate lack of technique with strength/speed/whatever and it might work until you face someone who is as strong/quick/whatever as you but who also knows the techniques. Changing a pattern is very difficult once it is established, so again get the basics right.
Jiu-Jitsu takes a life time to learn. I’ve been in the game for a while. You go up, you go down. It’s a hard sport. Take your time. Everyone gets cought. White gets purple, blue get brown you know what i’m saying. Anyone can get cought. If you get beat or break even. That’s a good work out. Of course when you get to be a higher belt, you will win or break even most of the time. Of course you can get cought. Play the game. It’s up and down.
As has been said many times, you have to give it time. Jujitsu does require strength and overall conditioning, but mostly it is about technique. Technique doesn’t come quickly or easily, it takes time and practice to develop. If you want to improve in your ability to fight from a specific position, such as the guard, get an instructor or senior student to work with you on it. Remember that Jujitsu is fluid. You have to be able to change from one postition to the next rapidly. Don’t worry too much about someone slipping out of the guard. Most of the time as they move from one position to another there is an opening that you can take advantage of for a trap, joint lock, or arm bar, but most of all, practice, practice, practice.
I would look at increasing strength and stamina as well, but this is seperate from your technique training.
There is much to be said regarding increasing your skill level. I studied directly under Royce Gracie for a while and he is nothing physically. In fact when I pushed him to see how much he could Bench Press, he could only get 135lbs. for five reps! His legs were spindly as well.
However, on the mat he was a tiger! Why? Three reasons: 1. Skill 2. Skill 3. Skill. Naturally, it’s always better to be strong and have skill,(as the Gracies found out) but at the level that you are at you need to increase your skill. I would not worry about anything else. Simply focus on learning with every class and you will be good before you know it!
Keep practicing BJJ, you can and probably should start energy system work maybe intervals. Don’t neglect increasing your work capacity by utilizing GPP drills. Hope it helps.
Grip, I went in with the assumption that it was Brazilian Jujitsu because Fabiano Iha founded the place I go to, although I dont study under him, I study under someone much lower on the totem pole of BJJ. But I think my teacher Greg was uncomfortable calling it “Brazilian” I forgot what the reasoning behind it was.
Boss, “energy system work, and maybe intervals.” Can you elaborate on this? I will do a search.
Somebody mentioned something about “neck bridges” earlier. What are these exactly? I will also do a search on this.
The other day we did a lot of choking movements, attacks involving the throat and neck etc, and the front of my neck feels like an extreme sore throat, although the pain is most definelty muscular. I LOVE IT!
Keep up with the technique training skill is the most important thing. I’ve learned to never underestimate the danger of a motivated fatboy, so don’t think because you are fat that you can’t be effective. Properly used that lardass can be a weapon. Watch some sumo you might get an idea or two.