Were you curious about what my rolls look like? Today is your lucky day: you get to see me awkwardly spazzing out during a couple minutes trying to secure a submission.
One of my friends says that no gi wrestling feels like trying to catch an eel. I find that quite accurate: you try to firmly grip your opponent’s limbs and they just slip away. It all becomes a fast paced game trying to dominate each other.
I tried it once long time ago and didn’t quite like it because once both you and your opponent get drenched in sweat, it is really messy, slippery and to be honest, a bit gross sometimes. Still, I decided to take the plunge and start training no gi BJJ as well.
Why did I decide to start training BJJ without the gi?
- I could get more matches in tournaments if I sign up for both gi and no gi modalities, making the most out of each event!
- It gives me the chance to train more without wrecking my fingers (my fellow BJJ players know how constantly gripping and pulling the gi can really damage your fingers over time).
- The flow of the sparring is a lot more dynamic than it is in the gi; there’s a lot more scrambles and a good opportunity to make use of athletic qualities like agility and flexibility.
- Also, since it is more difficult to firmly grasp your opponent and everything is more slippery, I find it a lot easier to transition and escape bad positons.
- It forces you to find ways to control and submit your opponent using only your limbs and positioning instead of relying on the gi as a tool (which is a major challenge for me since a lot of my favorite techniques involve using the gi to choke people).
It’s only been a couple of months since I started including no gi sessions in my training, but I am slowly getting used to it. Which takes me to the next fun part of this post, which is my first video recording of a sparring match during no gi training.
This video was recorded at the beginning of the year (Jan 2018), during my visit to the BJJ Academy located in Xalapa, Mexico (my hometown) which is affiliated to the branch of Renzo Gracie Jiu-Jitsu. In the video I am sparring with a fellow white belt friend, so bear with us in all of our face palm-inducing mistakes.
From watching the video, I can spot several mistakes, one of the most glaringly obvious being that I leave a lot of space between me and my opponent that could be used against me. However, I would really appreciate any feedback that you might have! Please feel free to critique and give any suggestions that might help me to suck less/improve.
Thanks a lot, and enjoy…
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Wow! Good job! He looks way bigger than you!
Have you listened to the Joe Rogan Podcast episode with john Danaher? How he started improving on the leg lock game is amazing.
Keep the vids coming!
@branlee87 Ironically he was one of the not-so-big guys in that group... but still lots of fun to train with them.
Yes, the podcast with John Danaher was great, I learned so much just from listening to it and watching his analysis of Gordon Ryan's match against Cyborg. Definitely great motivation to learn leg locks and pay more attention to that part of the game.
Thanks for commenting!
Wow! I think its just physics, he's bigger and stronger and he definitely knows what he's doing. But i'm sure you can kick the ass of a regular guy, like me. Please don't do it :)
But it's just practice. You'll get a lot better, maybe next time you'll take that guy.
Thanks! Yes, it is all about practicing, trying new things, failing, then trying again... small adjustments sometimes can make a big difference :-).
Keep up the good work. The only advice I can give you is to keep showing up at the BJJ academy and keep having fun. The progress will happen naturally. Osss
@bjjblackbelt Well, at least that part is taken care of ;-) Slowly becoming better with each training. Cheers!
Looks like strength draining for sure @irime. All them choke holds, pretty awesome. Fan
It certainly is... there is a combination of continued resistance (having your muscles tensed all the time) interspersed with bouts of explosive intensity which makes it exhausting.
Thanks for stopping by! :-)
Wow @irime you should add a tagline
Haha, Indeed! :-)
Not bad and FYI that’s how a leg lock battle between most people look like... unless your like a purple... or just me.. lol looking forward to seeing more
Hahaha, I feel better hearing that, @bigapplebo... oh, well, at least I'm trying!
BTW I checked your profile, nice content! I followed you now :-)
Thank you... following you as well
So what exactly is a gi, the Jiu-Jitsu/Judo uniform or a special part of it?
Ah, yes I forgot to clarify @galotta. The gi is indeed the Judo-style uniform we use in "traditional" Jiu-Jitsu.
Awesome @irime! You guys should post more vids! It's always fun to see others train and spar :)
I agree although I am actually quite shy about recording stuff (especially when it involves other people). This one was recorded by a friend during my visit and I was actually not aware of it at the moment, I only found out when he sent me the video afterwards. But I agree, video content is fun! Will try to be more proactive about it...
Video content is fun! And now with dtube it's much easier than posting to YouTube and embedding. Just upload straight to Steemit 😎😎😎
Pretty cool! I've rolled a few times and one time with one of the smaller pro's at my gym. It definitely is....disgusting haha. I remember the pro I was rolling with kept getting frustrated as he couldn't get any solid holds on me. He kept mentioning afterwards that if this was a match he wouldn't arm barred me early on. When he did grab my arms during our session, I would just pull them right out and surprisingly, my arm would easily come free because of the sweat.
Has striking ever interested you?
I want to give feedback but I can't get the video to play, any idea why? I click on it and I waited a pretty long time but it just never started