Damo article

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Misery Guard: Defence and Pass

Getting stuck in collar sleeve can be quite a difficult situation to deal with and being stretched out and controlled so well only leads to being submitted quickly.

In situations where earlier efforts to better your position have failed we have to start risking more to get out or just stay safe. In the case of the featured video we risk a sweep after giving up the top position to try break grips.

It’s important to recognise the risk you are taking in these situations and try to minimise it if at all possible. However, after you achieve your goal of either escaping or taking pressure off, it is even more important that you capitalise on the moment and go back to attacking and imposing your game on the other person.

In most cases where you have been in a bad position and successfully recovered to a better position, your opponent will try to attack again. If you reward yourself with a rest after a recovery action then you are setting yourself up to be back in a bad situation – keep fighting until you’ve reached a point like top side control or back where you can take a bit more of a calculated rest and control the fight at the same time.

Damien Letcher BJJ

The Keys To Progressing In Brazilian Jiu Jitsu

Recently I was listening to social media entrepreneur Gary Vaynerchuk talking to an aspiring entrepreneur. He posed the question, “Are you losing belief, or do you just wish it was happening faster?” I instantly applied this question to my own BJJ journey, and the kind of thoughts I know many people who train also have.

BJJ is full of ups and downs, and you often spend a great deal of time thinking, “why am I not progressing?” Or how you can feel good one week about your game, but the next feel much worse. 

I think in these situations Gary’s question, “Are you losing belief, or you just wish it was happening faster?” is the perfect question to ask yourself in order to help get over those humps and stay positive. I’m willing to bet that a majority of the time you just wish you were better, and didn’t have to worry about being swept, missing opportunities, getting subbed, and other BJJ woes.

So how do you speed up the process? Its simple, more mat time! Get to the gym more, and spend as much time as you can in that environment. If you’re already living at your gym, then concentrate on smarter training. By this I mean apply yourself in class, and study the techniques the coach is teaching, both inside and outside the gym. Spend time at home watching matches and techniques, going over techniques, moves and sequences in your head.

BJJ is unique in that I don’t think it takes very long for someone to go from just starting and doing one class a week, to then filling out all their spare time with classes and investing a lot of time into improving. 

So if you’re doing all this and still feeling frustrated, there’s one other key aspect to focus on, and that’s developing patience.

Stay patient and believe in your training and keep positive. If you put in the time you will see the rewards! Its only a matter of time, and patience.  

Don’t get down about it, keep training and doing the best that you can, and everything you want in your BJJ will appear, but you have to keep training. If you slow down in a slump, or take some time off, you’re only going to make it harder on yourself if improving your BJJ is something you truly want.

Damo BJJ blog

Fundamentals of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu

One thing I consistently notice when training with different Brazilian Jiu Jitsu (BJJ) coaches and instructors, is that everyone has a different opinion of what techniques are considered fundamental. It got me thinking about the idea of fundamental positions vs fundamental techniques, which really made sense to me.

I recently started using this concept while teaching, to help beginners learn and understand BJJ more intuitively.

Fundamental positions like closed guard, open guard, side control, mount, and back control are positions we encounter in every roll, and in most cases are easily recognisable for either person in the fight, or even a spectator. With this recognition of the position, we can use this as a sort of a cue to then get people thinking about the techniques they should be doing, and better understanding the situation that they are in.

As for the fundamental techniques, I honestly do not believe there are any. Techniques vary too much from gym to gym because they’re often based on what that instructor feels comfortable teaching and showing. This is either because they have a particular type of strong game, or they teach how they were taught when they were learning.

This of course leads me into the whole berimbolo debate – specifically, where we see a lot of people complaining about white belts learning berimbolo before other ‘fundamental’ techniques.

I never quite understood this argument. The berimbolo itself isn’t too complex, and its pretty easy to grasp which situations to use it in. In this sense it’s no different than any other technique. As long as students understand this, I don’t see an issue in teaching it as a fundamental. If they struggle to understand it, they can try other techniques to achieve the same result.

The same rules apply for every other technique. There is always a situation associated with it, and it’s followed by a reaction or lack of a reaction. Once people understand this it will help them use it in sparring.

Essentially, regardless of the technique shown and weather you consider it to be fundamental or not, I think its important to link these with positions and situations, to help people understand and recognise when its appropriate to use the techniques they’ve been taught.