10th Planet Watch – 10th Planet Jiu Jitsu Van Nuys Blog

We’re at it again! 10th Planet Van Nuys and the gang are doing it big! UFC 155 is the event, Orochon Ramen is the spot! Prelims should start about 6, Main card at 7pm. Get there early to ensure seating. Bring all your friends and make sure they’re hungry!

We’re going to have a special unannounced surprise on the card. Hugo vs. David Hah in the light weight Spicy Orochon Special # 2 challenge-fight of the century. Who will reign supreme? Who will go home with stomach issues? This is a can’t miss match up that you won’t dare want to miss!

UFC Heavyweight Champion

Junior dos Santos
15-1-0
Salvador, Bahia, Brazil
vs
Challenger

Cain Velasquez
10-1-0
Yuma, Arizona
Results
MAIN CARD
Lightweight (155lbs)

Joe Lauzon
22-7-0
Massachusetts
vs
Jim Miller
21-4-0
Sparta, New Jersey
Results
Middleweight (185lbs)

Tim Boetsch
16-4-0
Sunbury, Pennsylvania
vs
Costantinos Philippou
11-2-0
Merrick, New York
Results
Middleweight (185lbs)

Alan Belcher
18-6-0
Biloxi, Mississippi
vs
Yushin Okami
27-7-0
Kanagawa, Japan
Results
Middleweight (185lbs)

Chris Leben
22-8-0
Portland, Oregon
vs
Derek Brunson
9-2-0
Wilmington, North Carolina
Results
FX PRELIMINARY CARD (8PM ET)
Bantamweight (135lbs)

Brad Pickett
22-6-0
London, England
vs
Eddie Wineland
18-8-1
Portage, Indiana
Results
Bantamweight (135lbs)

Byron Bloodworth
6-2-0
Wilmington, North Carolina
vs
Erik Perez
12-4-0
Monterrey, Mexico
Results
Lightweight (155lbs)

Melvin Guillard
30-11-2
New Orleans, Lousiana
vs
Jamie Varner
20-7-1
Phoenix, Arizona
Results
Lightweight (155lbs)

Michael Johnson
12-6-0
Springfield, Missouri
vs
Myles Jury
10-0-0
Hazel Park, Michigan
Results
FACEBOOK PRELIMINARY CARD (6:30PM ET)
Heavyweight (265lbs)

Phil De Fries
9-1-0
Sunderland, England
vs
Todd Duffee
7-2-0
Evansville, Indiana
Results
Flyweight (125lbs)

Chris Cariaso
14-3-0
San Francisco, California
vs
John Moraga
12-1-0
Phoenix, Arizona
Results
Featherweight (145lbs)

Max Holloway
6-1-0
Waianae, Hawaii
vs
Leonard Garcia
15-9-1
Plainview, Texas

It’s always a big deal anytime somebody gets a new belt in Jiu Jitsu. Even though we don’t wear belts at 10th Planet Van Nuys, we’re still just as happy to receive them. It means a lot to reach a new benchmark. It means many hours spent on the mat, bumps and bruises, triumphs, defeats, taps, getting tapped, blood sweat, and tears, new techniques learned, new friends made, and hopefully at the end of the day we had some fun in the process!

After years of dedication and training, Franky Orellana get’s his blue belt. Congrats Franky on your new belt! after every belt, we line up em up and let everybody take down the freshly belted. Thanks to awesomejiujitsu.com for the video!

This month at 10th Planet Van Nuys, we’re working on different strategies for passing the half guard position. One of my favorite passes from this position is the “No Hand,” “Smash,” “101 Pass.” I’ve heard this move called by several different names, but the theme is always the same. The idea behind it is this:

1. Starting from half guard, using a head and arm control, pin your opponents shoulder’s to the matt
2. Bring the knees to the side, pinning them to the matt.
3. Pin the bottom leg with your free leg.
4. Pull the trapped leg out using pressure and gravity
5. Once free, Drop the knee to the mat and kick the legs, freeing the ankle from the 1/4 guard
   Move into side control

Because this move is so popular, the downside is that it can be countered easily as well. That doesn’t mean it’s not effective, it just means you better know what your oppoent’s response is going to be before he does it, so you can beat him to the position. Here are some tips and details to getting this pass.

• Twist your opponent up! Have the knees facing 90 degrees from the torso. Don’t let his knees go towards the ceiling, you want to make sure you don’t allow him to move around.
• Keep your head on the matt, and keep your shoulder pressure heavy. This will also keep them from being too comfortable to want to even think about a counter or escape.
• Stay high on your opponent. Don’t let him get his hand on your hip and push you down the body. It will make it harder to get your weight down.
• Keep your weight off to the side. Never let them control where your weight distribution goes. If your opponent can get underneath you, he can determine where he wants to take you. Keep your hips as low as possible.
• After you pass, use shoulder pressure as to not allow your opponent to turn into you. You want to be solid like a rock. No swaying, no momentum. Also, don’t put all your weight on the mat our knee, put it on your oppoent as much as possible.
• Always Smash, Smash, Smash!!!

I’m sitting here at my office watching a beautiul display of Jiu Jitsu in MMA at UFC on FOX. Mike Swick is taking on the always durable, Matt Brown.

In the first round, Matt Brown gets a nice takedown and starts working from the top. He’s able to secure a beautiful D’arce choke. In an interesting move, Brown falls to full guard in an attempt to finish the submission. On one hand, pulling guard with this move can control the opponents hips, not allowing them to get distance away from the choke. On the down side, it can take the leverage, and the ability to put your weight down from the top, into the choke. Swick, understanding his advantage, and ends up keeping Brown flat on his back. Brown is unable to get any torque from that position. He’s not able to get his weight on top of Swick’s head. If he could do so, forcing the chin to the chest, that could cut off the air, and the blood to the brain. Swick is then able to pull out of the choke and end up on top.

Continuing from guard, Brown now starts fishing for wrist control, looking for a triangle. He is able to force Swick’s arm through his leg, achieving the arm in/arm out position. From here, Brown is able to lock in a full on triangle. This is not a new set up, this is old school BJJ at it’s best. The advantage is, in MMA, when an opponent choses to throw strikes, they take their arm off their body, giving the bottom player the ability to control it.After the choke is in, Swick does an awesome job of defending. Knowing that Brown has to pull the head down and squeeze the legs together in order to finish him, he quickly throws both legs over Brown’s body to give him leverage to break the hold. As Swick extends his hips, and Brown is forced to let go. In an attempt to counter, Swick transitions into one of trademark moves, guillotine aka the “swick-o-tine” off the scramble. He’ wasn’t able to lock the hands together and finish. The lock is broken, and the round ends

Matt Brown goes on to K.O.’s Swick standing in the following round with a devestating combination, but it was a really exciting grappling match while it was on the ground. We’ll played sirs!

Alder Hampel
Head Coach 10th Planet Van Nuys
www.10thPlanetVanNuys.com

Over the last month, at 10th Planet Van Nuys, we’ve been working hard on our guard passing. If you have been keeping up with my blog, you’ll know how important I consider guard passing to be in our sport. See my post “Passing the Guard is 80% of Jiu Jitsu.” While working on our passing, many students will start to come up with combinations, details and even sometimes never before seen techniques on their own. This represents the “art” portion of the “martial arts.” I promote students to come up with a style that is unique to them. That way, they can express themselves as individuals. If we didn’t, we’d just see a bunch of robots, all doing the same moves night in and night out. I could see that getting boring really quick. There’s many kinds of shapes, sizes, attitudes, philosophies, techniques, likes, dislikes, and different attributes that can go into making up your style. The sheer number of possibilites in Jiu Jitsu can be mind boggling. This is what makes it exciting.

Below is a cool combination of 2 techniques that flow right into each other. Mr. Mike “Lobes” Frausto and his training partner, Huge, go over one of the guard passes we’ve been working in class. He added to that one of his favorite submission set ups that he learned from the Mendes Brothers, the flyover anaconda choke. Some moves work better together than others. When done right, they can flow seamlessly. Other moves take more tweaking to make them work as a sequence. It’s all a process of seeing what works.

This technique below just so happened to be one of those moves that worked out well. We were excited to show it off after its discovery during a brain storming session, one sunny afternoon in the San Fernando Valley. I hope you enjoy it!

Coach Alder Hampel

10th Planet Jiu Jitsu Van Nuys

If you’re loving what you’re seeing and you’ve wanted to get into Jiu Jitsu, call us now for a free trial! You’ll be on your way to creating your own style in no time.

(818) 925-JITS (5487)

As of recently I was perfectly happy with the rule set in BJJ. Alright, I lied a little bit, I’m really unclear as to the system of advantages that the IBJJF use. It’s not for a lack of trying to figure them out either. So, maybe I’m not completely happy with that, but otherwise, I’m ok with it. I think there’s always going to be a place for the point system. It system was put into place to make a game out of self defense so we could compete against each other so see who the best martial artist was. This can lead into the whole self defense vs. sport bjj argument which I’m not going to get into today, that a different topic. The point system represents moving into a more advantageous position. The idea is if this were the streets or a fight of whatever, we would theoretically be able to inflict more damage without sustaining as much, thus we’d be “winning the fight.” By no means is it a perfect system, but it was the best we had.

Lately there’s been a string of great “submission only” tournaments. The rules in these tourments are simple. The person who wins by submission wins, and continues in the tournament. If there is no submission, both competitors lose. It may seem harsh, but there’s some definite advantages to this style of competition. Here’s a few things that I like.

1. Submission only cuts down on “grey area” wins. There’s a ton of arguable calls in jiu jitsu. Many times refs aren’t 100% sure what the rules are because they’re not very specific at times. What I call a pass, sometimes isn’t a pass to another referee. There’s too many subjective calls. This can leave fans, and competitors alike with a bad taste in their mouths. I can’t tell you how many people who may have otherwise gone to more competitions, either to watch or participate, were turned off by the whole thing, because of grey area calls.

2. Sub only discourages stalling. If you came to pass the guard, get 2 points and stall out the rest of the match, this kind of contest is not for you. We have a joke at 10th Planet Van Nuys about losing 2-0 to a wrestler. The wrestler who have little to no submission ability will enter a Jiu Jitsu tournament, take his opponent down, and then shut down for the rest of the match. I don’t feel doing the bare minimum, and laying on top of somebody represents winning. The term wet blanket was coined for these type of fighters.

3. Sub only promotes action! The idea is that in submission only tournaments, if you’ve trained for a month, paid an entry fee, dieted, cut weight, waited around for hours for your name to be called, you’re not going there just to lose. That mean’s you’re there to win, and the only way to win, is to go for submissions. If 2 combatants are in there trying to win, you’re going to see Jiu Jitsu at it’s most exciting.

4. It’s more fan friendly. Having fans will make the whole sport grow. If the sport grows, maybe we’ll see it in the olympics. Even if submission only was the gateway drug that led you to get into the point system eventually, wouldn’t that be good? If a casual fan goes to a tournament, they soon learn, even though they might have paid 10-20 dollars to get in, this tournament is not for them. Most of the time, you can’t see the clock, so you don’t know how much time is in the match. You can’t see the score cards. They’re usually set up so that only the competitors can see them. As a coach, I usually can’t even see them. In many cases, especially with advantages, fans don’t know the rules. Forget the fans, like I said earlier, coaches and competitors are unclear with the rules because of subjective grey areas. If there’s 6 matches going on at a time, and you are trying to watch 2 at the same time, if you look away and you miss points, you’re lost because you can’t see the score cards. Submission only takes all that away, either the match ends in submission and you see somebody tapout, or you see two people walk off the mat, not to return that day. It’s simple and easy to follow.

Now, I admit, sub only isn’t perfect either, it’s going to have shortcomings too. However, it does have some really great points. I’d love to start seeing more of the really big names in the sport come out for the sub only format, just like in Metamoris. The Gracie Worlds is coming up January 20th, in Los Angeles. Hopefully we’ll see a big turn out.

Coach Alder Hampel
10th Planet Van Nuys

This is continued from yesterday’s blog Passing the Guard is 80% of Jiu Jitsu!

Let’s say I pass the guard, mount, move to knee on bell, take the back, etc. I’m still going to have to avoid my opponent countering, and being put back into the guard. We’re constantly, passing, recovering, passing and recovering. There are in fact, very few times a person doesn’t need to be concerned, at least a little bit, with “passing the guard.”

My point is this, where should we be spending most of our time when we’re looking up new techniques, drilling, game planning, and practicing? I think I can make a good argument for activities revolving around the guard. I feel that much of your game, especially in the beginning should have the guard in mind. Many of your most sexiest submissions will be much easier to get once you’ve successfully mastered guard passing. It’s really one of the foundation of Jiu Jitsu.

I’m not here to change your game or to tell you what to do. All I’m trying to do is give a little insight. Take a step back, try to look at the game as a whole. Now ask yourself this; “How would working on my guard passing really help my game? If so, how? How could it help me as a bottom player, even if I don’t like to play top?” Now whatever your answer is, go to practice, and start coming up with some answers! If you come up with some arguments, let’s hear them, I’d like to open up a discussion on how you feel about it.

Coach Alder Hampel
10th Planet Jiu Jitsu Van Nuys

Passing the guard is 80% of the game of Jiu Jitsu! At least according to my not so scientific calculations. I didn’t spend anytime researching that number, I didn’t review any stats, I just declared it as of right now. How did I come to that conclusion? Well, the statement was made specifically to get your attention. Did it work? I guess I could have said something like, it’s 97.7% of the game, that might have been more shocking, but probably less believable. Anyways, now that I have your attention, let me get to my point.

Guard passing gives you freedom! I don’t want anybody telling me where I can and can’t go. The more options I have to move about the body, the more options I can go when I’m shut me down in one way or another. It will also give you the mobility to get into advantage positions, (mount, back, north/south). It will give you the ability to control, and submit at a higher clip, because your opponent has less tools from which to defend with. On the other side of the coin, being on your back, passing will keep you from being put in these bad positions. Knowing what the top player is going to do before he does it, will allow you to stifle, and counter.. Thus, keeping you safe, while putting them into worse positions.

Today, I can’t imagine a world where I can only use submissions from the topside of the guard. If you decide to bypass passing you’re limited to a very small game. You don’t have to pass to submit your opponent. D’arces, neckcranks and foot locks are all available. There’s some crazy kamikaze fly over or rolling techniques that are available as well. I look at these moves as shortcuts, and although you may be able to tap your opponents now, once people figure out that’s your game, they will be less likely to be taken off guard. I know this all too well from experience. When I first started Jiu Jitsu, I was all about the quick submission. I wanted to beat you as fast as I could. It was my own ego trip. I wanted to trick you with superior technique. When I watched Ken Shamrock heel hook Pat Smith at the inaugural Ultimate Fighting Championship, I wanted to be just like that! I thought if I could sub you quick with some wild foot lock, I wouldn’t need to get good at clearing the legs and passing the guard. It worked well for a while, but once guys figured out that was my schtick` I got crushed. Point is, there’s not substitution for hard work and consistency.

In Jiu Jitsu, the match always starts standing, right? Yes, and takedowns and techniques from standing are important, I wont dispute that. You don’t have to stay on the feet for very long however, even if the rules in a tournament require you engage, touch, or are even penalized for pulling guard. The fact is, if you want to nullify the wrestling advantage, you can pull guard, and butt scoot towards your opponent. So basically, if I trained since I was 5 at wrestling, and I got into a match with a jiu jitsu guy, and he just dropped to his bum, all that skill and experience would be taken from me at that point. Now, I’m forced to what? Play the guard passing game. Now if I’m the guy who pulled guard, I’m not playing the guard passing game right? No, actually that is incorrect, I AM playing the guard passing game. I’m having to defend the guard pass. Even if, simultaneously, I’m trying to sweep, I still have to make sure I don’t leave an opening for the top player to pass.

Guard passing can be overlooked quite a bit. I’ll see guys working on the latest and greatest techniques without any context of the big picture. Many times they’ll completely overlook how they are going to get to the technique they’re practicing. They’ll be practicing the move like it exists in a vacuum. I suggest this, whenever you work on a new technique, have an idea what would have lead you that position. Most times you can trace it right back to the guard. This kind of thinking is what builds great game plans because it forces you to connect the right techniques together in a series. ie takedown > guard pass> mount > armbar or guard pull > sweep > pass > americana. When this is done smoothly, and with efficiency you’ll get a beautiful chain of events that looks like a work of art.

Stay tuned for tomorrow’s blog for part 2!