tallgeese

Getting the building set up was our biggest headache at the outset. We ended up with more of a build out than anticipated. This can get expensive fast. It can also destroy your time. We were about three weeks behind schedule for our opening. Which doesn't sound like much, but it made us miss the first of the year fitness crowd. We too started with a solid enough student base on the adult side. The kids were a different story. Building a program up from what is essentially scratch is difficult as well and can be mentally wearing. Lastly, personnel issues can fatigue you. Instructors that may or may not fit your vision either have to be on board or move on. This can be difficult and possible fracture the club. Healing these wounds can take time.

Busy couple of weeks between work and the gym. Broke down escaping bottom positions last week and focused on those that have been focused on during this training cycle. This week's been about attacking from back mount. Muay Thai is still going forward. Class is growing and I'm having a blast! In PTK we finished up some doble work and moved this week into a bit of cross training in Ilustrisimo so the students could see another take on Kali.

Really neat stuff! Thanks for the insight. I really like that there's still small, family based lineages of things out there. The fact that they are this unique is even more fascinating.

Congrats! Well done!

I get where you're coming from here. Don't overlook the possibility of hanging a bag from your garden space though. It can be great for a fast few rounds that you might not otherwise get and is much less space invasive. Put up a makawara or two in a manner that doesn't eat up space and suddenly you've got a pretty good spot for a fast workout within paces of a fridge for the post-workout beverage of your choice.

I can't agree more. Get off the mat occasionally. It's needed. I used to train every time I was out of town for anything. Now I generally leave my stuff at home and just take time off.

Great question! Anything you choose needs to be directed by your needs, that's going to really drive what you cross train in. It sounds like you're looking to plus up your kicks. With that said, focus on those arts that are known for specializing that might also give you another look at the rest of the stand up game. I can't recommend Muay Thai enough for what you're asking for. The mechanics of stance and strategy will be different enough that you'll really enjoy learning a different theory for the same venue. Also, it has some dynamic kicking beyond the shin to the quad everyone automatically thinks of. Having just picked this up recently by adding it to the line up of our gym has been fantastic and I think you'd benefit. As with anything, look for good quality control and an instructor who true get the authentic version of the art. If you're really looking at the point circuit, and people that know me will be shocked I throw this out, look at a good TKD school. Again, different strategic goals but focused in the realm you're looing at and quite frankly they have some magnificent kicking. Let us know what's around you and what you end up trialing. Good luck.

Welcome to KF! Think about posting a lot and sticking around. it can get pretty interesting.

Thanks! Yeah, another school in town I was looking at a while back had this problem. He seemed to be linked to the gracies, even held a seminar their once, but when you dove into the masters history, he was just a retired cop with a judo background. If all you know have Judo and police self-defence, they why not sell it as such? It seemed to be the kind of school that would hop on every bandwagon that would put gis in the dojo. Don't tell me you teach Judo, BJJ, MMA, Systema, Krav Maga, and AIkido if you only have BJJ, MMA, and a single Judo class a week. Its great if you KNOW these arts, but if you don't have classes dedicated to it, I'm going to assume you're just trying to sell me on resume alone. The whole place gave me a bad vibe, and I ended up in Karate, which is why I am THRILLED to discover a BJJ school, a seemingly REAL one, in town. Don't get it twisted, Karate is a wonderful art, and my school is a great school with a knowledgeable master and plenty of talented black belts, and a great kids program for my son... but I'm a judo guy, and frankly, Karate is just kind of boring in comparison. I need to get back into grappling, striking arts just are not my cup of tea. I feel like I'm mentally and physically designed for grappling. Any more word on checking this place out Judodad?

Control achieved; difficult to escape! While the pressure oriented one has its merits, it ties up, even if for a moment, the arms to maintain the pressure! If I understand the question... The pressure leaves, imho, little for error because the arms are engaged just to long and can stall the pinning transition beyond more than I care for. Typically traditional (and non-traditional) striking artist really like the knee in position to strike from. The ability to control with the knee and one hand while the other fires shots is often cited as a benefit of the position. From a grappling perspective, the fluidity of the position is also lauded to keep up with, and control bottom motion while being able to take advantage of opportunities given.

Personally, I don't see any overarching principles. I see necessary arching principles to achieve there separate goals. One is to initiate an escape to gain working orientation, while the other resets into a more favorable position after the escape. I immediately observed the sensitivity of both in the initial approaches to fuel the escape, and that was that either of them ran the risk, and a sensible risk, of having the movements stalled immediately, therefore, the initial plan for either escape might've been foiled. I think there are some commonalities. Regardless of direction of escape, the ability to turn one's hips is critical. It's one of those things in jiu jitsu that is almost universal, the ability to move the hips into an advantageous posture. I'd agree wholeheartedly with you assessment on the differences and observations of them. Very nice.

Welcome aboard!

Awesome news! Congrats and thank you for sharing!

9/20 Thanks, Brian! Yeah, it's still proceeding well. I appreciate the power and aggressiveness of the art. Also, the conditioning is second to no art I've been in. Crazy. I'm also seeing why this version of kickboxing leads so well into MMA given the ranging options of striking and the sweeping, very ballistic, takedowns. It's been a really good thing for me. I'll keep doing it as long as my family and beat up body allow me. Last week was a jits week of knee in position and Z mount. Fun stuff. PTK was off due to some scheduling at work.

Here's some material that we worked on last week. We talk about transitioning to knee in belly position from side and work the details of the far side arm bar. Check it out: Now, with that said, what do traditional artist see as a benefit to the knee in position? How do you feel about this transition vs. a more pressure oriented one? How about the advantages vs. the disadvantages of pressure vs. the pinning transition we show here? Just some thoughts for discussion. Have at it.

Minimums?!?! Godan, but nothing lower than Sandan!! One that's NOT a beginner of said MA!! Knowledge is everything, and a beginner lacks a lot of that knowledge; while a Sandan, and for surely a Godan, meets the minimums in spades!! But who sets these standards? Are they set in stone, or are they just the standards you grew up with, are familiar to you, and therefore, are the ones you stand by? To me, in many more "traditional" styles, this adherence to "this" way or "that" way is what shuts many people off to occurrences like this young man and his school. We are only open-minded to so many things. Here's part of what bushido man is getting at with his points (which are spot on) about blues and purples in BJJ. If Godan were the minimum for opening a school, you'd have like 10 in the country. Let's do the math. Figure 8 years for a bb. That's just a rough figure. Certainly lots of people have taken longer (two decades ago 10 was a minimum.) Now, for 1-3 stripes on that you're looking at 3 years each. That's 9. 5 years each for 4 and 5. That's another 10. So, just at bb you're 19 years in. Now, let's put our 8 back in for the non-bb ranks and you're at 27 years of study before you start teaching at your own school. 30 is probably closer because of time off, injury, variance in promotion, etc. Now, 18 is the minimum age for bb in most systems. 19 to 20 is more normal, but heck, lets use the minimum. You're then looking at a dude (or gal) that's between 45 and 48 before he can even open a school. I think by most standards we'd say that those standards are a bit excessive. Particularly considering that so much of the art is rolling. We let people with PhD's start teaching at colleges as soon as they graduate. Doctors, even surgeons are practicing prior to 30, and they're taking on residents to train. So, for the system, 5 stripes is just logistically out. That said, I'm not a huge fan of such a young blue running a school. But heck, a friend of mine pulled it off in an area where no other jiu jitsu was so, who knows. Like Bob says, it's up to the organizational heads. With BJJ being much less organized that other arts it's not surprising that things like this pop up. At the end of the day, it's a self policing art as well. As long as he's up to the grade, he won't get beat down over it. As to the market supporting a young man like this running a school...time will tell.

I'm not sure anything truer has ever been posted on any board ever! As with most systems, BJJ has seen its share of pushes for this. Each time it inevitably causes a lot of bad blood with very little, if any, gain. It still hasn't caused some of the branching that eastern arts have had to deal with systemically but I figure it's a matter of time.

Our belt system runs White, Blue, Purple, Brown, and Black. Each belt gets 4 stripes. Time frames vary even within schools. 15 years ago 10 plus years was very common to black belt. That was also a time frame where black belts were few and far between. Now days, times have compressed somewhat. Some purest will argue that this is a degradation in quality. I think one only has to look at the product that is being put out there to realize that this is not the case. Jiu jitsu practitioners are getting deeper and more technical at each rank with each generation of artist. It's due to the number of training opportunities and sheer access to black belts early in one's career. That said, it's still a big time commitment. For us, you can figure about 2 years per rank. So it comes out to about 8 years to black belt. That's about six months per stripe. As I inherited from my instructor, if I'm doing my job as a coach there's no reason you standard student who attends class 2-3 times per week can't attain a full rank in two years. Some schools will use competition as a benchmark, personally, I could care less if someone competes or not. It's just not my thing. But for some people it's important. So you're getting into the Purple Belt rank about the 4-5 year mark that many Eastern arts get you to Black Belt in (so there is some correlation to the offset of rank) but there's a ton of variability there as well. It's important to note that unlike many arts, one does not enter the Black Belt ranks in BJJ at 1st Dan. You go in with a Black Belt. After 3 years (roughly but not before) you get promoted to a first stripe on the Black Belt. So by the time one lands the first dan rank you'll have 11ish years into the system. It's at this point you can make Black Belts yourself (although at Black you can rank up to 4 stripes of Brown in the organization I'm part of.) Hope that answers some of the questions. Thanks for that. I used to work with a guy who studied BJJ. He studied for about a year when I left that job. Being a former Army Ranger and employee at West Point, you think he'd be big on rank. He had no clue when promotions were held and how long the time frames were. In a good way, he just trained and didn't care about it. His teacher/dojo owner was a purple belt. Not knowing the system or rank structure, it was a red flag for me. That CI was also a 4th or 5th dan in judo though. That dojo's policy was only a black belt can promote students, regardless of the students' rank, so they had to wait for the CI's teacher to come in. It was one of the Gracie's system, but I can't remember which; one of the R's, but not Royce or Rickson. Speaking of which... Is there uniformity/standardization among the different BJJ schools, such as in judo, or is it more along the lines of karate where every school seems vastly different in techniques and rank/promotion standards? I only know a handful of people who've studied BJJ formally (non-MMA integrated); most didn't last longer than a year or two. I'm pretty sure the Army Ranger is still active in it, but I haven't talked to him for about 3 years now. Purple Belt as an instructor rank in BJJ isn't the red flag that it is in a lot of systems. Remember, we're talking about a 4-5 year training commitment at that point. It's getting more and more rare these days, just due to the proliferation of Black and Brown Belts. However, it's still not unheard of. Heck, I know a Blue Belt in a neck of the woods without ANY BJJ instruction that opened a place of his own. His coach is a Purple Belt who answers to a well known Black Belt in the nearest (using the term loosely) metropolitan area. Some people would get worked up about that, except he's won every major at White and Blue belt after a 5 year stint doing no-gi. It can be subjective. Speaking of, there is little in the way of standardization across groups. Largely due to the different focus of each school. Some people make competition a standard, some demand time served, others expect that fights get taken. It's a broad range. There are standards within groups, but even some of those aren't written down. Generally speaking, if you're hanging with the next rank AND you've got the right amount of time in (which again varies) you're going to be a candidate.

Our belt system runs White, Blue, Purple, Brown, and Black. Each belt gets 4 stripes. Time frames vary even within schools. 15 years ago 10 plus years was very common to black belt. That was also a time frame where black belts were few and far between. Now days, times have compressed somewhat. Some purest will argue that this is a degradation in quality. I think one only has to look at the product that is being put out there to realize that this is not the case. Jiu jitsu practitioners are getting deeper and more technical at each rank with each generation of artist. It's due to the number of training opportunities and sheer access to black belts early in one's career. That said, it's still a big time commitment. For us, you can figure about 2 years per rank. So it comes out to about 8 years to black belt. That's about six months per stripe. As I inherited from my instructor, if I'm doing my job as a coach there's no reason you standard student who attends class 2-3 times per week can't attain a full rank in two years. Some schools will use competition as a benchmark, personally, I could care less if someone competes or not. It's just not my thing. But for some people it's important. So you're getting into the Purple Belt rank about the 4-5 year mark that many Eastern arts get you to Black Belt in (so there is some correlation to the offset of rank) but there's a ton of variability there as well. It's important to note that unlike many arts, one does not enter the Black Belt ranks in BJJ at 1st Dan. You go in with a Black Belt. After 3 years (roughly but not before) you get promoted to a first stripe on the Black Belt. So by the time one lands the first dan rank you'll have 11ish years into the system. It's at this point you can make Black Belts yourself (although at Black you can rank up to 4 stripes of Brown in the organization I'm part of.) Hope that answers some of the questions.

That's a great question- and a big one. As others have said, we all seem to be answering different aspects. I'll take a stab at my short list. Let's face it, being an instructor, and a good one on top of that is a tall order and we demand a lot of our coaches. However, we have to have realistic standards that work in conjunction with the high standard of learning we expect. First up, the instructor MUST love his/her art. There is no substitute. You will instantly tell if they fail at this. It will filter down thru the rest of the items that I think are big. Next, they HAVE to deeply understand the art. Or, in the case of beginning or intermediate level instructors be on their path to that. Superficial understanding will not do. Modern adult learning theory functions on the "why" not just the how. They will be able to transmit the information. That means they have a handful (at least) methods across the major styles of learning for individuals. This is very individualistic so it's hard to say they "must" do anything. This is where you'll start to develop the next couple of traits: They must be likable and the students have to feel like they "fit" in the environment the instructor sets. You'll note, this particular step will depend on personality AND how the student's learning style matches the instructors. That will be a driving factor in how comfortable they feel. Therefore, the way an instructor masters the first three items I listed will drive this. Note that if there is no failure here if an instructor doesn't keep a particular student. The relationship here is specific and should be for optimal learning. Once we're past here, we become very specific on character that will be a moving target from student to student. Some will demand certain standards, some will not. Outside of felony level, crimes against persons kind of pasts not much will completely disqualify a person. Certainly, individuals that could still be a threat to others is out. But really, that's about it thats REQUIRED. Now, if certain people won't train with someone who....insert whatever personal item here. Then that's their business and no worries. Everyone's scale will slide. For me, I've trained with great artists who were great people and fantastic instructors. I've also trained with amazing artist who were fantastic instructors and really pretty questionable in personal moral conduct. But I learned a ton of great fighting tactics from them, like serious real-world, holy crap I might die in this situation, kind of tactics. But they met my first 4 criteria. There's no wrong answer for where you set this bar on the last one, but it really doesn't influence instructional capability.

This past week we looked at escape from bottom side thru the lens of recovering guard. As we moved into the latter portions of the week we looked at unexpected methods to do this. While we shot our weekly footage, one of our affiliate Brown Belts with a strong wrestling background was over and we did this little compare and contrast video: So, take a look at the two techniques. Tell me what overarching principles you see displayed. What differences drive options in each? Any observations?

Hey all, we shot some video last weekend when a couple of guys who run an affiliate school earned his Brown Belt in BJJ after a really extended period of study. The journey to this level in any art can be a grind. In BJJ it can be even longer with 60 percent of that time (at least) dedicated to executing under live conditions. It's a giant milestone. Here are some thoughts on what goes into a Brown Belt beyond just the technical considerations: Comments, thoughts, etc are always welcome!

Awesome!

9/13 Busy of late so I've been training by not getting the chance to jump on here. On a recent note, I've gotten the chance to add Muay Thai to my schedule. We have a sister school sending an instructor to our academy every week now who has exceptional experience in the art! That means I get to really see what authentic Muay Thai looks like from its traditional teaching methods. So far, I can say I'm impressed!

I agree with the consensus here- get one! The role they play in concussion prevention is large. Not to mention the high dollar value of most dental work. That said, I don't go overboard with custom models. I've survived quire well for most controlled sparring with the higher end "boil and bite" models even though they are less than ideal.