At this point I’ve been training on and off for 2.5 years. For what it’s worth this is what I do for bjj defense. I’ve been focussed on this stuff and it’s been working pretty well for me. Everything I describe below has worked for me for gi, nogi, and mma. 

1.       Keep your hands up close to your chest with your elbows tucked in. It doesn’t matter if you are on your feet or on your back. Protect your head and face from strikes. If someone knocks you out they can have their way with you and none of the advice below will do you any good. 

 2.       Grip fight like a mofo. You have to intercept their hands and not let them establish their grips. If someone grabs your lapel, strip it right away. If someone grabs your wrist or sleeve, hand fight. If you let someone control one of your arms and latch onto your torso, you’ve already begun to lose the exchange. I learned this from taking 2 or 3 judo classes. 

3.       Don’t settle for bottom. If someone is halfway to taking you down, use your energy to defend the takedown and stay on top. Use whatever takedown defence you know. If you end up on the bottom it’s going to take even more energy to defend and get back on top. I got this from Niko Han. It really changed my grappling mentality and performance. 

4.       Never ever lie flat on your back. As soon as someone takes you down or passes your guard, get on your side and face them. On your side as in 90 degrees to the ground. Block the incoming cross-face using your closest hand while keeping your elbow tight to your body. Fight to block it. It’ll make your life much easier. I’ve read many articles to find the best posture for this, still experimenting. 

5.       If you are wearing a gi, your opponent mounts you and grabs a cross collar grip for a choke, turn your body towards the elbow of the attacking arm. I got this from Saulo Ribeiro’s book and it works amazingly well! When you turn your body towards that arm it takes away the angle of the choke. You have to do this as soon as you see them go for the grip. If you are late they will get their second hand in and you are done. 

6.       Whenever you feel a hand or forearm touch your neck, abort everything you’re doing and grab their attacking hand with a two-on-one grip. You have to respect the choke. It doesn’t matter what position you are in or if you are in the middle of your own set-up, abort everything and defend your neck. Even if you end up in an inferior position, you are still conscious and in the fight. Anytime I grab a two-on-one grip, I can use it to set up an escape. Another gift from Niko Han. 

[Update] My instructor Ritchie Yip showed me that if I grab the two-on-one in any position, i.e. bottom cross side, bottom mount, I can disrupt the offence of my opponent. They will eventually get frustrated and give me space in order to grip break. I mostly grab the two-on-one when I'm in four point or someone has my back. Now I'll experiment with it from everywhere. Great tip.   

7.       Keep your elbows and forearms tight to your body. If your elbows are flared out your opponent will arm drag you for takedowns, use it for upper body control, or arm lock you. Some people call it T-Rex arms or prayer position. For the last few months I’ve been doing the prayer position but clasping my hands together with a gable grip. This gabled prayer forearm posture has been money for me. 

If someone manages to grab one of my elbows or forearms, I can use the strength of both my arms to reel it back in. If someone manages to set up an armbar, the gable grip gives me an extra moment to react with the appropriate escape. I also pre-emptively hide my elbows by pinning the closest one to them, down to the ground. From this forearm posture I can keep my hands clasped together while I dig for elbow knee escapes, bridge and push off my opponent, roll to four point, escape from knee-on-belly, etc. 

Basically I’ve been moving my body like I don’t have any arms, it’s been working well for me and hasn’t hindered my game at all. I automatically return to this forearm posture even when someone attempts an armbar or triangle from their closed guard. 

8.       When some takes my back, I assume my forearm posture and defend any incoming chokes, then I get into what Saulo Ribeiro calls the Scoop. I slide my body down towards my feet and spread my legs out for base. If I’m too far down my opponent cannot choke me and my arm posture prevents any armbar attempts. From there I can work on my escape. 

Here’s a video of the Scoop:

9.       If I end up in four point, I don’t wait around for them to attack, I quickly get back on my feet at which point I can back away or drive in for a take down. In pure grappling matches, a lot of people stall and rest by turtling. If you turtle in a real fight your opponent can end the fight by throwing knees to the back of your head. Interestingly enough, most grapplers I’ve encountered don’t know how to react to this. Yet another gift from Niko Han. 

That’s all I know about defence for now. This doesn’t cover escapes, which is something I’m been working on as well. 

I'm really enjoying Saulo Ribeiro's book, Jiu-Jitsu University. I've been testing his defensive postures in training and they are working well for my game. I also like his approach and priorities to building a solid grappling game: defence > escape > positions/passing > submissions.

 

Men wanted for hazardous journey.  Small wages, bitter cold, long months of complete darkness, constant journey, safe return doubtful.  Honour and recognition in case of success.

 

The people I've met in the last two years were really interesting. Instead of going the school and college route, they all refused to grow up and did whatever-the-heck they wanted. DJs, photographers, decorators, designers, artists, musicians, boat captains, jiu-jitsu fighters and coaches, surfers, boxers, bloggers, chefs, divers, writers, tattoo artists, and more. Everything in their life revolved around the things they love. 

They made me wonder about how my life would've turned out if I had focussed more on my passions when I was younger, instead of following the school-college-conventional-work route. Maybe I should've continued cooking up a storm when I was a teenager and also found a way to race cars on a track. Maybe I should've kept playing the saxophone. In the last few years maybe I should have made videos about my travel adventures, and spent more time on photography. As they say, money follows passion, not the other way around.

I don't want to trade the life I've lived, but all this reflection made me think about how I'd like to raise my kids when I eventually have them. I don't think I'll push them towards college like my parents did to me. I'd ask them to follow whatever it is they feel like doing at the moment. Whatever it is, resolve to be amazing at it and pursue it at all costs. Wanna be an artist painter? Sure go nuts! Wanna become a pro surfer? Sure, if you don't mind working at McDonalds in the meantime. Wanna be a fashion designer? Totally, I'll help you find help! Wanna be a race car driver? Rad, I wanna manage your team! Screw what my mom says right? :P

Isn't that what we all want in the end? For happiness, passion, needs, work, calling, desire -to all align. What would you say to your kid? For your current choice of work, how did you resolve doing something you love versus doing something you know how to do?

And so it was on my desktop for a year, and so it was done. Staring at it everyday in  my office was enough to egg me to pursue all of my adventures last year. I'm not sure where or how this simple graphic was started but I'm glad I found it back then. The last time I did I: quit the rat race, quit my job, bought a plane ticket, lived on a beach, and found my girl. Each day I was happier and more excited than I ever thought possible.

I think it's time for me to stare at it everyday again. This time with different goals though: starting a company, spend more time with loved ones, travel endlessly, surf more, and train bjj to my heart's content. 

Cheers to you, and the relentless pursuit of your dreams.

Antandroy from Band-Originale on Vimeo.

Augh! I love Band-Original's work. Everytime I see their films I get so hyped up to travel, go on adventures, and film it all. So so def.

I'd love to have both companies as clients. Hey guys call me! We'll do big tings maan.

 

Note to self: Stop going out to buy new shit in the name of minimalist travel and weight savings. You don’t need to go out and buy a $300 backpack some blogger reviewed, just use the old bag you already have. It’s just a bag to carry your clothes and laptop.

You don’t need to buy a MacBook Air just because your two years old 13” Dell is 1-2 pounds heavier. If it suits your purpose just run it to the ground and buy a new one when the time comes. It’s gonna get banged up anyways.

You don’t need to buy ExOfficio undies, or SmartWool socks, or Icebreaker t-shirts. Your usual clothes will do just fine and are way more stylish than the ill-designed “travel clothes” you covet. They will take longer to hang dry but you’ll be fine.

No matter how fancy your new travel clothes are they will eventually break down from daily washing in the sink. When it’s time to throw away your clothes would you rather throw away your old shirt or your $80 Icebreakers? Only to be replaced by a $2 shirt you bought in an Asian market.

You definitely don’t need to buy new electronics to share (brag about) “the moment” with your friends on Facebook, because you’ll be too busy having fun meeting New Real Friends.

Trust me on this, I’ve been there. 

 

In November 2010 I joined my first BJJ competition.  It was the 2010 Indonesian Submission Championships in Jakarta.  It was a good looking event with roughly 100 fighters; some of which originated from other countries (Greece, Singapore, Brazil, USA, Poland, France).  Competitors were separated by weight classes; there were no belt or age divisions.

It was an interesting experience for me as I don’t usually take part in sports competitions.  Something about it turns me into a nervous over compensating trash talking idiot :)  Surprisingly I was able to calm my nerves and relax.  When I got nervous I ran around the venue or did some light rolling to get the energy out; which were great ways of staying warmed up.  Another thing that helped my nerves was that I didn’t put any pressure on myself to win.  I was mainly there for the experience. 

It pains me to watch it but here is the footage of my match (warning: boring :P).  I think the match was 8.5 minutes long.  I lost in overtime when my opponent mounted me and I couldn’t escape within three seconds.  It pains me not because I lost but because of the obvious mistakes I can see in hindsight. 

Things I’m actively working on to correct:

• Finishing the arm-in guillotine.  My technique was horrible, I was flat on my back and I was sending all my energy into his armpit instead of his trachea –WRONG! 
• Staying on top no matter what.  I shouldn’t have jumped guard on that retarded guillotine attempt.  I should have just sprawled him to the ground and tried another submission that I was more familiar with.  In all positions I should be more aggressive about staying on top.  Fighting from the bottom sucks, eff dat yo.
• Defending from bottom side control.  Work in progress for months now and still improving.  I want to be nearly impossible to submit in this position.
• Escaping side control.  I have a weeeak bridge and shrimp.  I’m focussing on correcting this every roll.  I’m doing isolation drills with full resistance to get the escape strategies and techniques down.  I’d prefer to get back on top instead of getting full guard.  I’m going to focus on this for the next three to six months!

Competing was a fun experience that I’d like to repeat.  For now it’s back to the mat to drill drill drill.  Thanks to my teammates & coach, gf & dad for their support :) 

I didn't realize how much I missed city life. Everything just works and order keeps things running smooth. And people don't pee in flower pots in malls.