In this episode, we revisit the question of maximizing open sparring. At most gyms, there's a portion of class dedicated to open sparring, and how to truly gain the most during that time. For beginners, we feel like most of open sparring is spent in so many positions, it can be challenging to close the loop on specific positions or lessons of what works and what doesn't. We discuss Jake's advice on how to ask questions and use conversation with our training partners to get the most learning from open sparring. Hope you enjoy!
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Check out Jake's Outlier Database to study match footage, get links to resources, and more.
Use the code "HELP" to get 10% off Jake's "Less Impressed More Half Guard Passing" instructional. Thanks for supporting the show!
Use code “BJJHELP” at submeta.io to try your first month for only $8!
Use code “SISUhelp” for 10% off our favorite mouthguards.
In this episode, we revisit the question of maximizing open sparring. At most gyms, there's a portion of class dedicated to open sparring, and how to truly gain the most during that time. For beginners, we feel like most of open sparring is spent in so many positions, it can be challenging to close the loop on specific positions or lessons of what works and what doesn't. We discuss Jake's advice on how to ask questions and use conversation with our training partners to get the most learning from open sparring. Hope you enjoy!
Join the waitlist for Sherpa, Josh's journaling app for athletes.
Check out Jake's Outlier Database to study match footage, get links to resources, and more.
Use the code "HELP" to get 10% off Jake's "Less Impressed More Half Guard Passing" instructional. Thanks for supporting the show!
Use code “BJJHELP” at submeta.io to try your first month for only $8!
Use code “SISUhelp” for 10% off our favorite mouthguards.
Hello, hey, jake, josh, what's up? Well, it's from two weeks into the new gym at Legion, so got some new questions for you.
Speaker 1:Nice Feeling it out, getting used to the schedule and everything.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly, getting used to schedule, getting used to the instructor, meeting new people, and the most top of mind question I have is about open sparring. We've kind of touched on this before, but at the last gym I went to I was just telling you before we recorded the last gym was like class ended and then when we went into open sparring it was like all right, we're going to throw some five minute rounds on. You know, last people on the mat just clean up, and it was very like chill, it was very like open and some people stayed on the mat for a really long time. Some people didn't, people left whenever they wanted, whereas at least the class I'm going to now, once the instruction ends and the positional rounds and when we go to open sparring, he'll throw on like a few, I think like six minute rounds, but then once it hits seven, 30, the round stop and everyone lines up on the wall and then like class ends and like the next class uses the mat.
Speaker 2:So it feels a little bit like open sparring, but it's still kind of structured and I think there's an expectation that everyone wants to just spar during that section and me, as a beginner, feel like I don't get as much out of open sparring, like too many positions happen. We have one minute breaks between them and I'm like trying to like maybe see if I can do more positional sparring, but I don't know if everyone's down, if it's the culture, it just seems like everyone's just straight up sparring during that section. So it's a long winded way of setting up my question, which is how do you suggest I get the most out of that that time at the end of class?
Speaker 1:Before we dive into that. I don't know why I didn't think of this before. How was the Craig Jones seminar? Have you, like, talked to anyone?
Speaker 2:Oh no, actually I haven't talked to anyone about it yet. Just happened on Saturday, but none of it was mentioned in class. And then in class we worked stuff. He, the instructor, didn't mention anything about Craig Jones.
Speaker 1:Okay so cool, I should ask from our last episode.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, that's a good point. I'm going to ask tonight when I go to class. I'm gonna see. You can see what's up.
Speaker 1:Cool. And then as far as sparring so you say you do positional rounds first and then you do sparring Do you feel like those positional rounds are like helping you quite a bit? You enjoy a position around a little bit.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so let me see if I can remember this correctly. I think the first class we did one minute rounds, starting from the position that we were working that day in class, and then we'll switch partners. This last class we did kind of like you know where there's like a bunch of students on the ground and then everyone lines up and like if you pass, then you get to be on the ground King and Hill or something like that. So we did that and, yeah, I do think the positional sparring is probably my favorite part. It's the open sparring where I feel like I don't get as much out of it.
Speaker 1:Right, yeah, it's trying to work through? Yeah, do you end up like on bottom, a lot in the open sparring, or yeah?
Speaker 2:Yeah, pretty much Most of the time I'm on bottom with people that are a lot better than me, and then people around my level or lower, like newer than me. I always start on bottom and then, if I'm able to sweep, I do play top. I've been trying, like there's one guy I sparred with who's been training for like six months. I just like let them pass my guard and, like you know, I try to escape, work on my escapes and, yeah, work the stuff I'm not as good at. So trying to make it more challenging for me, but yeah, yeah, it's tough.
Speaker 1:It's been a while since I've been in like that type of position. So, like just trying to put myself in your shoes a bit, yeah, like I would say like first things first would be maybe just like start communication with people, like kind of like we were talking about with Joseph Chen. That's kind of what I've been trying to think about a lot recently is like have someone better than you just like explain their thought process that they went through to pass your guard or something you know. Yeah, so if you could just like start that communication and then I think one it'll make better, you know, just like friendships, and a better just like relationship probably. But then two, theoretically, like if you wanted to ask and say, hey, would you mind doing like just positional sparring or something like that, like it would make a conversation like that much easier if your foot in the door was like hey, dude, that was sick.
Speaker 1:What was going through your mind, like when you just blew through my guard or whatever you know, yeah, cause you could even say like I tried to do this but I couldn't do it, like what was like can you give me some advice, kind of thing. Yeah, I think people are very open to talking about how cool their guard pass was or like whatever you know. So, yeah, that could be a cool way or a easy way to just like start communication and then hopefully you'll get something out of that. And then, two, it should like open the door for conversations where, if you don't feel like you're, you still don't feel like you're getting better and it's just like still a waste of time. It would make a conversation like, hey, would you mind at least like half the round, maybe like just continuing with the positionals that we were doing, and then we can like free spar the second half or whatever. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a great suggestion. Stroke their ego a little bit first and then say do you mind if we just positionally spar that piece?
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly, that'd be a really good way to go about it, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I like that. And these are like the subtle things that like one white belt could just open spar for like a year and the other person could just try doing this for a year, and I bet it would make a difference at the end of that year if you compared the two of them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think so too. I don't think we'll ever know, but I definitely think so yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, okay, I want to try that. So, yeah, if someone's better than me most of them are then I think I'll just work that, the thing that just went wrong for myself, Something that I can close that loop in my head of like, oh okay, this is why I keep getting passed this way and then get to actually practice it a little bit. Now, what about for the people who are, like you know, three months into Jiu-Jitsu and they want to open, like just spar?
Speaker 2:what do you think I should do with those guys? So far, I've just been letting them like pass my guard and then starting from there, right?
Speaker 1:Do you feel like that's been good? Do you feel like you've improved on your escape? Yeah, because.
Speaker 2:I do think it's. It is a little. It is good.
Speaker 1:I think it's actually I don't know, because on another part of the spectrum I could just try to retain my guard the whole time, like just sweep them in then, so hmm, yeah, personally, like the way I've tried to like I think it sounds good like oh, I can escape, you know this person who sucks, I can escape their side control, but when anyone good gets me in side control then I can't escape, you know.
Speaker 1:So it almost gives you like a false sense of confidence when you're escaping constantly like bad people. Yeah, and it might be more beneficial to try to close the loops, kind of like what you're talking about in the like earlier stages of guard retention, and make it like very hard for them to pass, which is going to be frustrating for them and they're probably going to be asking their friends. You know how to approach open sparring, because I don't feel like I'm getting anything out of it, but that I think would be best for you because you're probably going to get time to practice your escapes against good people and you're going to truly see like this is what it feels like to get stuck and I don't have a solution for this, like I need to figure it out, as opposed to like, oh, yeah, I'm good at getting out of side control and then like, no, you're not going to get out of side control, yeah, so, yeah, I would try to close the guard retention, like the earlier stages, into sweeps and then maybe you don't even have to like work too much from top. If you don't want to, you could just like not follow up on the sweep, don't do it like super obviously, you know, like yeah, but yeah, if you, if you didn't feel like getting the top position was going to be beneficial because you're like working on bottom position and closing, trying to close these loops from bottom position, it might be more beneficial to just like stick to that and yeah, yeah, those are my, those, my thoughts on it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I remember. What do you think about? I forget who I think was on Joe Rogan's podcast, but he said that when you're purple or brown, whether whatever you want to sharpen your offense, he said to just strangle blue balance. And like what does that apply to white? Or like is it? Are you not going to sharpen it Because the openings are way too big and you're not really that, I don't know. Are you going to get false positives from?
Speaker 1:white belts. Yeah, exactly, I think. I think blue belts will give you more reliable jujitsu reactions. There's not going to be like.
Speaker 1:I mean, when you say like bluebell, it's just like a super broad statement. So there are a spectrum of blue belts, but like the generic blue belt is probably not going to give you like the third and fourth, this defensive like layer. You know you might have to go like one or two layers in, whereas like a white belt it's like the first movie you try is just going to work or they're going to do something. That's just like completely not jujitsu. Yeah, yeah, like it's not a jujitsu based movement, you know. So I think the blue belt thing is kind of the middle ground where it's not like like a purple belt will probably be able to give you some like serious problems and you're not going to be able to like fine tune the like finishing mechanics and stuff like that as much as like a purple belt, whereas blue belts, theoretical, you should just be able to just do whatever you want. Still, you know, if you're like good, Right, right.
Speaker 2:That's the white belt dilemma.
Speaker 1:It's like the blind leading the blind, kind of right, exactly Because then we see that like knee wrestling is like oh yeah, I did really well today. It's like you're just knee wrestling the whole time to get like on top of side control, you know yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And jujitsu that's the white belt struggle, I think, or a part of it is. We're especially if it's like white belts sparring with each other and then we both walk away like oh yeah, you know, I did these things really well, but it's completely wrong. So actually that's a good question. Do you think it's more beneficial for white belts to roll with people higher skilled than them or lower skilled?
Speaker 1:if you had to pick, I think it probably be higher, just for, like, safety purposes.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it is probably discouraging for the white belt though. So it's probably beneficial to sprinkle in some people that are not as good as you, just to keep it fun and encouraging, because if you're just the first two years, you just go and you're like I'm going to get smashed today. It's going to be hard to keep going back. So, yeah, yeah, I would say you're probably going to get better if you train with people better than you as a white belt. But yeah, if you're, if you're on the fence about going or not every night, then it's probably better to what do you think about?
Speaker 2:if I train with people, you know, when I say, hey, how long you've been training? It's like the first question I always ask everyone when we start to spar. And if it's like six months or less, maybe I should just try stuff that I'm like knew at, like that I'm like learning, like things that I just don't normally go for, maybe what?
Speaker 1:do you think? What is that like I?
Speaker 2:never go for arm bars, I never go for Kimora's. I'm still like trying to piece together some of this half guard stuff, like I don't spend a lot of time in pseudo half guard, maybe like trying to sit in pseudo and like go to like low chest to chest or I don't know. Yeah, someone like the bee game or whatever you would call it. What do you think about that approach?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that's that's one way to approach it. But the other way to approach it would be that your your a game in quotation marks is not working against good people, you know, and Also use it to sharpen your a game. So, yeah, I maybe Maybe you would split it up and maybe, exactly like you were talking about, maybe you practice your a game from bottom position and then when you get to top position, you can try and do new stuff like the pseudo thing, and then, when it doesn't work, you just end up back on bottom and then you sharpen it again to get back on top. You go through the, the marination cycle.
Speaker 2:That's true, it's a good point. I remember Lex Friedman saying that there was one time he was trying to get to like I don't know 500 butterflies so you sort of, and he would just sweep. He wanted to stay on bottom. They've come back and you just sweep them again, which is pretty funny.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. I try not to make it like super obvious, but, uh yeah, if I'm, if I'm working something on bottom, I'll. I'll try and stay on bottom right as long as possible.
Speaker 2:Right, right, yeah, yeah. It is kind of funny these, these conversations like just trying to squeeze every little bit out of that mat time right, yeah, yeah, I feel like uh, people in our shoes.
Speaker 1:I mean, how many times a week do you train nowadays?
Speaker 2:right now it's two. I was training three, but I have so many weekends booked that it's two. I think I'd like to get back to three at least.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah but I feel like the you know the two to three day the week, people are kind of in that that boat where it's like you don't have just like the, the mat time to just kind of like let things happen. You have to be very like deliberate with the way you approach it. Yeah, if you want to, you know, get the most out of it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly, it's the ultimate hobbyist. We have so much time off the mat that we have time to think about what we want to do on the mat, you know.
Speaker 2:So that's probably most of the people listening to the podcast, and I've been thinking a lot about like, why am I in jiu-jitsu, like, and I think, yeah, it's like it's, it's an awesome hobby and Ultimately, I think it's the better understand myself through this process and like see how, like, lessons in jiu-jitsu Can translate off the mats and stuff like that. So, yeah, I think it's fun to it's fun to observe myself in the learning process and trying to like maximize these things.
Speaker 1:It's like a fun puzzle. Yeah, it is it never ends.
Speaker 2:It never ends, yeah, so it's cool to balance these things off of you. What do you do during Open? Inspiring at the at the monist no, not the monastery at the temple.
Speaker 1:Well, right now I am working a lot on this kind of like high step and Nikki Ryan just released the instruction on high step passing to body lock passing. So I want to check that out. But kind of like the high step passing that Gordon Ryan was doing against Patrick Adios, what I've tried to been trying to work on during Open Inspiring, but I'm also working on that during the positional stuff too, and I'm in like a unique situation because I can basically just pick whatever we want to work on. So, yeah, everyone just kind of follows whatever I want to do. So, yeah, we went from, like the tripod, joseph Chen, body lock passing to the high step passing that Gordon was doing, and then Nikki Ryan released an instruction on how to incorporate high step with body lock passing. So it seems to be like a natural progression to try and link these things. But we haven't spent too much time on either of them. So I'm thinking I'm going to spend more time.
Speaker 1:But Sam, my wife, she's been going to and she just kind of sits out during Inspiring and she commented how it kind of just plays right into what you're talking about, how, like what, generally no one does what like we tried to do in class, like they'll get into like guard passing positions and they'll just do what they normally do. She was like I think you're the only person who like tries to do it and like doesn't necessarily work, but like at least I tried to do it. She was like yeah, I didn't see anyone else like actually try the move that we were practicing in class and it's like from a super common position. So yeah, I think just you can. You can go into free sparring with the mindset of being intentional, not just like this is ADCC trials, I'm going to go ham and we'll see what happens, kind of thing you know, totally yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, my intention for class lately I just write on my notes has been to practice the bottom half guard, like the relationship between high knee shield, low knee shield, the upper body control and butterfly half, and so that's just like I just start on bottom and like just try to lure them into half guard, basically every single time.
Speaker 2:But yeah, I wanted to see if I can take it a step further, because obviously not everyone decides to play into my half guard like super lazy on my back position. How has that been going? It's actually been going well. I, yeah, the last class. Yeah, it's so I've been able to like I try to attack their arms when I'm on the forearm or the near arm.
Speaker 2:Both. Actually I've been messing with both and then from there trying to get them in the pinch headlock and then to get the butterfly hook in and then to go for the shoulders, the shoulder crunch, sweep, yeah, yeah. So that's been like what I've been trying to force everyone down lately. It doesn't always work, but I've been. I've noticed I've been feeling more comfortable in the knee shield when I have that arm, like I can survive there longer until I get my knee shield smashed and then I get passed. That's like the most common way. Still, yeah, or they just disengage, lose, pass, and then I'm inside control. So I got a lot to work on there too.
Speaker 1:Right, yeah, maybe we can do better again. Ignore him, you have a security blanket, you know, like you have a first checkpoint where you're like, oh, if I can get control over this arm, then like I can survive a little bit. Yeah, it's an important battle. Yeah, yeah, but you've kind of checked in your in your head. Yeah, you just got to keep going down the list and Get more boxes. Yes, Exactly.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, that parts one. And then I I am also excited about the possibility of getting some mats in the backyard and then just picking out a few people or whoever wants to Come hang and then do a lot more like positional stuff, or or even like put on Greg Souters YouTube video of like his foundations class and then literally just like follow that for for like a session to see if people are down. So that could be another way to take matters into into my own hands, I guess.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly, start with a stroking people's egos.
Speaker 2:That's the whole. That's the whole lesson today stroke people's egos and then ask for what you want. Life lessons better get you far in life. Exactly awesome, oh, cool, yeah, sure and sweet. I think that makes sense. I'm gonna test that out tonight.
Speaker 1:Sounds good. Yeah, looking forward hearing about the results and let me know what people say about Craig Jones. I kind of want to hear about how that seminar went.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I'll let you know. Yeah, I'm sure we'll be talking more about this. Joseph Chen, like this how to have more conversation with your training partners. Yeah, that's something I'm trying to dive into more as well. So cool, yeah, exciting stuff All right, all right later Jeff. Cool, see you, jake.