Sometime ago I purchased the “Get a grip” and “Fundamentals Vault” tutorials from Chewjitsu. I’ll say this to you guys, as beginners, nothing replaces actual mat training. You absolutely have to get on the mats and work. However, these online training tutorials have proven extremely helpful in filling in gaps and provided more in depth insight into the techniques that we are taught.
Grips are a big thing in Brazilian Jiujitsu, but until more recently, I didn’t realize how useful and important they were to grappling. I started noticing while sparring that some my training partners, especially the skinnier guys who I could smash and outweighed were really good and clever with the use of grips. They’d trap me in all sorts of weird positions using my sleeves and collar. I started trying to figure out how to nullify these techniques that they were using, and that’s how I started to realize that I needed to get better at grip fighting. I’d heard of it, but having started with no gi bjj, I never fully understood how important it was.
So in this series, Chewy and Adam go through and demonstrate many scenarios involving grip fighting. More importantly, they address the actual concepts behind it. You get in depth explanations as to why you want this or that grip, why you don’t want to be in such and such grip, and etc. It’s something that you can watch over and over, and even if you are not training because of injury or whatever, you are still absorbing the concepts. I know that in my case these tutorials have been extremely helpful.
Every time I roll now, I can see the grips and what they do to me or for me. I also know that my training partners have to worry about my grips as well. So whether or not I have a submission, I’ve started to threaten by going for the collar and sleeves. Often times I know that I don’t have anything, but the idea is to bait them into thinking I do and then defending while exploiting those predicted movements to attack some other vulnerability or opening.
I keep saying it because it’s true, I’m not “good,” but I am much better than I was thanks to these concepts I’m learning. I know that I will continue to grow and improve on this journey and that’s super exciting. In closing, don’t underestimate the importance of grip fighting. If you’d like to learn more about this specific tutorial, go to Chewjitsu’s website and take a look around.
Just a life long New Yorker sharing the journey through my lens. Please take note of a post’s date. The views I express here are subject to change and evolving as I grow and learn.
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