Ask a black belt a question, ANY question!
Hey guys, I need your help!
I am getting ready to start a very cool project that will be launched in the near future. The project will involve asking many different black belts a group of questions in hopes that they can share their journey in Brazilian Jiu-jitsu as well as provide insight, inspiration and motivation for our own paths in the art.
What I would like from you is to take a second and think of some questions. The questions should be related to BJJ in some way. Each time I interview one of the black belts I will pick one of the questions I received from you guys. I’ll also give a shout out to the person who sent the question.
With that said, please send your questions to chewjitsu@gmail.com with the subject of the email as “Blackbelt Questions”. Also, please include some basic info about yourself (Name, Location, belt level, gym that you train in) so that I can give a shout out to you.
Thanks for your help guys!
Hi
I have a question regarding rolling with higher belts. I started BJJ in January this year. It feels like I’m holding back whenever I roll against higher belts. I’m much more inclined to go for position and submissions when rolling with fellow white belts but the opposite is true for higher ranked belts. I’m much more hesitant and tend to defend, counter everything they do instead of focusing on what I should be doing. Not sure if it is because I respect the higher belt or if I’m scared they are holding back and that I might get smashed when going too hard or scared that I do something stupid. Maybe it’s a combination of all of it? What would you recommend I do, it feels like I’m holding myself back?
I do try and roll with higher belts whenever I can, so I’m not scared of them just a lot more cautious.
Thanks for the awesome Youtube content!
Good morning from Buenos Aires! I had a recent and very unpleasant situation during our drilling session with my coach. I’m a white belt with less than a year of practice. I’m a loud, extrovert person and I’m always making pussy/dick/fart jokes (so as the rest of our crew). There is a very strange situation in my country right now where the left and the right side of our political culture are extremely divided, intolerant and often times aggressive to each other. My mestre or coach is a right-wing, conservative-oriented person whilst I stand in the more progressive area of politics. Last night he and I were drilling a very simple but crucial move that is the mount escape where you have to unscrew yourself out with your elbows, upa, trap one arm, trap one foot, bridge up and enter his full guard. After that, the drill consisted of breaking his full guard, slide your arms into his waist, grab him and put him on his head and finally get his back, reverse kesa gatame, side control, etc. Many options at that point. The point is that he crushed me on the first try. We weren’t fighting (he’s a Nova Uniao black belt). We were drilling. But right in that moment where I was pinned over my head, he pushed downwards with a ton of force and almost fucked up my neck and definitely tore one of my muscle strings in my abdomen. Needless to say, I don’t know what to do. I don’t know if I should talk to him to put all differences aside or just look for another academy. That’d suck though but at this point, I’m not sure what’s the right move. Anyways, I’d like to hear your thoughts on this one and I’d like to thank you again for taking the time! Peace!
I’m sorry to hear about that unfortunate incident with your coach. That sounds terrible.
What makes you think that your political beliefs caused the strange aggresisve nature of your coach? I’m curious.
Good question! We have a chatroom on Whatsapp where we share our thoughts about various things. Politics is one of them. I asked politely if we could leave politics aside and then this happened right the next day. Maybe is just a coincidence.
Hi, Chewy,
More of an MMA question. I’m going to be a cornerman for the first time this weekend. Do you have any good advice about being a good cornerman and giving the fighter usable info during the fight?
If they’re on the ground, is it best to shout advice or warnings of what the opponent is attempting?
The fighter is my coach. He’s 0-3 in pro fights, but he’s won 3 amateur bouts.
Thanks in advance,
Marek (BJJ White Belt)
Hi
I have a question. If you cover this in your youtube videos please can you email me to let me know?
Ok so here is the question.
Yesterday, in our club I was rolling with a female white belt. I am about to become a blue belt (next month). In the roll I made a conscious effort to roll easy. Not too easy as to offend the person but I did not want to go 100%. We rolled for 6 minutes I did not try to submit her just played on positional stuff, sweeps and mainly defence and allowed her to try her techniques on me rather than to completely smother and overpower her.
Then as I was sitting out the next roll I was watching people roll and I noticed she was rolling with another white belt (soon to be blue belt) who is around 100kg in size and he was absolutely smashing her ruthlessly. I didn’t see the entire roll as I was watching other people roll as well but saw him submit her at least 3 times one of them being a nasty ezekiel choke from the mount. I was sitting there thinking, WTF mate?
But then I started reflecting and thinking actually did I do this person any favours by taking it easy? Is it better for her (in terms of her bjj development to get absolutely smashed)? As I am getting more experienced I find that with less experienced guys whom I know I can submit 3+ times a roll I take it easy and I dont actually try to submit them at all. I just work on my positional stuff or new stuff that I am not able to try on higher belts. I also let them play their game so they enjoy the roll rather than get smashed and submitted multiple times.
So my question really is what is your advice around this? Is that girl in our gym yesterday going to learn more from getting smashed by this 100kg guy or should we be taking it a little bit easy?