2125 Staples Mill Road, Richmond VA 23230 (804) 657-7461 :: Richmond, VA Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu

Revolution BJJ at US Grappling VA Beach

Andrew — Mon, 13 May 2013 16:07:57 +0000

Congratulations to Revolution BJJ students who made the short trip to compete in VA Beach last weekend! Dax Estep had a good day, bringing home 2 golds and 2 silvers (Dax is pictured, center). Tony Patrick had a good experience in his white belt divisions, bringing home 2 of his own medals (silver and bronze) and staying safe this time out (previous tournament left Tony injured and off the mats for several months)!

The next tournament Revolution BJJ will participate in full force will be US Grappling 100 coming up in Richmond. Come cheer on 20 or 30 participants from the gym as we vie for another school title at a very competitive event!

7 Ways to be a Great Jiu Jitsu Student

Andrew — Fri, 10 May 2013 20:02:26 +0000

If you’re interested in becoming better at Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, it’s in your best interest to become a great student. Here are seven quick concepts that can help you get the most out of your training! Note that this is the flip side of the coin of the article we recently published, “The Art of Teaching BJJ.”

1. Come in ready to learn
Ego is a powerful tool. It can be extremely useful in motivating you to train, getting over rough spots, or simply showing up to class every day. Unfortunately, it’s also extremely dangerous. It can get in the way of the learning process if you’re assuming you know how to do something better than your instructor, or if you waste time arguing that you can’t do a particular technique, or if you set a bad example for the other students in the class by discussing how you’ll never use these techniques while your instructor isn’t around. This article sums this concept up very well, and it’s well worth reading if you have a few extra minutes.

2. Be consistent
Ever heard the saying, “a black belt is a white belt who doesn’t quit”? Well, it’s true. The expert consensus as to how to get better at BJJ is most resoundingly to show up and train. It’s a little bit more complicated than that, though- there’s more to it than just continuing to show up. For instance, if you’re showing up at random days and never develop a pattern, the likelihood of you sticking with it drops dramatically. On the other hand, if you show up every Tuesday and Thursday at the same time, ready to train, no matter what happens in your life, you are most definitely going to get better, and develop the patterns and habits necessary to maintain your schedule for a very long time.

3. Take notes!
So you may never go back and look at these things, but the act of writing it down will help you retain the information. Again, I’ll defer to another article one of our black belt instructors wrote a while back: Notes: the Unsung Training Partner.

4. Don’t argue with your instructor
My student Evan (who ended up moving to Nashville, but still contributes to our gym in many ways) sums this one up extremely well: ”I can remember the day I realized I was doing this as your student… It was the day you told me plainly that I have to believe in the first technique in order to make my opponent defend it properly. I didn’t believe you. But when I tried what you said instead of mentally fighting it, it was successful.
Interestingly, it also made me really and truly realize that you knew what you were talking about and I needed to just trust you and your teaching. It shouldn’t have taken me that long but I had a lot of ego that had to get slapped down. It was a huge breakthrough time for me. ”

5. Don’t be afraid to let the instructor you don’t understand what he/she just said
On the other side of the coin, you won’t always understand everything you’re supposed to do with a particular technique. Note that this is very different from concept #4. The main idea isn’t to start a fight, but rather to clarify that you don’t understand where your left hand goes. Perhaps this portion of the lesson is catered towards purple or brown belt students, and it’s simply a little over your head to repeat and execute.

6. Don’t be afraid to fail!
This ties in heavily with concept #1- being ready to learn- but it warrants further examination. A huge part of the learning process involves actually trying to execute the moves you’ve learned on a resisting opponent (typically during “rolling” time or “free sparring”). If you’re afraid to take risks, you’ll tend to stick to the moves you already know work well on a particular opponent. Stagnation like this is detrimental. I outline the process by which learning in BJJ happens in this article, and it punctuates the need to have genuine test runs for any new techniques.

7. Help other students
Most students struggling to learn BJJ get this immediately. It’s extremely intuitive: the more you give, the more you get. Not only will you learn from the actual process of helping someone else figure out a technique (really, try it!), but you’ll also benefit tremendously from the reciprocation when your partner gives you feedback on a position, or an upper belt helps you figure something out. It’s really important that you remember that this doesn’t give you license to stop being a student- every gym has a “blue belt professor” who is typically more interested in helping out beginners than figuring out the techniques themeselves. Don’t be that guy/girl at your gym. Instead, give back an appropriate amount without compromising your own drilling time.

May 2013: Cut Kicks for Muay Thai!

Andrew — Wed, 08 May 2013 20:59:14 +0000

May 2013 brings another 8 week intro program (once again, sold out!) on Mondays and Wednesdays. It also brings a new monthly theme for the Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday Muay Thai classes: the cut kick. Often lumped together with other traditional Thai kicks, the cut kick is a unique, devastating tool designed to chop your opponent down like a tree. We’ll be working combinations, counters, and lots and lots of repetitions with this technique, along with plenty of sparring and endurance during the advanced classes.

Our next 8 week intro program for Muay Thai will start September 2nd. Reserve your spot well in advance by contacting us here, and we’ll get back to you immediately.

The Art of Teaching BJJ

Andrew — Mon, 06 May 2013 17:53:57 +0000

I’ve been teaching Brazilian Jiu Jitsu for- amazingly- almost 10 years now. This has given me an opportunity to develop my own teaching methods as time has gone on, of course. It’s also given me an excellent chance to see the different ways students themselves learn. My own class structure at my gym has evolved as a result of this, and I am always asking the question: is this good for the students? In that simple idea is the basis for making any school great.

On the way to figuring this out, I had to overcome at least one major obstacle: personal ego. As a purple belt, teaching a BJJ class for the first time (I had taught judo before that, but never BJJ), I felt a need to show off how much information I knew. I had always been impressed by jiu jitsu instructional videos that really broke down the thought process behind why the moves worked, and I tried to convey that same awe upon my students at first. I think the approach can be useful and can catch some very analytically-minded students. A very small handful may benefit the most from this method, but the majority of students will simply be bored.

Therein lies the first real innovation: students have to enjoy the technique portion of class as well as learn something from it. As an instructor, you are half teacher and half performer. Engage the interest of your students with a fast paced class, and you’ll have a much more productive use of time. Don’t focus in on every single detail of every single position, or face losing the interest of more than half of the class. Instead, pick one or two key details and point them out to the group. You can always make corrections later, if need be.

This thought process has allowed the curriculum and class format at Revolution BJJ to reflect these changes. Our 7:30 PM BJJ class, for example, starts with a warm up of rolling for about an hour. This is ideal for the students there, because the belt level average is about purple, or somewhere in between blue and purple, depending on which random day you sample. Because of the presence of so many upper belts, the class format means that they get in a lot of rolling, no unnecessary warm ups, and fast paced, advanced technique after the warm up.

At 6:00 AM, on the other hand, there are fewer students there, and several of them are typically white belts (although there is a healthy mix of blue, purple, and brown belts regularly at 6:00 AM. It makes a great deal of sense to cater the class format so that the white belts get a lot of value from the training, considering that the purple and brown belts will get value out of a more fundamental lesson, whereas the white belts might not pick up too much from a berimbolo, for instance. 6 AM class isn’t going to begin with an extremely vigorous warm up, either, since most of the students are literally still waking up. Instead, a more manageable format of 40 minutes of technique followed by 20 minutes of rolling benefits beginners and experienced students alike.

2 PM on Wednesday is appropriately named our “nonstop rolling class.” That’s the entire class, and it’s extremely beneficial to anyone who has been training for five or more years. It’s also an excellent supplement for the more athletic, less experienced grapplers who are already meeting their technical needs with other classes.

Finally, our 8 week intro class uses a completely different format. It’s catered towards those who are first starting BJJ, with little or no previous experience, and there are at least 12 intro students with each cycle of the program, so the instruction is brisk and minimal, with just enough information given out so that the student can sketch out an idea and grasp the overall concept of the position. This unique blend of fast pace and concise instruction gives the novice student exactly what they need in order to move forward into the Fundamentals program at Revolution BJJ, and doesn’t bog anyone down with unnecessary extra details. This program has proven extremely successful in preparing students for the next step.

It’s only with the right approach to teaching that you can be truly successful with a broad student base. The class format has to cater towards what the students really need from a lesson, not what you would like to hear yourself teach. Everything falls into place once that maxim is understood and appreciated.

May 2013: Attacks from the guard

Andrew — Wed, 01 May 2013 15:48:54 +0000

May 2013 brings a new theme to the mats at Revolution BJJ: attacking from the guard. This month is all about establishing grips, dominating from the get-go, and flowing into controlling positions to sweep, take the back, or submit your opponent, keeping them ill at ease the entire time they’re in your guard. We’ll cover some basic and intermediate De la Riva guard, X-guard, spider guard, and a few other specialized guard types, with emphasis on controlling the position from handshake to sweep or submission!

New to BJJ? If you missed the current 8 week intro session to jiu jitsu, don’t worry- we have another one starting in July! You can reserve your spot now by going here.

April’s Muay Thai theme at Revolution BJJ: Dutch style combos

Andrew — Wed, 03 Apr 2013 20:27:05 +0000

This style revolves around punch and kick combinations. Typically, combos involve a barrage of punches followed by a single kick targeting the leg, body, or head.

The next 8 week intro session for Muay Thai begins May 6th. There are very limited spots available, so contact us ASAP to reserve your spot if you are interested!

April at Revolution BJJ: The Kimura

Andrew — Tue, 02 Apr 2013 21:08:28 +0000

April’s theme at Revolution BJJ will be a specialty of the house: the Kimura! We’ll be using our system to pass the guard, take the back, sweep, and (of course) finish the fight!

For a refresher on some of the basics of the passing system, check out our youtube page. Make sure to subscribe to get the latest videos as they are released.

For those interested in our 8 week intro program for BJJ, there are very limited spots still available. Reserve yours today by filling out this ultra simple contact form!

Muay Thai: the Clinch (March 2013)

Andrew — Thu, 07 Mar 2013 00:00:47 +0000

The technical theme for March 2013 at Revolution BJJ and Muay Thai will be the clinch. The clinch is a necessary and valuable tool for fighting; it will happen, whether you want it to or not! Learn how to utilize off balancing techniques to keep your opponent guessing, land effective knee and elbow strikes, and how to get in and out of the clinch effectively (including defending from the worst positions in Thai Boxing!).

Our next 8 week introductory program for Muay Thai kickboxing will begin Monday, May 6th. Reserve your spot today by contacting us here – this program will sell out quickly!

March 2013 at Revolution BJJ: Escapes!

Andrew — Wed, 27 Feb 2013 18:37:36 +0000

The technical focus for the month of March shifts to escapes. If you can’t get out of a submission or escape a tough position in BJJ, you are done for. We’ll cover escapes from triangle chokes, armlocks, leglocks, side control, the mount, rear mount, knee on stomach, and lots more.

Mondays and Wednesdays at 5:30 PM continue our 8 week BJJ Fundamentals curriculum. All other BJJ classes will focus on escapes for the month of April.

Next 8 week program begins in May for Muay Thai and for BJJ. Contact us if you’d like to reserve your spot, or for more information. These programs have sold out consistently, so reserve your spot early!

8 Week BJJ Introductory Course- March 4th! Reserve your spot now

Andrew — Wed, 20 Feb 2013 18:58:32 +0000

Here it is: our proven 8 week introductory program for Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, only $59 for the whole 8 week session! You must be a new student to Revolution BJJ to take this course. The class is designed to be an excellent overview of the underlying concepts of BJJ.

Classes will meet at 5:30 PM on Mondays and Wednesdays. The lesson on Monday will be repeated on Wednesday, so if you can make it to both days, you’ll be able to get a second look at the same basic lesson. If you can’t make it one day, you won’t be behind for the next week!

Best of all- you don’t need any equipment to get started! All of the classes are no-gi classes (no uniform required- shorts and a T-shirt are fine).

This class is only $59. Sign up here for more info or to reserve your spot. The BJJ Intro Program fill up quickly, so sign up today to reserve your spot!!