Figure It Out Camp Malaga 2025: Day 2+3 (Full Session)

Karate chop. Full dragon 360. Here, 1990, 1990. And now go the other way.

Your knees will thank you for this later. When you end up in a scrambling weird situation, that is even remotely similar to this, your knees will probably be okay. Nice. Everybody squat.

If you have severe knee problems, if you refuse to tap the heel, it looks like I did. You can do this or this. And then collapse sideways, knee inwards, knee in. And then knee outwards, so you're sitting down like this, coming back up, sitting down, coming back up.

And if you feel clumsy, it means you're doing mobility. And the solution is sometimes so simple that you can't believe it. If you can't get up, maybe just move the foot a little bit. Figure it out.

Figure out where to put your feet so that it's easier. And it can take 20 reps, it can take 50 reps to figure out. Some of you might be able to try without a foot. You might be able to try without the hands, maybe too early in the morning.

Nice. Now, combat base. Sit down. Come up, combat base.

Squat, combat base. Sit down. And if this hurts your knees, it's because you're not placing your body in the right position. So look, when I'm coming down with my knee, I move all my weight here and now it's smooth.

Add some rolling. Roll sideways. Combat base, squat, roll sideways. And now we're almost up wrestling.

Nice. Everybody down, dog. Lift one leg like a scorpion and lift really high. And then switch the legs in the air like this.

And now roll the knee forward, place the foot forward. Kick through, boom. Come back like we did yesterday. Scorpion.

Handstand switch. Roll the knee forward. Kick through. Return, scorpion.

Handstand switch. Three more, please. Nice. Sit down on your butt.

Straddle like we did yesterday. Then roll back and place one foot in the ground like this. Invert. Roll back to straddle.

Inverted straddle. Nice. Now roll all the way over to your belly into starfish. So we're going here into a position where we're never injured yet.

Almost always we're crunched up. So this is meant to do the opposite. Stretch the belly, stretch the hip flexor, stretch the chest. And now scorpion, don't move the hands, move the foot to the hand.

Starfish, foot to hand. Nice. And now three minutes free flow between the positions we did today and your favorite move. So you can go from here back to the inversion, up.

Three minutes freestyle. Go for it. And now we're going to do the same thing. Go for it.

Shadow jiu jitsu. Headstands, handstands, inversions, scorpions. Very nice. Two more minutes.

Get some back bends in there. Try to add some back bends because I know you're stiff and tired in the front. Try to get some twists in there, some side stretches. Try to get some twists in there, some side stretches.

Yes, nice scorpion. Very nice. Yeah, nice dragon. My wife just showed me this.

My wife showed me this. She does this and then she does it like a circle. It was really nice. Yes, yes, yes.

Nice. Even the cameraman is joining. Don't worry, the cameraman never dies. All right.

Thank you guys so much. Well done. Whenever our training partner's leg is going across our body, this could also be some situations where we're like fully behind our training partner's legs as well. It doesn't matter if we're standing.

We could both be on the ground. Anytime that we start to create a cross leg, there's lots of things that we can do with this potentially. But one thing that I want to focus on today is that this creates a route to attach to our training partner's torso. And this kind of relationship between a cross leg and gaining attachment to our training partner's torso, this is going to be what we focus today's session around.

Make sense, mate? Cool. So what we're going to do first is we're going to start off double seated and we're going to start one leg inside each other's legs and just hold on to each other's ankles. So we have a relatively symmetrical starting position.

Both of us are going to have the same objective, to create a cross leg. That's it. Okay? So we can stay grounded, look to fight to get to a cross leg.

Or if you want to explore coming up and working from top position and trying to create cross legs in some way, you can do this as well. The only thing I don't want is two standing players. So if one person comes up, that's fine. If two people come up, one of you must sit back down.

Does anyone have any questions? One question I had over here, which was really, really a really good question. Like, can we create a cross leg condition from bottom? And I think this brings about like a bigger question of or a bigger idea.

The cross leg is only really useful if we have positional advantage or neutral position. And the way I want you guys to think of this is just in terms of being on top or behind your training partner. In my opinion, these are like the two most fundamental types of positional advantage that we can get in submission grappling. So what I mean by this is like any of these things, if we're in the same kind of position, so both guarded, if I can create a cross leg on Greg and he can't create one on me, like this is an advantage for me.

But if he were to stand up over me, this isn't necessarily an advantageous position for me now at all. OK, which probably like you guys can all see this anyway. But equally, if I were to able to maintain that cross leg and get to the same height as him, now it is advantageous for me. If he's down on the ground and I'm above him with a cross leg, this is advantageous for me.

If he's standing, this is going to be the focus of this next game. And I find some sort of way of, I don't know, like getting behind him, even though I'm below him now, but I'm behind and I have a cross leg of sorts. This is advantageous for me now. OK, so in this next game, we're going to focus on creating this particular condition from guard where we get behind our training partner's knees.

OK, so the way we're going to play this game, bottom player, you need to stay in a guarded posture the whole time. So you're either lying down or you're sitting up. You're somewhere in between these postures. Top player, you're going to stay standing the entire time.

All I want the top player to do is step one leg in between their training partner's legs and stay there. OK, so Greg is trying to hold this line, maintain this condition for as long as he can. If he gets put out of this condition, he's going to fight back to it as directly as he can. OK, so does that make sense for the top player?

This is all you're trying to do. I can try to knock him down. If I do so, he should be trying to immediately get back and fighting to get at least one leg in between my legs. Two is fine, but one is also fine.

OK, now what we're going to look to do as the bottom player is try to get behind our training partner and get behind their knees with our shins. OK, so two basic ways you're going to do this or directions you're going to go in. You're going to go around your training partner's legs in order to get behind them, or you might be able to go through your training partner's legs to get behind them. If these are feeling difficult, one thing that you can look to do is look at the relationship between putting hips on the floor, them coming up and opportunities to get behind your training partner.

OK, so knocking them down is fine. You use it as a tool to try to create opportunities to get to the ultimate goal, which is to get behind your training partner's knees. Does this make sense to everybody? Any questions at all?

Yeah. Would we swap the top players? Yes, correct. So the top players condition is continuous, so there's no way for them to win the game as such.

Just stay there as long as you can. So yeah, you're only when the bottom player gets there. Essentially back to the first game. So we'll start back here.

And now hopefully we can have a slightly clearer picture of when we create a cross leg that we want to be at least neutral with our training partner in terms of on top versus behind. OK, so if we're facing each other and we're both seated or we're facing each other and we're both standing, for example, like and we create a cross leg, that can be useful. If we're in an inferior position, so if someone's behind us and we try and create a cross leg, maybe not going to be very helpful. If they're on top of us and we create a cross leg and we can't get up to meet them or to put them down, not that useful.

If we can't get behind them as well. OK, so now we're going to stop them. OK. You can sit here if you want.

Yeah, the talking is not helping as well. OK, so basic idea. We're trying to be either on top or behind our training partner or within that framework, at least at the same level as our training partner when we create a cross leg. And so now we're going to start here again and we're going to fight.

If Greg can stay, if I can keep him guarded or keep him grounded whilst creating a cross leg, that's fine. If he starts to come up, I need to deal with this either by getting up myself and maintaining the cross leg or by abandoning it, try and knock him down, trying to get behind him and create the cross leg in effect. OK, does this make sense to everybody? Yeah.

So you understand this idea of either being like on top or behind your training partner, creating advantageous and disadvantageous positions and then also neutral. Neutral being we're at the same level as each other, facing each other. If we're neutral or better, we create a cross leg, we win. We do not win if we create a cross leg from an inferior position.

Does this make sense, though? Cool. If the, let's say, gets up, we're not able to create it, but we abandon it, do we still ground it again? So for this game now, if you want to continue from standing, looking to create a cross leg, I don't mind.

OK, so I'll leave it completely up to you guys how you choose to play the game, as long as it's within that specific aim. OK, so once more, we're going to start here. We're going to try and create a cross leg, but we're going to make sure that we're at least neutral or have the positional advantage over our training partner when we create the cross leg. Does this make sense to everyone?

Yeah, I think it's a good idea. Like if I just go here and Greg just pulls his leg out immediately, did I really win? Probably not. OK, I should have at least enough time.

If you can say cross leg to your training partner whilst holding on to it, then you've got enough control. But if you're like, I'm trying to get there, I'm trying to get there, I'm trying to cross leg, no, keep going. So just say it to your training partner. And John likes to do that.

Cross leg. Do you also win if you get the shits behind it? Yes, so we're considering that to be like a form of cross leg, it achieves the same effect. OK, let's go.

OK, so next up we're going to start in cross inside entanglement. So just the language I know Greg uses, the same language for entanglements. We talk about a straight grip and a cross grip, whether it's on the straight side of the body or across the body. And we talk about inside, as in foot position relative to their legs, outside and mixed.

OK, so if you hear us talking about this, it's just easier that everyone... I think that's why you would say that's a good description of... I would. Yeah, OK.

OK, so if you hear us talking about anything, it's just easier that we're all on the same page. So cross inside entanglement with control of second leg. This is how we're going to start. OK, so I have a cross leg, but I also have a lot of control over my training partner.

We're in a relatively neutral posture. I have the advantage of having the cross leg and having the secondary leg. What we're going to do from here, Greg is going to try and get to his feet. OK, so all he's going to try and do is going to try and disconnect from the entanglement and get to his feet somehow.

OK, he's able to do that. He's going to win the game. You might be able to guess. My objective is going to be to connect to his hips, and I want to be either on top of him or behind him when I do so.

OK, so we're going to start here. And I want you to think about how their attempts to free themselves from these connections create opportunities for you to get to the hips. One thing that I want you to think about is getting your legs underneath your training partner's legs in order to be able to exploit. It's harder for me to stay attached to the torso if I have a leg over the top of his legs.

If my legs are underneath, it's way easier for me to take advantage of that. Sometimes as they get up, your legs will naturally be underneath, and this might be immediately available. Sometimes we have to move legs in order to create that condition, which allows us to get to the hips. OK, so I start here.

Greg tries to get to his feet and disconnect. I try to find a way to connect to the hips. When I connect to the hips, I must stay either behind him or on top of him. So if he tries turning to face me, I must stay on top or behind.

So rear body lock from standing would be a win. Front body lock from standing would not be a win. Yes. So if I get to the hips, I will get on top, but the bottom player finds a way to get his leg back so it's not longer crossed.

Or is it back, just to have the hips? Yeah, so that's a good question. We're starting with the cross leg and we're using it to get somewhere better, to get to the hips. OK, I mean, better depends on the exact perspective.

But for now, let's say it's better. So if I lose the cross leg, but I get the hips and I'm able to stay on top or behind, I win. We don't have to maintain the cross leg once we've used it to get where we're getting next. You know, imagine like climbing a ladder.

Doesn't matter that we've left the lower rung of the ladder if we get to our next target, which is the next rung up. Yeah. Well, their objective is to stand up and disconnect. So if they do that, they win.

If they don't do that, keep going. Some of you will be happy, some of you maybe not. We're going to do some wrestling games, but we're going to do a guard passing game instead. So what we're going to do is we're going to have a bottom player.

Greg, you could be the bottom player, please. I'm going to have a standing player. So the guard player is going to be looking to try to keep their shoelaces attached to the insides of their training partner's legs. OK, and this is going to be a continuous condition for the bottom player.

So all Greg is going to try and do is try to maintain connection with his feet to the insides of my legs. Make sense for the bottom player? It's always trying to do. However you do it, it's completely fine.

Stay guarded. So stay on your back or seated and keep your feet attached to the insides of the legs. Top player, we're going to look to do one thing first before we then go and do a second thing. First thing, no surprises probably, create a cross leg.

We must stay standing until we've created a cross leg. Once we've created the cross leg, any guesses as to what comes next? Yes, get to the hips. Exactly.

OK, very simple. OK, so bottom player, keep feet inside legs, stay guarded. Top player, stay standing until you create a cross leg, then get the hips. Yes.

Stay standing until you've created a cross leg. Yes. You need to... Let's maintain the cross leg as you get to the hips.

This condition is going to make it easier to get to the hips. The more of a cross leg that we can create, this concept cross leg, it isn't like... There's degrees of cross legs. The more of a cross leg we can create, the more available the hips are going to be.

OK? Yes. No. Yes.

Just grab the hips. Grab the hips. Yes. The bottom player can do whatever they want in terms of like, if he wants to grab hold of my ankles, whatever, he's going to do whatever he can.

As long as it helps him to stay guarded and keep feet inside my legs. If it's legal in the sport of Jiu Jitsu and it helps him to do that, he can do it. Yes. If he wants to, I guess so.

But why would he... The reality is, he just took his leg out to do that, right? So, if he's here and he's like, oh, let me bring my leg out, he's actually not following the task right now. No, don't mean that.

I mean like, ex-guard saying, can he go... Potentially. But again, you're probably giving up one of those conditions, at least momentarily, in order to try and do it, right? Like from here, he goes to try and switch to an ex-guard, like he's letting this foot come away from my leg.

So, I guess, so really, if you're really just following the task, which is just keep your feet attached to the legs, we don't need to overcomplicate it. So, as long as you're trying to keep your feet attached to the insides of their legs, you're doing what you're supposed to do. Okay? If you haven't...

try and play it and if you have any questions when you're actually trying to play it, please let me know. I'm just going to combine some of these ideas that we've worked on today together. So, we're going to start with one player playing guard and one player standing. In fact...

In fact, let's start double-seated, okay? But we can have the option to stand. So, we're going to start back here, okay? Now, we're looking to do two things.

We're looking to create a cross leg and attach to the hips. That's it. In that order, okay? So, start from here and look to achieve those goals.

I will allow if you create a cross leg, you can go for a heel hook finish. With this one, just communicate with your training partner. Everyone's different levels. People may or may not be comfortable with heel hooks.

So, if you want to add in the heel hook finish as an option, communicate this very clearly with your training partner. If they do not want to include this, you do not include this. Is that clear? Okay?

Okay, so, either we're going to start here, one in, one out. And my job, or both of our jobs, is going to be create a cross leg. No matter how we do it, use it to go and get the hips. When we get the hips, we must be on top or behind our training partner.

Yeah, so, one thing I want everyone to be more careful of is the space around you and other training partners. Obviously, we have a very busy mat, okay? But, number one priority, as we explained in our safe practice policy, that I'm sure everyone has read, because surely you take safety very seriously, number one priority is our safety and the safety of those around us, okay? So, no matter how close you are to winning a game, no matter how cool the technique that you're trying to hit is, in your opinion, it's not worth kicking someone in the head.

It's not worth getting so close to someone that they feel unsafe, okay? Even if you don't land on someone, especially for the smaller people in the room, it's very off putting to have big people crashing and landing all around them, okay? So, especially if you're bigger, but regardless, you need to be careful of the space around you, okay? It typically tends to be the biggest people that give the least shits.

So, let's try and change that, please. Does that make sense to everyone? Yeah? Okay.

So, better to just stop, move into space and then just carry on, okay? The little bit of loss in fluidity of the training is better than injuring someone. Fair? Does that seem fair to everybody?

Cool. Okay, thank you. Now, thank you for the session in general. If you have questions, I'm happy to answer questions.

If you want to go off and catch a break or whatever before the next session, that's fine. If you wanted to do the wrestling game, someone you put your hands up, I'm happy to set that up for people and you can do that stuff over there as well, okay? But anyway, thank you for your effort today, guys. Really enjoyed teaching you, so good job.

Jiu-Jitsu. Today, we're going to do a little bit of the opposite. Today, we're going to be more specific. I'm going to treat you guys like you're beginners, and I'm going to expose you to a specific type of thing that we can achieve in the game that we play, head and arm strangulation.

Now, another thing we have to understand before we get started is that anytime we deal with something very specific like a head and arm strangle, we understand that there are only a few set of conditions that we can use to create the thing we define as a head and arm strangle. So, the constraints that we use are going to be more specific because the demands of the task are more specific, and this will make more sense to you as we create the situations and as we play the game. So, typically, anytime I take something like a head and arm strangle, which is specific, we start off first with defining it so everyone has a visual idea of what we're moving towards with the tasks we are asked to perform. Did Max leave me?

No. Hey, Gregor. On your back, please. All right.

All right. Okay, so the head and arm strangles come from head and arm isolation. This means we connect our partner's head and arm together in a single grip to isolate those two things from everything else so that we can compress the neck for strangulation. So, to understand this, we're going to start with an arm condition that allows us to reach those outcomes.

So, we're going to start with one of our arms underneath our partner's head, and we're going to start with the other arm underneath our partner's elbow. Now, in this first situation, in this first game, top player, your goal is to keep at least one of your arms under one of their elbows at all times. So, as we play towards the outcome that I'm going to give, this is the first thing. So, I could even switch if I wanted to.

As long as I stay under at least one elbow, I can continue to go towards the objective I'm going to give. While staying under one elbow, our goal is to connect that arm to our partner's head any way that we can. Once the arm is connected to the head, we're going to trap it in its position with our head and hands. If we're able to achieve this outcome, we win the game.

So, again, we must stay under at least one of the elbows as we play. While under the elbow, our goal is to connect that arm to our partner's head, trap it in position, rip our head and hands. Again, if we achieve this outcome, we win the game. Bottom player, your goal is simple.

Your goal is to make your elbow touch your body or both of your elbows touch your body. So, if Max gets me out from underneath his elbows, he wins the game. We change top to bottom every time somebody wins. Simple enough?

Yes. I know there's not a question. All right, guys, let's go. Other than, of course, putting you close to the position and defining the position I'm asking you to achieve, why did we start with one arm under the head and one arm under the elbow?

It's difficult. These are conditions that make the effect or the beginning effect of trapping the head and arm together possible. Can you imagine trapping a head and arm together without putting something under the elbow first? What's the only other way that you could trap somebody's arm to their head without putting something under their elbow first?

If they, who said it? If they did it. Sure. But I can't expect you guys to be like, check that out.

So anyway, we start within the conditions that allow for the opportunity for the thing we want to be experienced to happen. Right. So we want this experience because we're teaching a new thing maybe you have not done before. So we set the task as such that there are conditions that create the outcome.

Does this make sense to you guys? Now, what we're going to look at a bit is two things here. We're going to add something to it. We're going to scale it a little bit to make it more difficult so we can explore the space more.

And we're going to offer the opportunity to try to finish. So the first thing I'm going to do for you is I want to describe to you how we're looking to finish. So strangulation is based on compression. I had to get compression at both sides of the neck.

So I'm going to give you a little task that's going to help that. So once we connect the head and arm together, we want to compress both sides of the neck. So the task is our arm must be as close to the neck as humanly possible. So the closer you get that arm to the neck, the more compressible the neck becomes.

On the arm side, same thing. We want to get their arm as close to their neck as possible. Once we feel we're as close as possible, no matter how we orient ourselves, we squeeze to finish. So having said that, when you achieve this outcome after I give the task, we're going to try to submit our partners by staying as close to the neck and to the arm as we can while squeezing.

Does this make sense to you guys? So now here's the game. Starting in the same way we did before, we have to get under the other arm, get under our partner's head, and then back before we can connect the arm to the head and finish. So again, we have to stay under the elbows while doing this.

Yeah? Bottom player, both three elbows touch your body. You win the game. Yes, sir.

I'll make it more difficult for you. Yeah, yeah. I'm going to say, oh yes, sir. If I let go of the first arm to get the second, who would win the game?

So we can't do that. That's what a constraint is. It limits options. Anybody else?

Now, last thing I'm going to say. Oh, yes, sir. Please. Just my connection with the head.

Great. So let me ask you a question. If the condition is to connect his head and arm together as a precursor to strangulation and stay under at least one elbow, does chest to back change that? No, sir.

No, sir. But the next game, you're reading my mind. We will use that as a way to bring things into greater focus. OK?

And last thing I'm going to say, and I'll let you guys train. Remember, when we scale things, they don't have to be technically optimal. What we mean is we're not always constraining for the perfect technique. Sometimes we're just challenging you to move in a more difficult way to explore movement as a possibility.

We can say that if you move in a greater amount of ways, you have more options to move when it's required of you. Does this idea make sense? Fantastic. Let's get to it.

Good question. Please. What was the reason for you to add in a detour in this game? You said you have to first switch to the other side and then back before you can get it.

Is that to make it more interesting? How do you ration? When do you add the kind of extra steps? All skills have to be scalable.

As we get more consistent achieving outcomes, we lose the ability to learn any further because it's no longer novel. Our system will start to ignore it because we can always achieve the outcome. So we have to scale behavior. So as we get better, things must be more difficult.

Think playing a video game or like some kind of a shooter. Right? First levels are easier, later levels are harder. But at first, the first level might be difficult.

But as you get better and it gets harder, you can progress. This is the same thing. So we're asking a greater demand of the movement in order to achieve the outcome. But we're also having them work in a space that they'll have to work in ultimately to achieve the outcome.

This makes it interesting to play against players of different skill levels as well. Perfect. Exactly. That's what scaling means.

So if I'm with somebody who I can beat up, just repeatedly strangling them is not enough stimuli to help me learn. So if I just add a different task that makes that outcome more difficult to achieve, we've now scaled it appropriately for both learners. We might have one learner get under once and win. I might be required to get under three times before I can win.

And this is how we can. And if you have taught me this enough times, what will I do when I train with the white or blue belt? I will do that to myself and just. You'll constrain yourself.

Absolutely right. And this is something that we teach our high level guys to do. So Deandre is so good, he beats up everybody in our room, literally. So we have to make it more difficult for him.

We're working with less than 10 competitors. And so how do we take someone like Deandre and with 10 regular people and make him skillful? That's a skill to have to be able to do that. Agreed.

That's why you guys hired me. Thank you. You and then you. So this is an arm triangle position.

So you're head to head. But I wanted to expose to the group because I think it's important for us to know. The question was, how do you deal with somebody gaming the game? So all levels of resistance, even if they seem nonproductive, sometimes are not an example of gaming the game.

We have to be careful when we say that. I'll give you an example of both. What would be truly gaming the game and what would be just irritating as fuck? Right.

So irritating is more of the example I was asked. I said, what if a guy clamps down on your elbows and just hold his hands together and refuses to try to get you out from underneath his elbow? Do you guys think this is gaming the game? Why not?

You're going to experience that. There's going to be that guy whose version of winning is not losing. We hate that guy, but that guy exists. He's a coward.

We can call him such, but he exists. So we're going to face him. So it's good to expose ourselves in training to that potentiality. Because we do have time, though, if the guy's doing this, we smother, we pressure over time.

This teaches us how to deal with such difficulty. Does this make sense? Now, a gaming of the game, and I actually use example all the time because a kid. So if you want to see if your games are designed well, have children play them.

Because kids are very good at listening in a way that they're going to get the outcome they want. They want the ice creams. They're going to do whatever it takes to get it. So one of them, this is just funny because it's hilarious.

So close guard. You ever played a game where you teach kids to get chest to chest and you tell them like whoever at the bottom player gets chest to chest, they win. And then the top kid goes. That's gaming the game because we didn't give the kid another option to maybe get on top or something like this.

So if we constrain it in such a way that we can't solve the problem that our partner is affording us, that is gaming the game. Do you guys familiar with how I teach people how to get around this? Anybody? Who said it?

Yeah, it's good. I thought staff was going to say, come on, Stefan. I'm kidding. The concept of zero sum.

What's good for me is bad for you. What is good for you is bad for me. The tasks we choose to have each other perform should always be in opposition to each other. So in the previous game, our job is to stay where?

Under the elbows, right? What was their job? That's zero sum. If our tasks are focused like this, we get an exchange that will lead to learning, hopefully.

Yeah. Beautiful. Creating opportunities. This is also a key concept.

The tasks we give each other should create opportunities for progression or for the opportunity to achieve the outcomes that we're searching for. Yeah. All right. So now we're going to start to open it up a bit.

We're going to start in the same position that we started, but this time we're not going to start underneath our partner's elbows. Now, I said to one of you, we're going to explore in this next game what you asked about. So this time the top player has two ways to win this game. So I'm going to give the objective.

Let me give the task first. So just like the previous, our goal to try to get under one of our partner's elbows under our partner's head, connect the head and the elbow together, trap it with your head and arm. You don't have to finish. You just have to get here.

The other way to win the game is if you create chest to back contact at any time, whether your legs are involved or not, just turn for me. If you create chest to back contact at any time and your hands are connected with at least one arm being under the elbows, you win the game. You guys understand? Yeah.

Are you sure? All right. I give you one more task to help this along. So objectives, but but we're going to start with our hands on our partner's wrists.

As we're looking to get under the elbow, we're going to drive the hands towards the mat. Anyway, that we can to help us get underneath one or both elbows. Easy enough. Bottom player.

Your job is to point your hands at your partner's hips and try to push them away from you. If you put both of your knees back in front of your player at any time or make your plate partner fall over, you win the game. Simple enough. Let's work.

Fantastic. Yeah, this is good. This means that that's currently a problem that you're not good at solving relative to your partner's abilities to escape. This is something that happens all the time.

Listen, not achieving your outcomes is not necessarily negative. This gives you information as to your current abilities and it helps you define future problems. Something we say all the time about game creation is that we can't solve problems we have not yet experienced. So if you were one of my students and you came to me with this problem, this would be a way that I might create future games for you to help you solve something that is difficult for you.

But how would I have known if you didn't spend the last six minutes failing? Right. One way we can tell that games are designed well, I think, is not how often somebody wins, really, but how quickly we lose. If we lose very quickly, it tells us quite a bit about what we don't understand about the nature of what we're engaging with.

Yeah. So don't avoid it. Find it. Yes.

So let's say we have a player that's always, like a top player is clearly dominant in the whole section. Would there be a point where a player that's assigned to a class, a defending player, to try to really excel means to create more challenges for the top player, let's say? Yeah, yeah. I was just asked a second ago over there.

No, sorry, when you guys were sparring. So scaling is necessary. So oftentimes we have a skill in balance, good player, bad player. We have to scale it for either.

So we want to switch the scale, right? So we want to make it. Excuse me. Scaling.

You know, a scale. We weigh one side more than the other. Right. So let's say we have a good German.

Okay. So let's say one player is superior to the other. We can increase their difficulty and then and have them do something specific. And then the less good player, we make it easier for them to change the scale.

We have to do this all the time. You know, so yes, the answer is yes. Just how we do it, when we do it, why we do it is up to you as a coach. And you have to communicate with your athletes in your room to determine when the best when to take that course of action.

All right, great. So we want now we're going to switch it up quite a bit. We're going to continue with head and arms strangles. We're going to do it a different way.

So now we're going to have top player double knees down, bottom player clothes guard. So legs wrapped around the waist. Now we're going to start just on a similar way like we did to the previous game. We're going to start with our partner's head and arm trapped between our feet.

Now we only have two tasks here. So one is we're trying to keep our partner's head as close to us as possible. However, we can do that. We have two points of connection, legs and arms.

Use them however you'd like to keep your partners close to you as you possibly can to win the game. Your second task is to lock your legs. I want you to take the foot with either one of your feet and lock it into the bend of your knee. I don't care what it looks like or where the lock comes from.

You have to lock your foot as close as you can to the bend of your knee. Big boys, I'm sorry. You guys are all pretty fit. Don't have to worry.

You know, you get a guy here and it's like, oh, sorry, pal. So lock the foot into the bend of your knee on either side. So keep them as close as you can. Lock your foot to either side.

Easy enough. Top player, your goal is to keep your head as far away as you can. Get your partner's feet to separate. Get your feet to separate.

You lose the game. I mean, if they pop open, right? If you open them to move, fine. But if they get away and pop your feet open, you lose.

I had an insight when you were talking now. I feel different in this class than the normal Jiu-Jitsu class. Because normally when it's free-sporing, I feel like I'm testing myself against someone, gauging if I'm worse or better. In general.

And that doesn't feel very productive. But now, when I'm walking around, I want to see if I can win against that guy in this specific thing. He can be better in 10 games, but I just want to know about this one. Agreed.

And Max said the same thing. It's like competition, and you're going to lose a lot. And you're not going to bother so much about losing. Sure.

And this is one of the skills that I've seen most people in my history that were awkward, was that they were too obsessed about the winning. Right. This takes away kind of the bad part of losing. So let's imagine this.

Let's say there's a relationship between winning and the opportunity to win. If we make that relationship too specific, like I can only win by submitting you from the back. And you don't ever submit something from the back. That can be very heavy.

You judge yourself. I never take any of these back. I suck. But let's say we imagine this.

Today, all I need to do is get under Sebastian's elbow. This is opportunity to win and winning get closer together. So now we change our emotional relationship to our definition of winning. So like a milestone or a checkpoint.

Exactly. What I tell my guys is be competitive over the small stuff. So we want to bring the spirit of competition into the game, but we want it to help development. We don't want it to take away from development.

So if I'm, let's say I lose to you every single time, but I'm like, I don't care what happened today. You're never letting me out from underneath you. I'm always getting on your elbows. Then I can bring that spirit with me and it's going to help me develop.

Does that make sense? Yes, it makes perfect sense. Thank you. Yeah, of course.

Real quick, guys, I want to talk for a quick second. I had a great question I'm going to answer to the group because I think this is relevant. When I first started learning about ecological dynamics, dynamical systems theory, ecological psychology about 10 years ago, I had no idea if I was right or wrong. And I just kind of interpreted the science as best I thought I understood it.

And I tried to apply it relative to my understanding. Fortunately, I got a chance to talk to some of the people who actually invented and wrote the science like Keith Davids, Rob Gray. I've spoken to these people and I've shared my ideas. And one of the things they all have like focused on what I do well as a way to help like pat me on the button to keep going is they say you're focused on intentionality is very important.

The reason why I always focus on intentionality is because one of the arguments that's really difficult to come by when we talk about why we behave one way or another is how our thoughts affect our behavior. We have this predisposition to think of stuff as mind, stuff as mind and stuff of matter, and that if we don't store or think, then we can't act. This is not really true, but there is a grain of truth to it. I think that grain of truth can be found in intentionality in this simple sense.

We do what we intend to do usually. Right. So if I intend to reach for a glass, I will move relative to my intention and where the glass is placed in the world. Right.

This is true with sport as well. Our movements respond in general to our intentions. Now, the reason I'm bringing this up is I had a question. The question was, if I get both arms inside, should I do that or should I continue to pass the guard?

Well, neither both arms inside was what I asked you to focus on and guard passing wasn't even mentioned. Now, the reason I bring this up is because if we don't try to be intentional, we will never develop that skill of being intentional under urgency or pressure. Remember, as urgency and pressure goes up, our ability to intend goes down. It's harder to take in information when it's fast and sudden and emotional and there's fatigue ridden.

Right. So we practice being intentional in these conditions. Does this make sense to you guys? So it's not that putting both arms in is wrong or that passing the guard is wrong.

But this was not the intention of what we just did. So, you know, you are no longer practicing being intentional. You are relying on your current understanding and your previous experience to guide you through this solution. Does this kind of maybe illuminate something for you?

Fantastic. Does that help you, sir? It does. Are you unsatisfied?

Well, I could have just asked. So, I put my head in both hands and then open my arms instead of saying passing. I could just put that in both hands and just go like this. Sure.

But the grip of the position is the same. Yeah. So the goal was to get your head as far away as possible and to pop the feet open. If bringing your arms in was what you did to do that, fantastic.

But it wasn't bringing your arms in that was asked. It was to search the space to solve the problem by getting away and separating the feet. Do you see what I mean? And so as long as that was the focus, great.

Fantastic. You did a good job. All right. So now we're going to just like we did before, we're going to work towards finishing.

We're going to try to see if we can compress our partner's neck. Now, whether we do strangulation with our arms or our legs, the same thing. We want to get the contact points as close to the neck as possible. Our leg on one side, their shoulder on the other.

We squeeze them together. There are some angles that do this better than others, and that's what we're going to search for. So we're going to do the same thing. We're trying to keep our partners close to us as we can or as necessary to get our foot locked in one of the knee pits or as close to it as possible.

No matter what the angle looks like. Our second task is to try to search for one of the three limbs that are on the outside. So we have two legs and two arms, right? So we're going to search for the limb in opposition to our lock.

So all this means is we lock on this side. We're searching for limbs on this side. Sorry, Max. And then if I go the other way, same thing.

Same thing. We're searching for limb or limbs in opposition to our lock. Is this clear for you guys? Top players, same as before.

Get as far away as you can until the feet pop open. Easy enough. I mean, you can determine how much resistance you start with. I don't care.

So if you're like with your partner and you're just like submit every 10 seconds, maybe start away. OK, but either way, I would as a general starting point, start with your hands in contact. Escaping the threat is an abstract concept that you only understand because you currently have training. This means nothing to beginners.

Beginners know I get far away. I pop legs. Then we say, hey, guys, triangles are threatening. Opening legs reduces the threat.

Now they have experience, concept, understanding. We don't start with that. You have a bad neck. Don't do this game.

I'm serious. This is terrible. I hate doing this shit. I broke my neck back in 2008 and I have a damaged spinal cord and a ruptured ligament.

I don't like getting my head pulled on repeatedly. I would never do this. So if it hurts you, maybe don't do it at all. Maybe slightly uncouple, maybe once or twice and then just chill until I say time.

We're only working for six minutes. So this could be this, but the legs are going to pull on it too. So you to communicate over what feels best for you. If you can't operate in this space, I would ask you not to do it or just play around until the next game.

Let's go. All right. So I'm not going to have you guys continuously yank on each other's neck. So we're going to back away from it a little bit.

But just like the previous game, we have starting with the conditions that make the outcome possible. But then we also have starting with the conditions that makes that threat possible. So creating the head and arm. This is what we did from the mounted position where we focus on getting under at least one of the elbows.

So in guarded situations, we have similar conditions that lead to similar effects. So in this next one, it's going to be a little bit difficult. I'm going to give you two different starting conditions that you can switch between as you play to try to reach your outcome. So the two different positions we're going to start with is going to be one arm under your partner's elbow, your hands connecting your partner's head and arm together.

The other is gripping over top of your partner's arm and around the elbow. You may switch between these two conditions as you see fit. Any connection underneath your partner's arm or around and above your partner's elbow allows you to continue playing. You guys understand.

So as long as you're connected or under or under and connected or around your partner's arm, continue to play. Our goal is to separate our partner's hands any way that we can to try to trap our partner's head and arm together. It doesn't need to be a triangle. It just needs to be between your legs.

So again, we're going to alternate where we start. But once the game starts, we can switch between the conditions. You guys understand what I'm asking you to do. So as long as I'm under or around, I can work towards my outcome.

Top player, get your partner out from underneath and around your elbows by putting your hands on their body. If your hands are on their body and they're not around or under an elbow, you win. Do you understand? All right, let's go.

Cool. Okay, fire away. And how would you design practice around that once you've got the connection? So start disconnecting, taking it around that, and then some connected stuff that also makes it zero sum.

So the top player doesn't just run off or whatever else, but they kill it or stand with their legs. You thought, I can just do something like this. Yeah. Yeah, okay.

So a great question. For me personally, when I'm designing a game or designing a practice, I want to think it's helpful for me as the coach to really clearly define the sequence. To define the skill or skills that I want us to be working on. And we had this conversation about wrestling up being quite a broad term.

And I don't think there's always a clear sense of agreement over what that means. And I certainly don't think it's like not necessarily like one individual skill. Like everyone will probably agree that just coming up to a single leg from a seated guard is a wrestle up. Some people would say, heisting up to a front headlock from a seated guard against a kneeling opponent would be a wrestle up.

Some people might be like, oh, maybe not. Some people might say an ex-guard sweep where you kick them out and come up with a single leg is a wrestle up. Some people might say, well, it's just a sweep. And then what point does a sweep become a wrestle up or vice versa.

So anyway, so I think it's good to identify the sort of skill. And so I think a good place to start would be going from a seated posture connecting to a single leg. Right. And maybe we could define that as the skill that we want to work on.

Okay. And then designing a game around that. So that's what I'll do if that sounds good. Okay.

So if we want to go directly to a single leg connection, a standing player is going to make this more available. And so I would personally design a game where there's a standing player and a seated player. And we could do this one of two ways, maybe depending on how much opportunity we wanted to give the bottom player. So if I wanted to really favor the bottom player in a way, give them more opportunity to be able to create a single leg connection and stand with it, then I might have a continuous condition for the top player.

So that could look like we do this a lot, but maybe step between legs, stay here as long as you can. Right. And now there's even though he's got something to do that's relevant, like I still have lots of opportunity to get to the leg. And the way that this game is designed, if you really want to expose people to that as like new players, you know that they're going to have to get to a single leg because otherwise they're not going to switch.

So it's going to happen if you wanted to make it a little more, a little more maybe competitive or whatever. You could also have it where the top player is simply trying to put the bottom player on their back. OK, I often like to include the option to put chest on back just to stop any funny business of like people really resisting going back and the person can run around to their back. So Greg could try and either put me on my back or put his chest on my back in order to win the game.

Right. And but he has to do this whilst maintaining a standing posture. And then me as a bottom player, my objective is to connect to a leg and stand with it. OK, and if you wanted to focus our attention on something like getting defensive head and hands out of the way, you could add that in if you wanted to.

You could potentially try to do that first. But I tend to think especially seated versus standing, the postures themselves mean the head and hands are less in the way of the legs anyway. Right. So the posture kind of forces this to some extent already.

So for me, I would personally just say get to the leg and then I'd see what was happening. And if I saw something common, it seemed like there was something missing or whatever. Maybe I might add something else that I would probably set this and play this. OK, so I guess if you guys want to play this for yourselves, you can do it one of two ways.

If you're you could play it the way we just said, top player split legs, continuous. Stay there. Bottom player. Connect to a leg with your hands.

Stand up and lift it off the ground. Wind condition for the bottom players the same in the other version. But top player either puts them on their back or goes behind them and puts chest on back. Either way, they must stay standing.

Make sense to everyone? OK, you guys want to play? Do you give any advice about leg position or squat? I wouldn't personally.

No. OK, yeah, if you want to talk about why we can talk about why, but I'll get everyone playing and then we can talk about maybe why. OK, guys. All right.

Grab a partner. Let's go. And then we'll move to the next thing. I think that makes the most sense.

So does anyone have any questions they wanted to ask about what we just did before we move on? Yeah. I think it's a good idea to maybe have a position for the player to be continuously full. Put the person on the back and put them continuously.

Because a lot of times I thought like he was pushing in, it was like off balance and footwork and come up with his in leg like that. But because I was just focused on him not putting me on my back in the first place, it was like kind of hard. I tend to agree. Well, I guess it depends.

Right. Depends what exactly we're trying to work on. My understanding of what Michael wanted was the going to the person to make connection to the single leg and coming up. Right.

So that would not fall into that. But whether we choose to isolate that skill or have the skill more broadly of be able to stand up with a single leg from a guarded position, like I think that would be a really great thing to do. Maybe focus having the opportunities for both types might be something could be more likely to do with more skilled players perhaps. Or if we notice that people tend to have a tendency towards one or the other.

And so we want to expose them to the other one. Most people I think are more inclined to be the guard player destabilized first and then try and get up. So more often than not, if we're trying to break them out of that habit, I think we'd probably tend towards what Michael had wanted us to do. But if we have a room full of like wrestle up people and all they want to do is wrestle up and they don't really play God, then it could be really good to not just include this as an option, but maybe make it explicit.

Like maybe you have to put their hands to the mat. You start connected to them. You have to put their hands to the mat before you can stand up with the leg. And that would be cool as well.

And then for maybe more advanced players, you might play a game where the two are combined together as options and they can work as they see fit. But yeah, really good. About chaining attacks, if I fight someone who is bigger, stronger or much better, I feel like I almost never can win the specific position, but I might win the next one. So if I can make them start chasing me going from position to position and doing face changes, like he said, that's kind of like a style that works for I talked to a couple of smaller guys as well and they do the same thing.

And the stuff we've been doing so far does not accommodate for that. How can you make a game that is like probably not at all for beginners, but that fits a style without just being perfect for me? I still want to be challenged, but like chaining attacks and like having a more open, how would you address that? Yeah.

OK. Well, I think two things. The first thing that springs to mind is what I think like in an ideal world, we wouldn't always have to change. We would be able to do the thing we want to do on a resisting partner.

And I understand that that's not always going to be possible. But I think that often as a more advanced or more like experienced player, we tend to be drawn back to the areas that were strong. Right. And so that could be a good reason to really force someone to do the thing that they're not as comfortable doing.

And I know I'm sure you understand that anyway. But yeah, I think generally about including those options to transition between different things. We just need to make the games bigger. Like the later games in the whole practice session that Greg had us do, where we're going from like one condition to the next to the next.

But there's more scope to be able to, I guess, just attack in different ways. So I think that's the simple way that if we wanted to include those phase transitions or whatever you want to call it, you just need a slightly broader scope to the game. And like you say, I tend to think that that works better for more skilled players or as a way of the way I see it, like connecting dots where we've touched on the dots within the class already. So we've done we've we've made the dots separately.

And now we do maybe a final game that tries to connect those dots together a little bit. OK, yeah. So oh, yeah. So if I'm doing with new people, sorry, I would I tend to if I'm doing a combining connecting the dots game, I try not to ask them to do something in combination that I've not had them do in isolation first.

That's just a general rule that I tend to use. I don't think it's right or wrong, but. So I guess, yeah, so I had the condition of the top player to stay standing in both of these games, right, so not to drop knees to the mat, which you can sprawl a little bit, but you can't do a full power sprawl on someone. And this has pros and cons.

Nice and easy Japanese. Up and back five times. And then the classic switch. Three times.

And then on the third one, you're stopping dog and stretch. And then you go the other way three times. And then stretching crab. One, two, three, stretch.

One, two, three, stretch. So go under. Yes, that's it. Nice.

And then all fours. Just do some rolling spines spinal rolls. And then some sideways rolls. And now, lift your knees sidekick.

Most people go too far. So keep your body where it is. Just turn it and kick. Don't go there.

Just stop in the center. Kick. Boom. Nice.

And now, after the kick, come back and do a jump switch and kick. Now add in one, two, three, kick. One, two, three, kick. Nice.

Stop in straddle. If your legs are long, walk them wider. If your hamstrings are tight, walk your hands forward so that you have created a triangle. Then bow and arrow.

All the way up. Switching sides. Don't twist with your neck. Twist from your ribs.

And now airplane mode. And then go quickly. One, two, three. Now, one hand down sidekick.

Technical stand up back to where we were. One, two, three, slow kick. Boom. Technical stand up.

Really back bend here. Don't go here. Go here. Boom.

One, two, three, slow kick. One, two, three, slow kick. Advanced option. Instead of kicking on the inside, kick like a dragon.

Dragon squat all the way and then back. One, two, three, dragon kick. Okay. Grab your knees.

Squat down. Support yourself. Protect yourself at all times. If your hips allow it, try to sit down and come up again.

Use your hands for support. Physical or emotional. Now add in the knee to come here or even here. So half straddle.

And then switching over to the other side. If you feel clumsy, it means your mobility is improving. Nice. Back to the start.

One of the biggest problems for your back, your lower back specifically, is that you're not back bending enough. You're doing stuff where your hip flexors are always like this. You don't do enough of this. So this exercise, you can all do it really easily, but it's very difficult to do it well because you have to balance and squeeze your butt at the same time.

So we're here doing a side kick. Everybody do a couple just so you know where we are. Now, when you kick, you kick the leg. Don't kick it backwards.

Kick it sideways so that it's a triangle. Look now, I'm lifting and then I'm lifting that leg. So I'm kicking one leg. That becomes the base.

And then I go all the way to scorpion and kick the other way a few times. A few times. You can just go if you know it, but if you don't know, follow me. Kick, place the foot down with a flat foot, lift up and then balance slowly heel to butt, heel to butt, heel to butt, heel to butt.

Scorpion dog, side kick. Boom. Yeah. You do 10 of these and you're dead.

Up, whoop, roll, kick. Lift, scorpion, knee to nose, kick. This beats burpees and jumping jacks every day of the week. This helps your knee slide.

It helps your knees, your lower back, your shoulders, your stability, your balance. You don't need a lot. You just need to do the good things. This is one of the best all round exercises for the whole body I know.

Keep doing 30 more seconds. Don't go fast, go slow. Slow is smooth and smooth is fast. Nice and slow.

Time. It's like in jiu jitsu, if you're placing the foot or hand in the wrong place, the technique is messed up. So if you're going side kick here and the foot goes there, then it's very difficult to do the plank and the hand goes there. Now it's too long.

So it's like being conscious about putting the foot here and not there. And now when I place the hand down, I don't go there. I go closer. Now the balance is good.

And now you can try to speed it up. And now I'm faster than my opponent and I arrive in side control before I have time to react. Do a few fast ones. Swoom, swoom.

Nice. Really nice. Nice Jeanette. Super nice.

Jeanette, when you come over, don't come over here. Come here first. Yes, that's it. Don't miss the scorpion.

That's the best part. Yes. Exactly. Time.

Exact same thing, but backwards is the back step. So we go into scorpion falling back and then scorpion fall back. Your turn. Yeah, it's the same thing.

You start in scorpion, you fall backwards and then you retract the leg into scorpion. So exactly what we did, just reverse. Yes, that's it. Now pull the straight leg back.

Yep, perfect. Nailed it in one. 30 seconds. Not like that, follow me.

Fall backwards. Now you take that leg under you. Yes, there you have it. Two more on each side.

Nice. And then one bonus one from guard, catch your opposite foot, right hand to left foot. And then the other one comes over and grabs. And then you do an infinity loop.

So you're releasing the first one, catching the top one, eternal lasso. And then when you start getting the hang of it, you start elbow framing when you're going to the side like this. So if they're passing your guard on that side, you're throwing the leg over like this, catching the foot, blocking with the elbow. And now you have flexibility, mobility and guard retention in one drill.

So again, I'm throwing the foot over, pulling it down, framing with my elbow and then doing it as they're switching sides. And now one minute freestyle flow. Just do whatever you want. Anything we did in the last classes.

One minute freestyle flow. The dragon squat, the 1990. The straddle swivel. 30 more seconds.

Very nice. How do you guys feel? Good? Sweaty?

Yeah, nice. Who here is under 26? Not me. Who here is under 26 years old?

A few. When I was 26, I said, fuck the jitsu. I've had enough. I can't work.

I can't sleep. I can't walk. I can't tie my shoes. I started doing yoga and now I'm 41 and I'm still in OK shape.

If you have a gym, let me know because all your members get access for free to my website for the price of one lifetime membership. 300 bucks and your whole gym gets access for a year. And if you want access for yourself for a lifetime, also 300 bucks. And if you actually do it, it's very cheap.

If you don't do it, it's expensive like with anything. Yeah, but I don't believe in yoga. Yoga is like martial arts. It can be any bullshit you have it.

But I truly believe in that jiu-jitsu is not what you do with the opponent. That's strategy, tactics, techniques. Jiu-jitsu happens in your body. Your knees and your hips is your biggest opponent, not the guy trying to smash you.

Nobody quits because they get smashed. They quit because their body gets beaten up and they don't know what to do. This is the tool that you need to be able to be here in 10 years. Who here has trained more than 10 years?

That's really harsh statistics. That means that 99% of the people that were here 10 years ago are gone. Why? Not because jiu-jitsu is difficult, it's because it's brutal.

It's like an abusive relationship. And you're like, hey honey. Bam, bitch. That's how I feel every time I step on the mat and I don't take care of my body.

So you need some kind of counselor, some marriage counselor. And I believe that mobility and flexibility in yoga is the only way to make it sustainable over time. Otherwise you're just going to get beaten up until you have to leave. Thank you very much.

Female training partners. I was quite lucky because when I first started I already had at least two women training at my gym. There used to be less women, but now luckily there's more women training. Taking it to women's only open mats, there's quite a few in the UK now.

But each time I've gone to those now there's more and more teen girls, which is lovely to see. So make sure she gets exposed to more female athletes, more training partners. I think that's the best way, trying to get her, I don't know, find more people her size as well. Especially in the training room.

You don't really want her to go and get bigger, bigger training partners. Yeah, finding smaller training partners for her. It's just like women basically. Obviously it's not your business to put in competition, but before getting there, there was something to do with comparison.

I don't know. Maybe you know that there's a certain girl for social media that's been training since she was a child. She's from a very young age. You can't avoid comparing with her and say, I don't know if I can beat her.

How do you deal with that? That's a good question because I still get that now. Like, realistically, I've been doing like high level competitions for two years. And now I'm facing girls who've been competing since they were like kids.

And they have more competition experience than me, realistically. I think it's just trying not to compare myself. I know that sounds like easier said than done, but I know how much work I'm putting in. I know how much training I'm putting in.

That's the only thing I can control. I can't control what they've done so far. So I try to think to myself what I can do to improve myself. What's the most I can do?

Because that's the only thing I can realistically do. Yeah. That's the answer to this question. What kind of training do you like to do?

Like, how do you like to train? Do you like specific training? I don't know, for the week or for the month? Yeah, so normally after a big competition, I don't really speak to maths.

And we run through what went well, what didn't go well, or things I want to improve on. And usually that's the basis of how I train for the next couple of weeks or months. An example of that was at the start of this year, I really wanted to make my plan to go for as many baps as I can. That's my goal, is I want to take as many people's baps as possible.

And that's what I've been working on for the last couple of months. And when I go to new competitions, that's my aim. So, yeah, during the sessions I do the normal classes, but during camp classes where it's more open, I have that sort of aim in mind. And there's a lot of small tasks in there?

Yeah, there's some small tasks in there as well. For example, I really want to be good at going from legs to the back. So maybe I'll play lots of games starting on the legs, and I can either finish by the heel hook or go in the back. And that's the only way.

So I can change the games depending on what I'm focused on that week. Yes. Yeah, definitely have an A game. But I think CLA has helped me broaden my game as well, because you'd never know what's going to happen in an actual match.

Your A game can go out the window really quickly. So I think it's quite important to have a broad game. I think whenever I go in competition, I usually do the exact same thing. But every now and then something different shows up, like something like scrambles.

You can't really plan scrambles. But I think CLA does help with that because you're just exposed to more of jujitsu essentially. Anyone else? Yes.

Yeah, that's a good question. I guess in a week, different sessions will be different intensity. I also do two really, really hard sessions, like the comp training. And then three or four, there's still sessions.

They're still quite hard, but it's maybe more playful or more normal classes. And then whenever I want to, normally I do a Saturday when I'm really tired because I've done the whole week. That's the day that I play around the most, like doing an open mat. I just get fun rounds where I just get to practice what I've done during the week, but also just practice more fun stuff.

Yeah, it's definitely hard to manage sometimes. I think in the beginning, all I wanted to do was train all the time. It's been important to think about rest. I think if you do, I don't know, you work as well.

Even though that is also tiring, there's almost a break for your body from jujitsu, right? Whereas when you do it full time, you're constantly thinking about jujitsu. You constantly think about teaching as well. And so I think managing when you take rest and also doing things outside of jujitsu, thinking about other hobbies you like to do, maybe also just taking rest days when you need them, and knowing when to take rest days is more important when you do it full time.

Yeah, I do. Normally after a big competition, especially in these next couple of months, there's lots, like ABGF, straight after I normally have a little break. And then the weeks that lead up to it, I normally train really hard. And the week before, I don't train as hard.

Maybe keep up, Max talks about this quite a bit, keep the intensity high, volume low. So we don't do as many rounds, but the rounds that we do are intense. And as we lead up, I normally have two days' rest before competition. But yeah, when I can, I do try to make the good four weeks beforehand hard, or make sure I'm game planning for that competition.

Do you have a dedicated space for this? Is it a theoretical approach, or are you designing everything around your programs yourself? Yeah, I do have a program, Max also, the coach that he has as well. He's a strength and conditioning coach.

He just has an online program that I follow twice a week. But then I normally tweak it. So now that I've done it quite a few times, I literally just do four main exercises each time I go. So it's nothing crazy, I don't spend a crazy amount of time in the gym.

Max, like an hour. I've also been doing palometrics, I really like this. I think it is fun and also I think they're quite good for you, especially with Jiu Jitsu. Similar to a question, what do you think is the hardest aspect of being a full-time player?

I don't have enough time for other things, to be fair. I think lots of my friends have normal jobs. And so in the evenings they're hanging out with each other, and then I'm teaching. So I have weird times in the day when I'm free.

I train in the morning, but I have a weird period in the middle of the day when I'm free. And then teaching in the evening. So I guess having a different schedule to some of my friends. Or going away quite a bit.

For competitions I don't really see my friends as much. I get to hang out with them. So it's social? Yeah, I think so.

Do you try to simulate from blue to black? When did we start training? Oh, I look at Axel. When did he start teaching CLA?

Yeah, I forgot. What year did he start teaching it? In general it would have been late blue. And all the time when I started to use CLA, but not exclusively.

And then during my first month, I went for exclusively CLA. Yeah, that was it. I forgot what year he started teaching it. I don't think you've done an international competition before CLA.

No. Any other ones? What's your process? Since you're doing a lot of CLA, what's your process like after...

I don't know, I know I talk a lot about specific positions and this kind of stuff. Like at the end of class, I'm not really very specific kind of thing. Or like very deep exposed to this kind of thing. Do you do anything of that?

Or like troubleshooting people's legs? Like I was really stuck in this kind of thing. So that kind of problem is something that you can't solve? Yeah, normally after like comp training, we have a session called troubleshooting.

Where essentially anyone wants to test something out, you can. But yeah, I definitely do that. Especially after some sessions, I'm like why did that not work? It's really annoying, like a certain grip isn't working.

Or if Max has seen something that he thinks is really cool, he'll just show it to me. I think especially like you watch it, it's certain grips that are more powerful than others. So if you find anything, yeah, we definitely troubleshoot after sessions. So now you're teaching, do you always have the job or do you have a plan for school?

To make money while you're competing or do you have to work at some point? I was actually quite lucky because as soon as I went full time, I already had like teaching jobs signed up essentially. So I've only been doing it for like a year, full time now. So I was doing university and as soon as I finished uni, I just got that teaching job straight away.

So luckily that could just fund all my trips from last year. So yeah, I've been quite lucky with that. Did that just happen? Copy that, she said she's very lucky.

She worked fucking hard. The luck was training every single day whilst we were studying at university. Training by my athletes whilst getting my degree. Just in case anyone, especially if anyone is an aspiring young athlete here, I think it's important.

If you work hard before you can go full time, that will give you the opportunity to potentially be in the top 10. And it doesn't guarantee it, there's still some element of luck involved. But the hard work without that, the luck wouldn't matter. Yes.

You've just won trials, which is incredible. But instead of being able to celebrate the ticket to ADCC Worlds that all the male division winners get, you're having to put in a load of effort to your activism, trying to make sure that you and the other female trials winners can get that. Can you tell us a little bit about what that's like, having to balance being a full time athlete who won trials and still trying to get your ticket to Worlds? Yeah, I guess it is quite frustrating to be honest.

It's a good point you made. So if anyone doesn't know what ADCC is, it's essentially a really big organisation, the new ADCC Worlds, every two years. And in each region there's two trials. So for Europe there's two trials, there's one in September.

Essentially men can qualify in both, but women can only qualify in the second one. So I won the first one, but I already knew that I wasn't going to qualify. So I was like done with that. But yeah, lots of people messaged me not knowing that I was going to qualify.

So they messaged me like, oh my God, we got to Worlds. And I was like, no, I didn't. It doesn't qualify for women. I think it's frustrating.

Same entry price, right? Yeah, so same entry price as the men, same number of matches as some of the men, but not getting to qualify for Worlds. So yeah, I think the frustrating part is this has been going on for so many years. Especially teenage girls going back to your daughter.

In this same venue there was teen girls, just mats away. And had teen girls even message me, be like, oh my God, you got to Worlds. And they were like, no, I didn't. So I think that's a part which is very frustrating.

I don't want to just see younger girls grow up and not even see, like, find out that I don't even get to go to Worlds. Or the other women who qualify, same as the men not go to Worlds. So yeah, I've written a petition. I put it in the group chat.

So if anyone, I know lots of people in here like gym owners or, you know, you train with women as well. If you could assign and share it around, I think that's probably the best way to get as many of the community involved. Try to get spread around. So I really appreciate if anyone could assign it and share it.

But yeah, thank you for the question. So you said that you were so full, you like training women, you like to help them out. Did you, like, increase in how much better you were getting in progress? Because at first, everyone gets better quickly anyway.

But it's not when you're already doing very experienced and you're doing something the right way or? Yeah, I think so. Or was it just the time of the month? No, definitely I saw a big improvement, like a massive improvement, because I always want to work with sparring in the class.

I'm not sure if anyone else relates to that. But I'm like, oh, I don't want to drill anymore. I just want to go to spar. I think just having that exposure constantly of someone resisting is just going to make you better.

You're like Matt said, like, I only started doing international competitions as soon as I did CLA. I did quite well. I don't think I would have done as well as I did if I didn't switch the way I trained, in my opinion. So yeah, I think I did see a big improvement.

I think we're done. Oh, yes. Yeah, so normally I'll be like, I think an example like Matt will find a certain way to finish a straight foot lock. And be like, let's test it out.

And then we test it out. We'll see what works, what doesn't. And then maybe we'll just play a game afterwards, testing out that certain grip, for example. So then what I think is really big is just like small details.

And then we'll just play games to test those details out, essentially. Yes. It's a bit curious on my recovery tips between training sessions. I mean, I know you're young, recovery helps.

And inside it probably helps for someone who's not doing full-time training. It's not full-time athlete training, but it's probably, I think, to train so much sleep that you might get in protein within the week. Sleep. Sleep is the most important one.

I try to sleep as much as I can. As someone who struggles with sleep, I have to take naps the day after training sessions. I normally take naps, so sleep as much as you can. Sauna as well.

I think ever since I started doing sauna, like at least twice a week, I've found a big difference. I think it's so good for recovery. So if you can go to a sauna, I highly recommend. And yes, stretch.

I know it's hard, but try to stretch as much as you can, I guess, after training. And roll out your muscles like foam rollers. Everything's in control apart from the sleep. Yeah, sleep.

Sleep, sleep, sleep. All right, thank you. Eat good. Oh, yeah.

Eat good. Eat your protein. Eat your protein, girls. Drink your water.

Thank you. Yes. Can you tell us a little bit about your preparation? What skills were you focusing on during training?

Yeah, a lot of aim towards the back. That was the main focus. And also for trials, like ADCC, if you're a partner of Turtles, when you're passing guards, it doesn't count as a guard pass. So a lot of games started from Turtles or passing guard and letting your partners go to Turtles.

Because you end up there a lot at trials. So yeah, a lot of games from there and a lot of standing games because over time you have to start standing. So a lot of wrestling. Yeah.

Yeah. Did you do any other sports? Were you like a dinosaur? Yeah, I did do any other sports before I went in the air.

It just feels like my first sport. What other hobbies did you have? I don't know, I was on the farm or something like that. I didn't really do anything else.

I was on the mountain, you know, I was on the road. Nothing like that. No, I don't know. When I was younger, I lived in a really small village.

So I guess I spent a lot of time outdoors, playing outdoors. So yeah, I was just running around. I didn't do any particular sport, but I spent a lot of time outdoors. That's a good question too.

I think different people have different ways of expressing their nerves. I'm very anxious when I compete. It's funny because people are like, you don't look anxious, you look very focused. And I'm like, no, I'm dying.

I think finding what works for you. For me personally, I don't like bright lights and a lot of noise. It stresses me out. So I always have headphones.

And whenever I go to a venue, I get away from the people as soon as I can. I'll find a quiet corner somewhere and I'll spend most of my time there. And then get out of my hiding spot. Just before my matches, maybe just warm up for someone.

Like 15, 20 minutes beforehand. Just limit the amount of time I have to be in that stressful environment. I think that helps a lot. And also just like self-talk.

Talk to yourself. Be like, it's okay. It's okay. Nothing bad is going to happen.

I've chosen to do this. I've been grateful for the opportunities to do it. Not everyone gets to do it. I'm just happy to actually be able to compete.

Yes. What do you want to do to keep your body healthy? What do you have? What are your main issues?

Do you have that issue of dehydration? Do you want to still try to maintain your body? Or do you just want to keep it at the baseline? What are your main issues?

Do you still want to maintain your body? Yeah, I mean I guess it goes back to nutrition and sleep and stuff like that. That's like the baseline. I always try to keep that.

I feel like, not sure if anyone else is serious, but straight after competition you have this crash out. Where you're just like, he was going to eat a lot of bad food. Or your sleep is going to get a bit rubbish for a couple of days. And that's completely normal.

But trying to keep that baseline as much as you can. Maybe some light training. Give yourself a couple of days rest. But then I try to just go back to my baseline again.

As soon as I can. And then start building up again for the next competition. Yeah. Anyone else?

Yes. Any questions regarding your upcoming camp in Germany? In the dark, are you involved in the organisation? Have you known any women already registered?

Because you're looking for a special promotion offer for Women Camp First? I'm actually not sure. I haven't asked Gammie yet. I don't have their details of it yet.

Yeah, I think she says there's a lot of people who want to sign up already. So hopefully there's a lot of women. I'm quite excited. I'm excited to put up my support.

Yay! That'll be fun. Play with women and she's like, oh, I'm scared. No, yeah, we can convince her.

Sure. Nice. That's a silly question. You already have a partner at the African competition.

Why is it important to have a photo of the experience? Just like, what is it like? Donuts. Donuts.

Yeah, every sort of time there's a competition there's a photo of me eating a donut. Big tradition now. Yeah. Thanks so much to all of you for sticking around.

Yeah, and make sure all of you, once you sign the petition, it's on the group chat. T-shirt around. Really appreciate it. Yeah, thank you.

Can I just say one thing just to the men in the room? Like, it's really helpful to get women's perspective.