13/06/2026
Some focused sparring in our advanced class. 😎
Carlos and I have both been working on our respective positions; first in the gi 🥋, now without 🤼♂️. His goal is to pass my open guard and get a submission. Mine is to gain control of him in butterfly guard, then sweep and/or submit him.
While I got some sweeps to submissions in the end, he managed very well to prevent me from gaining upper body control from butterfly guard. Back to the drawing board on that one. ☝️
This is clearly a grappling only contest to train a specific position. If strikes were involved, my aim from bottom would have had to be to get up and on top, or if impossible, to get my opponent into closed guard with his posture broken (to avoid getting hit).
In jiujitsu, context matters. In our fundamentals we teach only techniques that work in a self defense/fight situation against striking attackers. There, simplicity is the aim. Once students are more advanced, we can then play with other concepts. It increases our grappling understanding, and it’s great fun. However, we are always aware which „game“ we’re playing.
