Roy Marsh Jiu-Jitsu

22/06/2026

15/06/2026

I’m a big believer in maximizing the effectiveness of my Jiu-Jitsu.

This means rather than learning a lot of moves, I prefer to have a storehouse of proven moves and then build a collection of Variations of those moves.

This way I don’t have to start from the beginning each time and I take an already effective move and make it even more so by having variations that fit specific situations.

Yesterday, I taught a variation of the Far Side Armlock that allows you to keep a lower smothering profile than the more Traditional variation.

But, it’s extremely important to understand that the Traditional version also has its strengths.

The key is to know when to use your variations and why.

27/05/2026

One of the lessons I constantly reinforce with my students is that (despite what a lot of YouTube videos will say) there is no “perfect technique.”

A lot of times people will just do the escape that they know or were told were best without actually looking at the problem they are facing.

I always use the analogy of a Lock and a Key.

When I am being controlled by a structure, I am being locked into place.

I have to find the correct key to open that lock.

I can try to just smash my way out but that is highly ineffective vs knowing the structure I’m dealing and where its weaknesses / openings are.

So, as always I focus on reverse engineering. I have to understand what my opponent is doing to be able to dismantle or escape it.

So, here I am explaining the 4 arm pin variations from Cross Sides position so that we can then go into how to know which pin we’re dealing with and which escapes (keys) will work and which won’t.

26/05/2026

This is actually part 1 of the video from yesterday.

We were working for a few weeks on Closed Guard and I was explaining the power of it.

I saw a Black Belt once say he doesn’t teach Closed Guard until his students reach Blue Belt.

On one hand, I get it. He wants people to get good at moving their hips and using grips and dealing with their opponent’s movement rather than “just holding their opponent.”

But, learning to control is the primary goal in BJJ and I want my students to perfect that before just turning every roll into a constant scramble.

In the same way that I feel it’s more effective to get to a clinch, dominate the clinch and strike or takedown from there vs just standing at range and hoping your faster and stronger, it’s more effective in my mind to dominate control positions and work from there.

I don’t teach my students to stall “Just Hold on” from closed guard but rather to look at it as a trap.

Put your opponent in the trap and don’t let him out while You attack.

The other thing is my White to Blue Curriculum is heavily focused on self defense.

When punches start getting thrown, I need to either close off all space between my opponent and me or fill it up if we can’t and try to escape back to my feet.

Knowing how to do that is not something I want to wait until they’re Blue Belts to teach them.

25/05/2026

One of the things I constantly preach to my students is the focus of always keeping my opponent off-balance.

I even had a discussion about this yesterday in class.

One of my primary strategies is to always attack my opponent’s posture and base.

This has the added bonus to disrupt their priorities.

In this case, I am disrupting my opponent’s goal of opening my legs by making have to focus first on trying to keep proper position so he CAN open my guard.

This idea of attacking their base and posture isn’t something I do lightly or with little understanding.

It’s central to my system and something I’ve spent a lot of time trying to understand.

And, of course, the opposite is true: a heavy study on how to keep my own base and posture.

22/05/2026

One of my primary teaching goals is to get my students to understand how to break down mechanics and teach themselves.

I don’t what them to just learn how to do something.
I want them to try to figure how why something works or doesn’t work beyond some coach somewhere saying to do it a certain way.

This means I heavily focus on getting my students to reverse engineer.

I tell them if they want to learn how to build an effective triangle then they need to study how someone escapes it.

Then they can understand why their structure will or won’t work well.

And, obviously, the opposite is true (if I want to escape a triangle I have to understand how it works and its parts and timeline).

I do this for everything.

So, here I explain one of the main escape mechanics vs an armbar and how I can nullify it in numerous ways and not just the standard one many learn by rote.

21/05/2026

I have a Love-Hate relationship with this technique because I fell for it all the time as a White Belt.

I’d get double ankle swept and post and get Bustamante arm locked.

But, this is really important when you learn techniques is to study the common responses and have an option to deal with them.

21/05/2026

A great demonstration of the Sickle Sweep from my coach.