This week Stephan talks about women and Brazilian Jujitsu BJJ training. In my experience women are very god at jujitsu as they are naturally more flexible than men and BJJ is all about leverage. It only takes five pounds of pressure to snap any limb and with leverage and a good base women are just as good as men. Stephan also talks about some advice the master Jean Jacques Machado gave him. If Machado gives someone advice you listen. Also if any of you have any great photos of yourself rolling please forward them over to Stephan at

www.grapplearts.com/picofweek.php

Enjoy

1 - Survival Stories: Why BJJ is a womanly art
2 - Call for all Photos: Have your action photos featured on Grapplearts
3 - Don't Sit Like This: The simplest tip ever for avoiding injuries
4 - Always Injured, the Feedback: Readers share their tips

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1 - Survival Stories

An anonymous person contacted me recently and shared a story of how a female friend of theirs had used a few months of BJJ training to escape from an assault and/or attempted rape situation. Using BJJ she managed to escape a pin, stand up and then run away and get help. She probably just used very basic pin escape movements, but pulling them off under emotional duress, with limited training and a large size and strength disadvantage points to the effectiveness of both the techniques she learned and the training methods used to ingrain them in her.

Arguments about the relative importance of grappling in MMA go on and on, but women's self defense is not MMA. Virtually all rapes end up on the ground, and I think that some form of grappling is critical for women's self defense. This takes us back to the article written by the female readership of this newsletter entitled 'Why Should Women Grapple" - it's an article that is still very relevant and I'm proud to have it on my site. Please feel free to forward this article (or this newsletter) to the women in your life, it might just make them a little safer.

The article is found at:
www.grapplearts.com/Women-and-Grappling.html

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2 - Call for all photos

One of the more popular destinations on Grapplearts.com is the featured photo page, which shows action photos of people training, sparring, and competing in submission grappling, MMA, Judo, BJJ and other grappling sports.

www.grapplearts.com/picofweek.php

If you would like to contribute your own rolling or grappling photos (photos either of you or taken by you) please use the submission form located at the bottom of the featured photo page. The photos need to have an element of ACTION to them (i.e. I can't use photos of you posing with famous people). This is a great opportunity to promote a competitor, a club, and event, and share your excitement with the readership of Grapplearts.com. Once again, you can submit your photos at the bottom
of:

www.grapplearts.com/picofweek.php

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3 - Don't Sit Like This:

Several years ago I found myself waiting for a Jean Jacques Machado to start: I was sitting on the mat, watching people train, and chatting with a friend . Jean Jacques, the jiu-jitsu superstar, strolled over to us and told me something that I think about almost every time I train. What was this nugget of wisdom? He corrected my sitting technique!

You see, I'd been sitting and propping my weight up with my arm which was posted on the mat behind me. My arm was straight and my elbow locked out. Jean Jacques told me never to sit like that on the jiu- jitsu mat. He pointed out that if someone behind me, absorbed in their sparring, rolled onto my arm then my elbow would be shattered.

BJJ is such a casual martial art that sitting sprawled out on the mat seems like a 'normal' thing to do, but it's not the right thing to do and it's not the safe thing to do. Keep your arms where you can see them, and not locked out

This may seem like a minor detail to get hung up on, but the readership of this newsletter is huge. If I share this tip here then someone, somewhere in the world, will avoid a severely damaging arm injury. One injury less is a good thing, justifying the inclusion of this story in my newsletter.

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4 - Always Injured, the Feedback:

Last newsletter I gave some advice to a reader who had suffered a rather terrible string of orthopedic injuries while training in MMA (http://tinyurl.com/2f6d6h). I also opened up the conversation to other readers of this newsletter and invited comments on several martial arts forums. Thanks to everyone who wrote in, and here is what they had to say:

*** "I have realized I was getting injured when I was was gassing.
With better cardio, I stayed more out of trouble."

*** "Nutrition plays a huge role in injury prevention. Bones and ligaments, like muscles, need fuel to regenerate. Fish oil helps for inflammation. (I use Carlson's fish oil.)"

*** "Being fat is an invitation for an injury. Your body isn't as balanced, and you're carrying around more weight than you should."

*** "The biggest thing to prevent injuries and especially reoccuring injuries is to understand what cause them, meaning the ANGLES your body is in, and where the PRESSURE is being applied to you and don't let it get in that position again even if you have to tap for no apparent reason. I have stopped sparring matches on many occasions and my partner was like "what happened?", I just tell them the situation and let them have to closest position with them being in advantage and restart. I have never had someone complain about me doing that."

*** "Find a sports medicine doctor not a primary care...makes a world of difference!!!"

*** "Warm up properly. Nearly every injury I've received in judo has been from going hard early in the session before I'm warm and loosened up."

*** "I find (as a 60 year old fighter) that my injuries come from rolling with guys that weigh 50, 75 100 or more pounds heavier than me.... At my age i would like to work with more guys in my weight class. It would be easier and i would develop quicker if i could just work with someone in my weight class."

*** "Sometimes it is important to turn it up a notch and escalate your sparring. Recently I sparred with some MMA guys who outweighed me and all went 110% in their sparring. When I took it easy I found myself in potentially dangerous situations (e.g. stacked on the back of my neck), but when I went all out and got to the top position I was alright for the rest of the match. It's important to be aware of your training partners' tendencies, but it's also really important to know yourself too.

*** "There's a big difference between being 25 and being 37 or 40. I am now going to a traditional BJJ class that focuses on technique. That's what I need to do to improve. Rolling with a bunch of testosterone junkies isn't going to make me better. My goals are to (1) not get hurt, (2) have fun, and (3) improve my BJJ. In that order, since they all depend on #1."

Stephan Kesting
www.grapplearts.com

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