SBG Articles And News
The latest news and articles to keep your mind fit
Is there a 10th Planet Jiu Jitsu near Dartmouth MA?
We get a number of enquiries into our gym on 10th Planet Jiu Jitsu. This
Mount Principles from my recent seminar
Last weekend I had the pleasure of teaching once again at our SBG International training
Problem Solving Submission Defense Through First Principles
Some submission defense nuggets… How to solve complex problems through application of first principles. In
How to stay on track (& get everything you want from your BJJ journey)
This is a training I did for my students at SBG East Coast that I wanted to share to my online followers. In this video I speak broadly about how to overcome common mental obstacles in order to achieve success in martial arts, which obviously includes Jiu-Jitsu. This is a deeper dive than simply saying […]
How to make injuries work FOR you
No one likes to be injured. And if you’ve followed me for a long time, you know that I spent a chunk of my 30s dealing with debilitating neck and back issues, not to mention all the others over the years. So I completely understand that there are some injuries where you just need to […]
Jiu-Jitsu, Fighting, and Context
Here are some images from my one of my seminars at Combat Fitness in Boise, ID last year. Usually when I do seminars, I’m asked to teach Jiu-Jitsu and/or Muay Thai. This time, however, the Boise crew requested that I do two days of MMA. They have a sizable fight team as well as an […]
How to reduce injuries, recover, and accelerate skill development
Here’s a long form video to address questions from our 40 Plus BJJ Facebook group about skill development, injuries, training volume and intensity, and more. One recent question in particular was representative of how a lot of our members feel (at least at some point): Want to know after so many years of training how […]
Pyramids, not triangles (seminar footage)
Create pyramids, not (2 dimensional) triangles. In this next video below, I share another clip from my “Smear Campaign” section at the SBG International Spring 2022 training camp, where I had the privilege of taking about 160-170 practitioners from white belt to high level competitive black belts through the theory and application of how to […]
How to make “Basic” Arm Locks Super High Percentage
Most BJJ students learn the same “basic” arm locks from side control within their first weeks or months of Jiu-Jitsu –– e.g., Americana, straight cross body arm lock, and Kimura. But with the exception of the Kimura, most find that once their training partners know how to keep their arms in on bottom, these techniques […]
How (and when) to use your head escaping back mount
First Principles Escapes: Back Mount The conventional wisdom I see a lot of today
Figure 4 Body Lock Submission vs. Back Mount
If you’ve ever had a skilled opponent on your back with a fully locked-in body lock, chances are you’ve suffered in that position! Not only are they attacking your neck, but meanwhile you’re having the life squeezed out of you like an anaconda was constricting around your torso… It’s hard to breathe, let alone defend […]
Stiff Arm Mount Escape (crazy effective with these details)!
This is the stiff arm hip escape, one of the most effective escapes from bottom against an upright mount. But although other variations of the stiff arm escape and the kipping escape are more popular these days, I’m going to show you the first principles mechanics that make this particular variation incredibly hard to stop… […]
SBG Dartmouth Open House Saturday Jan 25th 2025
We’ve recently moved location into a great new gym in Dartmouth, MA and want
How to Roll for Optimal Skill Development (most don’t do this)
In this next video below I share the “Rolling Formula” for how to roll (spar) for optimal long-term skill development in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. Unfortunately there are MANY misconceptions about this within the BJJ and grappling community, most of which have been passed on as reasoning by analogy conventional “wisdom” over the years. On one extreme, […]
Do you have achy joints all the time?
If you do BJJ and have achy joints a lot of the time, you’re not alone. It comes up a lot, especially with grapplers 40 and older. For me, it started even earlier than that. Surprisingly, the main culprit wasn’t age or injuries… Over a decade ago, I saw a piece that a chiropractor wrote […]