Hello. I'm practicing Japanese / Sport Ju Jitsu ( our dojo is competing at IJJF competitions ) for 5-6 months now. I don't know how many adult students there are in the dojo, but let's say we are 15. In these 15 students, we have 3 wrestlers. One was a US high school wrestler ( he is now 30+ years old ) and a blue belt in JJJ , so he has pretty much abandoned his wrestling style and he takedowns ( grabbing the gi from the right arm of the opponent and the left upper part of the gi - I don't know specific names - ) and submits the way like the other 12 students do. The second person, has been doing greco-roman wrestling in Greece for 7 years competitively and he has a really different grappling style from JJ - I know that's natural-. Usually, when we fight, to take me down, he grabs one arm of mine with both his hands and I get shocked, I don't know what do, I mean I'm not used in grappling this way. Furthermore, when we are on the ground, both at our knees, I try to bring him to my guard or drop him or just break his balance and submit / pin him. He, again, tries to catch an arm of mine and proceeds this way. Again, I get confused. And last but not least, yesterday, a new person entered the dojo, with experience of 5 years at greco-roman wrestling ( I think he's at my age, 18-19 ). Again, when we ground sparred a little, he immediately proceeded to grab one arm and tried to submit me or pin me this way. The thing is, how do I react to this different grabbing of one arm only? I have no previous martial art experience and I'm pretty much a noob at JJJ, I'm not saying there are no ways to avoid or counter this, but what would you guys do? Cheers!
Well, you're measuring up against folks who have 10 and 14 times as much grappling experience as you. It's highly unlikely that you're going to do better than them, even if someone posts a video of how to counter an arm drag. Don't worry, you're young, you'll et it eventually.
In the future....Why don't you ask the guys doing the technique on you how to defend/counter it? They're wrestlers (i.e. Awesome grapplers), so are used to doing the technique or defending against it. You're training with the guys in your club, not at a competition, so the guys should be Willing to share information.
Learn how to wrestle. Or get really good at submitting people from a bottom position. Or punch them until they give up. Those are pretty much your only options.
Couldn't agree more. Training in class is about learning from each other, not competing. So if they pull a technique on you a few times (particularly from someone more experienced) ask how to drill a counter. also learn the same technique, you learn more about how to counter when you learn the technique and try it out on a few people, you'll see/feel how they react and deal with it.
Thanks for the replies guys! I have read the replies when they were written, I just happen to reply now. I didn't know what I expected from a question like this, it's actually pretty obvious that I can't deal yet with 5 or 10 times more experienced people. I opt to ask the other guys for a counter. Cheers
If you don't ask, you wont' know The other issue is as well, especially with Greco guys, is that they have strong upper body and great balance, as their wrestling is all Upper Body based attacks, so its all throws, suplexes and the like...rather than Freestyle where the familiar looking single/double legs are seen. So its not suprising that when a Greco guy gets his hands on you, you're pretty much trapped.
What style of JJJ are you doing? I was under the impression JJJ had no ground game and was kind of like a standing striking/grappling thing. Secondly I agree with the others, ask them to help you. IF you get to the point you can hang with them, most other grapplers in a SD situation will be more manageable and less frightening.(i.e BJJ)
Hey Kframe, sorry, I saw your post just now. I don't think I'm doing a specific style of JJJ, our dojo participates in tournaments of IJJF and we're doing a mixture of Traditional JJ and Sport JJ. At least that's what the sensei says So, our sparring has the ruleset of Sport JJ and we're doing some additional exercises of Traditional JJ. We're doing striking ( semi-contact, no punches to the head, only haito uchi and uraken uchi ), throws and ground work An example: [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vumFNTnIF4o"]ju-jitsu fighting - YouTube[/ame]
The high collar grip is pretty much my go to anti-wrestler technique during standup. It buys you time to grip fight and acts as a feeler so you can anticipate shots and low body locks. My favorite counters are rolling knee bars, scissors and uchimata versus the single leg. Others may work better for you. Hiza guruma comes to mind. On the ground, techniques that exploit extended legs work well in the scramble. Half guard passes to the back, guard recoveries, leg rides, inverted knee bars, etc. But really wrestling is a great operating system and unless you are competent at it it will shut your plans down.
