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Visualisation For BJJ

You’ll often hear BJJ players talk about Jiu Jitsu being 80% mental yet no one really talks about how you train the mental side of the game. One of the ways we can train the mental side of BJJ is through visualisation.

Visualisation has been shown to be a highly effective way to reduce competition anxiety, develop skills, and improve performance. But what is visualisation and how do you use it to your advantage?

In this video, Tom shares his experience using visualisation and how he uses visualisation pre-competition and in-competition.

This article has most of the references for the studies into visualisation if you’d like to do further research:

http://nancynewell.com/blog/2018/1/21/the-hidden-power-of-visualization

Filed Under: BJJ 101, Concepts Tagged With: Mindset, Visualisation, Visualisation For BJJ

Look Inside Our Academy

Have you ever wondered what the inside of Escapology BJJ’s academy in Cambridge looks like? Check out this short tour of our beautiful Brazilian Jiu Jitsu academy in Cambridge.

Here are a few of the key features of our BJJ school:

– Two full matted training areas allowing us to offer beginners and advanced classes at the same time.
– Private changing rooms
– Shower room
– Free parking
– Comfortable waiting area

To get your FREE trial in our adults or kids BJJ classes visit http://www.escapologybjj.com/free-trial

Filed Under: Uncategorized

The Power Of Yet

mindset
/ˈmʌɪn(d)sɛt/
noun
1. the established set of attitudes held by someone.

One of the most important elements in success is your mindset.

As a martial arts student, it can be very easy to feel a lack of progression.  Students can often feel frustrated by a bad training session or if they struggle with a certain technique.  And it’s common to hear students say “I’m not good at…” or “I can’t do …”

When a student says this, they’re operating from a Fixed Mindset.  Their belief is that regardless of the amount of training they put in, it’s impossible for them to succeed.

However, by adding one simple word to the end of those sentences / beliefs they can switch to a Growth Mindset and achieve remarkable success.

Chelsea winning the World Championships in 2014

A Better Mindset

The concept of Fixed and Growth mindsets comes from Carol Dweck.  Dweck is a Professor of Psychology at Stanford University and has devoted her career to understanding success.  Here’s Dweck’s definition of Fixed and Growth <indsets from a 2012 interview:

In a Fixed Mindset students believe their basic abilities, their intelligence, their talents, are just fixed traits. They have a certain amount and that’s that, and then their goal becomes to look smart all the time and never look dumb.

In a Growth Mindset students understand that their talents and abilities can be developed through effort, good teaching and persistence.  They don’t necessarily think everyone’s the same or anyone can be Einstein, but they believe everyone can get smarter if they work at it.”

Here is a short video (3 min 50 sec) clearly explains the concept.

Students with a Fixed Mindset believe that success is all that matters and look to competition, exams, and training as proof of this.  Unfortunately, if things don’t go there way they feel like a failure.

Because their self-worth is built upon winning or losing, these individuals will look for opportunities that justify their self-worth rather than challenges which will force them to grow.

This Fixed Mindset can cripple their progress.  They’ll avoid the tougher training partners, skip training if they feel less than 100%, and can resort to cheating in order to win.

A student with a Growth Mindset sees failure as a necessary part of development and relishes opportunities to improve.  In other words, they see effort to improve is their success.

Here is a more complete comparison of the Fixed and Growth Mindsets:

Growth Mindset vs Fixed Mindset

The Power Of Yet

According to Dweck’s research, the simple addition of “yet” can switch a belief from a Fixed mindset to a Growth mindset.  For example: “I can’t do a back kick” becomes “I can’t do a back kick yet!” Or “I’m not good at press ups” becomes “I’m not good at press ups yet!”

The addition of ‘yet’ implies that in the near future with practice they will succeed.  Dweck’s studies have shown that teaching children the addition of “yet” or “not yet,” results in greater confidence, and creates greater persistence as they see success in the future.

What’s fascinating is that it’s possible change a students’ mindsets.

In one study, Dweck taught students that every time they push out of their comfort zone to learn something new and difficult, the neurons in their brain can form new, stronger connections.  The students who were taught this lesson actually got smarter over time.

Tom Barlow winning European Masters photo by Maggie left

Praise Wisely

For a parent or instructor it’s easy to praise a students successes or talent, and that’s important, but praising these alone is teaching a Fixed Mindset.

Instead, you should praise the learning process, the focus, the perseverance, and the effort that went into achieving that success.

In a recent TED talk, Dweck, sites the astonishing results of students that were praised for effort vs those that were praised for success.

“In one year, fourth grade students in the South Bronx, way behind, became the number one fourth grade class in the state of New York on the state math test.
In a year to a year and a half, Native American students in a school on a reservation went from the bottom of their district to the top, and that district included affluent sections of Seattle.”

Dweck states this happened because that the meaning of effort and difficulty were transformed.

“Before, effort and difficulty made them feel dumb, made them feel like giving up, but now, effort and difficulty, that’s when their neurons are making new connections, stronger connections. That’s when they’re getting smarter.”

(Click Here to watch the TED full talk.)

The Take Aways

Instructors, parents, and students should emphasise improvement and growth rather than success or failure in training or competition when evaluating training progress.

  • A Fixed mindset will limit your growth
  • A Growth mindset believes success comes through effort and continual development
  • Adding ‘yet’ to a statement can shift you from a Fixed mindset to Growth mindset
  • Praise the learning process, perseverance, and effort instead of the success itself.

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Inside The 5-7’s Kids BJJ Curriculum

Here is a short tour of the 5-7’s Kids BJJ Curriculum and how to use the site.

The 5-7’s Kids BJJ Curriculum is on sale until midnight on 5th September 2021. To learn more about the curriculum and get the launch discount click the button below:

Get The 5-7’s Curriculum Now

Filed Under: Uncategorized

The Sucuri

Grappling has been around for thousands of years. In that time, every way of possibly contorting an opponent will have been discovered.

As a result, I never say I invented anything. Instead, I prefer to think of rediscovering something that was lost or fallen out of fashion. This is exactly the case with the Sucuri.

The Sucuri is a submission / position I started using when my training partners got good at defending my attacks from the back. Unlike a lot submissions from the you don’t realised the danger until its too late and the damage is done.

The nice thing about the Sucuri is if your opponent does realise the danger, their way of defending will lead to either an arm bar or choke. Check out the video below to discover exactly what the Sucuri is and how you can use it to your advantage:

Warning: The Sucuri is a powerful submission when done correctly and puts a huge amount of pressure on your opponent. Please be careful when using it in practice as it can easily injury your training partner.

If you’d like to see the Sucuri in action, check out this breakdown of my first sub-only match

If you enjoyed this article, please leave me a comment or share it with your friends. It would make my day.

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Filed Under: Technique Tagged With: Instructional, Submissions, The Sucuri

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