Struggling with sparring/rolling as a female

[maxkawasaki]

Reminded me of this old meme...

View attachment 29574

In seriousness, let's face it. The guy on the bottom can't just be a little better than his opponent if he wants to survive. With a size/strength disparity that significant, he'll need to be at least 300% better than the other guy technically at everything to even begin to level the playing field.

When technique is equal, size and strength wins. BJJ is (perhaps) the best there is at giving the smaller fighter a better chance against a much larger opponent... but it's not magic.

BJJ was meant to be the martial art that anyone of any size could do but that photo describes my life extremely accurately! Ive decided to reach out to one of the brown belts at the gym for some one on one training so he can run me through some proper escape techniques for larger opponents so hopefully that will help!

 

[Alan0354]

BJJ was meant to be the martial art that anyone of any size could do but that photo describes my life extremely accurately! Ive decided to reach out to one of the brown belts at the gym for some one on one training so he can run me through some proper escape techniques for larger opponents so hopefully that will help!

This is where strength comes into play. Like me, when I first started weight, I had a hell of a time bench press 90lbs. There's no way I can push this big guy off. But when I got serious into weight training(impressed how much the standard weight training in they gym help my back), my strength really improved fast. Now I can bench 185lbs(at least the last time to did in the gym, I work at home now), I got to have a better chance pushing him at least enough to get out of the way.

Of cause, strength is NOT everything, if you are below 140lb, there's only so much strength you can have. You reach plateau like 220lbs give and take. So don't get too excited also. It's just you'll be in much better position if you have more strength.

Don't believe people say if you have technique, you don't need strength. It's true if you are in PERFECT position of arm bar, you don't need strength to break the arm. GETTING TO THE POSITION TAKES strength as the opponent is not going to lay there and let you move to perfect position. Everything is about strength.

Weight training also prevent injuries if done right. Look at all the top athletes stay on top past 40yrs old now a days, all thanks to working out in the gym.

Look at the tip top of MMA, the UFC, their gym have all the weights and machines. People train very heavily in the gym. Just do the standard exercise, don't go to those strange exercise from some of the MA people like kicking a stone on a pole for legs or throwing stuffs. Stay with the PROVEN modern weight training in the gym.

I am sure you can see the importance of squads for shooting or sprawing in BJJ. You need leg strength, squat got to be the best exercise.

I am too long winded. I so wish I am young, you are learning the BEST styles, You literally learning MMA by combining Muythai and BJJ. They kicked the butt of TMA. I wish I could learn that. I was from the time of Bruce Lee kick boxing era. It's chop meat facing you.

 

[JowGaWolf]

I can't tell you about BJJ, but for striking learn how to attack the lower parts of the body and learn how to fight on the inside. Your short height is an advantage so long as you fight inside a tall opponent's range. This is where you'll be most effective against a taller person. This is also where you'll be the safest 2nd to staying completely out of range.

With that said, you'll need to become an expert with your footwork and become an expert with escaping grappling attempts.

Your pu ching targets should be things like ribs kidneys and liver. The head is going to be less important because it's out of range. You can still attack the head but only if he brings his head to your normal striking level. You can do this by attacking the lower parts of his body. This is universal regardless of the striking system that a person's trains in. The only real dangers when close in are knees and downward elbows to the top of your head. Depend on the rules you may only have to worry about knees

 

[skribs]

BJJ was meant to be the martial art that anyone of any size could do but that photo describes my life extremely accurately! Ive decided to reach out to one of the brown belts at the gym for some one on one training so he can run me through some proper escape techniques for larger opponents so hopefully that will help!

I think most martial arts claim that, except maybe wrestling and boxing. And it's true, a highly skilled person trained in [any art] should be able to beat a lowly skilled, larger opponent.

 

[Balrog]

Do you have a suggestion for how exactly she ought to go about doing that? Let’s assume for a moment that her current gym does not have experts on pressure points simply because it probably isn’t an emphasis on which they focus, as a grappling competition gym. So are you suggesting that as a beginner she ought to go out and join some other school somewhere that may or may not exist in her area, to learn about pressure points, so she can come back to her BJJ gym and then use that knowledge to try and get her heavier and stronger and more experienced training partners off her? Rather than spend her time and energy working to simply get better at BJJ, the fundamentals and concepts on which that method is built and on which her success in that sport actually depends, and which is the activity that she actually wants to do?

Honestly I believe @Tony Dismukes has a better bead on what makes sense here.

Cross-training is always a good thing.

 

[Flying Crane]

Cross-training is always a good thing.

Sometimes, not always, and it depends.

 

[maxkawasaki]

This is where strength comes into play. Like me, when I first started weight, I had a hell of a time bench press 90lbs. There's no way I can push this big guy off. But when I got serious into weight training(impressed how much the standard weight training in they gym help my back), my strength really improved fast. Now I can bench 185lbs(at least the last time to did in the gym, I work at home now), I got to have a better chance pushing him at least enough to get out of the way.

Of cause, strength is NOT everything, if you are below 140lb, there's only so much strength you can have. You reach plateau like 220lbs give and take. So don't get too excited also. It's just you'll be in much better position if you have more strength.

Don't believe people say if you have technique, you don't need strength. It's true if you are in PERFECT position of arm bar, you don't need strength to break the arm. GETTING TO THE POSITION TAKES strength as the opponent is not going to lay there and let you move to perfect position. Everything is about strength.

Weight training also prevent injuries if done right. Look at all the top athletes stay on top past 40yrs old now a days, all thanks to working out in the gym.

Look at the tip top of MMA, the UFC, their gym have all the weights and machines. People train very heavily in the gym. Just do the standard exercise, don't go to those strange exercise from some of the MA people like kicking a stone on a pole for legs or throwing stuffs. Stay with the PROVEN modern weight training in the gym.

I am sure you can see the importance of squads for shooting or sprawing in BJJ. You need leg strength, squat got to be the best exercise.

I am too long winded. I so wish I am young, you are learning the BEST styles, You literally learning MMA by combining Muythai and BJJ. They kicked the butt of TMA. I wish I could learn that. I was from the time of Bruce Lee kick boxing era. It's chop meat facing you.

Ive been googling some strength focused exercises for BJJ and it seems to circle around deadlifts, bench press, squats, bar hangs/pull ups and such. So im going to put the effort in to try and get stronger. I sometimes feel like such a weakling at my gym but nothing happens overnight, just have to trust the process and keep rocking up!

To be honest I wish i never took a break from Muay Thai and started BJJ earlier though, but better to start now than keep saying one day ill do it! Although I can see the difference in how my body adapts to this type of training now as a 25 year old compared to that of an 18 year old.

 

[maxkawasaki]

I can't tell you about BJJ, but for striking learn how to attack the lower parts of the body and learn how to fight on the inside. Your short height is an advantage so long as you fight inside a tall opponent's range. This is where you'll be most effective against a taller person. This is also where you'll be the safest 2nd to staying completely out of range.

With that said, you'll need to become an expert with your footwork and become an expert with escaping grappling attempts.

Your pu ching targets should be things like ribs kidneys and liver. The head is going to be less important because it's out of range. You can still attack the head but only if he brings his head to your normal striking level. You can do this by attacking the lower parts of his body. This is universal regardless of the striking system that a person's trains in. The only real dangers when close in are knees and downward elbows to the top of your head. Depend on the rules you may only have to worry about knees

This is good advice thank you! I find I can get some quicker body shots compared to head shots. I think I need to work on squaring off as well to avoid getting smashed if im trying to do a combo attack.

Do you have any good combos you could recommend i practice?

 

[Alan0354]

Ive been googling some strength focused exercises for BJJ and it seems to circle around deadlifts, bench press, squats, bar hangs/pull ups and such. So im going to put the effort in to try and get stronger. I sometimes feel like such a weakling at my gym but nothing happens overnight, just have to trust the process and keep rocking up!

To be honest I wish i never took a break from Muay Thai and started BJJ earlier though, but better to start now than keep saying one day ill do it! Although I can see the difference in how my body adapts to this type of training now as a 25 year old compared to that of an 18 year old.

25 is young. But paste yourself, do NOT push. Unless you are going for competition, you have your whole life to pursue this. Don't try to push weights too hard, you can pull your muscle, worst the tendon and joints. Do weights that you can do 10reps first, don't go too high. After your body get use to it(time to build up the body for the load) then you can push it a little( best to learn from a body building or strength building trainer, just short term). Low reps, high weight is good for strength and muscle building. But you are not there yet. I don't dare to tell you when. Get a trainer short term, tell them what your goal is.

Yes, the standard, bench press, squat(IMPORTANT), dumbell curl etc is very useful for BJJ(my believe). Give it like 2yrs.

I really discourage you to go 5d/wk to muythai, watch out your back and hip. You don't want to burn yourself and have to replace the hip at the older age. Cartilage do NOT get thicker with exercise, they wear out. You only have ONE SET of cartilage. You wear it out, that's it. Not like muscle the more you work, the stronger it gets.

Good luck, I envy you.

 

[JowGaWolf]

This is good advice thank you! I find I can get some quicker body shots compared to head shots. I think I need to work on squaring off as well to avoid getting smashed if im trying to do a combo attack.

Do you have any good combos you could recommend i practice?

I only have footwork and body shot drills. The footwork will get you within range and to your target. The body work drills will develop power in your kicks and punches. I can't make a video of it at this time. I'm getting over a cold

 

[dunc]

Okay, before I get into specifics, you need to know that there's a good news, bad news, good news deal going on.

The good news is that there are a lot of technical things you can work on to make yourself harder to pin, help you survive and feel more comfortable when you are pinned, and improve your chances of escaping when you are pinned - even against much larger opponents.

The bad news is that all these things are hard - especially against bigger, more experienced opponents. Someone can show you exactly what you need to do in every situation and it will still take a ton of practice and sparring until those movements become automatic under pressure. During that process, you will get squashed a lot. Think about it - if you have two physically identical opponents and one achieves a dominant top control position on the other. The top person now has a structural advantage and the bottom person will only get away if they manage to grapple significantly better than the top person at least long enough to effect an escape. Now imagine the bottom person is half the size of the top person. That means the bottom person is going to have to grapple much more technically than the top person in order to escape. (There are some slight advantages the smaller person can sometimes have for escaping, but they are very much outweighed by the disadvantages.)

The remaining good news is twofold. First, once you learn what you should be working on to avoid getting squashed, the process is less frustrating. You may still get smashed consistently for the next year, but at least you know what mistakes you made and what you should be working on to fix them. Second, once you've been training long enough to survive and hold your own, you're going to be very technically skilled. Bigger people get away with doing techniques 60% correct. You're going to be doing them 98% correct.

Now on to specifics areas to work on...

First and foremost - never let yourself be flat. Always be on your side. In the instant that someone passes your guard, you should already be turning towards them to get on your side. If their pass is one that forces you away from them, be on your other side. (That requires extra know-how to keep them from getting on your back, but that's a whole area of study which is difficult to explain in text.) If your partner does manage to get you flat, work a mini hip bump and shrimp to get ever so slightly on your side facing the, If you can get even 2 or 3 degrees of rotation towards your partner instead of facing straight up, it will make it way, way easier to breathe. Position your legs as braces to make it hard for your partner to force you flat. Also do a crunch towards the side you are facing. That will make it more difficult for your partner to flatten you.

Second - do not give up underhooks. When your partner passes your guard, try gluing your top arm to your side, reaching your hand down to and along your leg. Squeeze your elbow to your side as tightly as you can. If your partner tries to flatten you out while you have the underhook, then they give you a lot more escape options. Use your bottom arm to hand fight and try to stop the crossface. Use your knees to block their passage to full mount. (There is a use case for the bottom person framing with stiff arms long enough to recover guard. I don't necessarily recommend that for a beginner working with much bigger, stronger opponents. It's too easy for them to convert those frames into levers to use against you or to take advantage of the opening to get underhooks on you.)

Third - realize that there are a lot of mini-battles between the guard pass and a fully secured pin. We have a tendency to see things in terms of static positions. Now my opponent is in my guard. Oops, he got past my legs. So now I'm in bottom of side control and I have to work my side control escapes. But in reality, there are a lot of little steps my opponent needs to accomplish in-between passing my legs and fully securing my upper body. If I can shut down any of those steps, I make it a lot harder for him to keep me controlled.

Fourth - the more technically correct your escapes from bottom are, the less strength they require. A lot of times when you try an escape and your partner feels just too heavy to move, it really means that your positioning or your timing was not quite right. The flip side of this is that the better the technique of the person on top is, the heavier they will feel. So if you're a white belt trying to escape the mount of a purple belt who outweighs you by 40 kg, it really sucks on both fronts. To avoid total frustration, don't fixate on whether you are able to actually escape in that situation. Instead, focus on two things. To begin with, see what you can do to adjust your position so that you feel more comfortable, can breathe more easily, and can defend submissions longer. Next, try to identify one technical flaw in your escape attempts that you can work on improving for next time.

When I teach class tonight, I'll try to cover some of what I just wrote and record some video so you can see what I'm talking about. You might also want to check out Priit Mihkelson on YouTube. He has a lot of good material on defensive structures from the bottom.

You can also check out this video I made on the basic concepts behind framing. It's not necessarily the primary area you should be working on right now, but it's an important aspect that you need to understand while working from the bottom.

Good stuff from @Tony Dismukes here

I've had the hard schooling of many years being crushed by much bigger and more skilled folk so adding a couple of thoughts to the above

Gassing out underneath someone bigger is hell on earth. So I'd suggest learning how to
a) get slightly onto you side to take the pressure off your ribs so you can breathe, and
b) not waste your energy by doing one of the many escapes that require you to use your body to make your opponent move in a big way. Instead focus on small defensive adjustments to incrementally improve your position and wait until your opponent moves. Your escapes will work a load better when your opponent is transitioning into a new position as they take their weight off you and switch their grips

 

[Tony Dismukes]

Instead focus on small defensive adjustments to incrementally improve your position and wait until your opponent moves.

This is very important. Most people at the lower levels alternate between explosive escape attempts (which are hard to do against bigger, stronger opponents) and giving up/laying flat. The key is to always be doing something to make your position 1% more safer or more comfortable. Then another 1%. Then another. This takes a lot less energy. If your opponent doesn't react to counter your incremental progress, you may eventually weasel your way into a good escape position. If they do react, often they end up spending their time and brain power adjusting to counter your adjustments rather than setting up their own submissions.

(Explosive escapes do have their place if you have the physical attributes for them. I don't personally. I'm 200 pounds, but I'm also 58 years old grappling with guys 30+ years younger than myself. Slow, steady, and sneaky is my go-to approach.)

 

[Alan0354]

One more thing about strength training. You need to look into the protein intake when you do weights. IT IS IMPORTANT. Strength training is not as complicate as BJJ or other MA, BUT it's not just pushing weights. That's why I kept talking about getting a trainer short term. Also, go online to research, about the way to train, protein intake and all. My knowledge is old, I don't dare to make any suggestions. Just LEARN.

 

[Tony Dismukes]

Finally got some video recorded this week to help you avoid getting immediately flattened out when you end up on bottom. I’ll try to get it edited together and posted over the weekend.

 

[drop bear]

Finally got some video recorded this week to help you avoid getting immediately flattened out when you end up on bottom. I’ll try to get it edited together and posted over the weekend.

Interestingly. I have apparently gotten super lazy with my own framing.

And it was an interesting comment. Where when I started I didn't straight arm frame, cos arm bars.

But now I never straight arm frame. And just kind of let people sit on me. (Not so bad I am a fairly big guy. But I shouldn't have neen doing it)