🛡柔🛡G-W Belt Promotion! Congrats to Ella on her belt promotion. Ella started with her sister, a bit shy ☺️ at first but with the support of her family, friends, and sister she made the transition in no time. Her resilience to persevere through adversity is unmatched. We are looking forward to seeing her further challenge herself on and off the mat! Congrats!

🛡柔🛡G-W Belt Promotion! Congrats to Ella on her belt promotion. Ella started with her sister, a bit shy ☺️ at first but with the support of her family, friends, and sister she made the transition in no time. Her resilience to persevere through adversity is unmatched. We are looking forward to seeing her further challenge herself on and off the mat! Congrats!

March 4, 2019

By Aaron Martinez

How to coach a Black Belt

I wanted to give my thoughts on what is the best way to coach a Black Belt during competition, or an athlete that is higher ranked, or is more skilled than yourself. I remember thinking, “Should I even be saying anything at all?” I asked a former Black Belt instructor of mine after one of his matches, when we traveled together to compete and I was the only one there to coach him. I was a purple belt, but he said, “Absolutely.” I did my best, but certainly could have coached him better if I knew what I know now.

As a black belt now, I really want my coaching kept simple. I’ve worked my game plan and drilled it a thousand times. I don’t need someone trying to coach every single element of the match. I want to know:

1. The time left in the match

2. Situational- I’m up or down by points and advantages

3. Be calm and breathe when I’m getting too excited 

4. Motivation when I’m down and losing hope.

It’s the complete opposite of coaching a white belt, or someone new to competition. In those situations you have to do a lot of hand holding and walk them through situations when you can. A black belt knows how they want to defend a choke from the back. Screaming directions on how to defend the neck and escape the hooks is silly unless you see something you 100% know they can’t identify on their own because of their position.

There are many different kinds of relationships between coaches and athletes and many different scenarios that will dictate the dynamics of coaching. But if you walk into a tournament and see your black belt instructor competing and no one is there to coach them, you can at least be helpful and give them information they can use to help them win.

GW Belt Promotion! Congrats to Max on his belt graduation. Max kick started the jiujitsu fever in his family and now his sister trains with him on the mat. He came with great hustle, and has developed the ability to focus fully through his training. Once he mastered this skill, his learning has been snowballing! We see Max to be a silent leader as he continues to grow up on the mat and help his peers become stronger!

February 18, 2019

By Aaron Martinez

Why I don’t cross train at other gyms

                When I first started training I was so excited to learn Jiu-Jitsu that I remember wanting to go to all the other academies to train. Before I started driving around and paying drop-in fees I found out that my head instructor really didn’t want us training at other schools. I never asked why and I didn’t care to speculate. I was happy at my school and loved my team. There was no reason to train somewhere else and go against my instructor, even if I thought he’d never know.

                Now, as an instructor and a competitor I have a clear perspective on cross training. I don’t do it, I don’t like it and I’d prefer that my students and teammates didn’t do it as well. The common assumption by students is that their instructor wants to control their students and is afraid that cross-training students will leave their academy for another after visiting enough schools. This is not my motivation for staying away from other schools, and there are perfectly good reasons for attending other schools under other circumstances.

                But here are a few common reasons why I have heard it is good to cross train and my reasons why I don’t agree with them.

1. It’s good to go against other styles and roll with people you don’t regularly train with. I agree, and that’s why I compete. Why would I want to go around feeling good or bad about my jiu-jitsu over sparing with someone when I can compete against them on the highest level with zero excuses?
2. My friend trains there. Mine too, and I’m going to have a cup of coffee with him later. I don’t need to train with someone to be friends with someone. If my friends want to train with me they can join our school and train with me every day.
3. I want to train as much as possible and we don’t have training on that day at that time.Then that is a good day and time for you rest and recover before training hard with your team the next session. Every session you miss with your team, or you can’t give 100% because you trained somewhere else gets your team further away from their goal. Instead of helping your team, you’re only helping yourself and a group of others that might actually compete against your teammates down the road.

The truth is that there are good reasons to train at other schools. If you’re traveling, if they are an affiliate of your school, if you are participating in an event like a seminar, if you cross train as a team etc.

I also understand that at a certain point, a practitioner want’s to train with similar training partners that their academy just simply lacks. High level females, professional level black belts, rooster weights, ultra-heavy weights, etc. These aren’t terribly selfish reasons to train elsewhere in my opinion, but there is a goal behind it: to get ready for competition.

And that’s where the difference comes in as an individual. As a competitor, I’m training with competition in mind. That is the focus of my training and reasons to decide why I don’t want to cross train. I really believe that if I leave my team to train somewhere else for competition I am never going to have the training partners and school I would need to get ready for competition. It’s the symbiotic nature of training together. Everyone is helping each other get better; consistently over time. Every time a main training partner is absent because they are training somewhere else our training suffers.

If you don’t compete and sparing is your competition then I understand why you’d want to branch out and train with other people. To me, it’s silly to be that competitive and not actually compete, but maybe I’m wrong and there is something I just don’t understand. I’m open to hearing your input.

Gray white belt promotion

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Congrats to Ally on her next challenge! Ally started Jiujitsu after watching her brother on the mat. If was as if she was already training when she stepped on the mat. She understood the importance of focus. Her ability to focus is a very strong asset that she continues to use and develop in training.

On another note, this marks the beginning of our 3rd year teaching the peewee class (age 4-6). It’s great to see the little ones grow out of their gi along with their growth on the mat. Here’s to another year of learning through fun & play!

Congrats Mark!

Purple Belt

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Mark brings a great smile to every practice. With that smile he also bring enthusiasm and optimism that helps others learn and train harder.

He is a leader on the mat to his peers as well has in the kids class. He shares with everyone the character of respect and relentlessness.

Mark also shows great focus in his observation and thoughts. He doesn’t shy away from learning or showing what he doesn’t know. He doesn’t shy away from asking questions that might seem basic but really matter. He is genuine in his effort to learn and be the best he can be. Congrats!

El Dorado Hills Brazilian Jiu Jitsu Coach, Eliot Kelly, was featured on the BJJ Brick Podcast. The podcast features Eliot’s experiences and take on being a coach and a competitor.

BJJ BRICK with Eliot Kelly

The podcast talks about:

• His start in BJJ
• How taking a train to BJJ helped him get better
• Coaching BJJ and preparing himself to compete
• How to learn from a loss
• How coaching makes him be a better competitor
• How competing makes him a better coach
• Dealing with injuries
• Getting hurt and coming back to the competition world
• Balancing BJJ and a home life with family
• Dealing with trends
• Matching your BJJ to your personality
• Focusing your training
• Evaluating your performance

Links:

• The book Mind Gym
• Eliot Kelly on Youtube
• Armor Kimonos
• EliotKelly.com
• One Body Pain & Performance Solutions
• Eliot on Facebook
• Eliot on Instagram

I wanted to congratulate everyone on an epic year. The school has accomplished so much this year as a result of individual effort, leadership, and teamwork. We’ve had parents of students become dedicated practitioners. We’ve had students work their way through the curriculum and earn their Blue Belts. We’ve had practitioners become competitors. Leaders have emerged and became mentors to newer students. Simply an amazing year for us as a group. I’m very proud to share the mats with all of you and I’m excited to see everyone continuing their progress through 2019.

There is more to Brazilian Jiu-jitsu than competition, but I believe that the competition aspect of BJJ requires more intention and planning than training for recreation and self-defense.

Here is a list of upcoming tournaments:

Sat Jan 26th the Hills Jiu-jitsu Tournament (in house)

Sun Jan 27th Allstar Gi & NoGi Kids and Adults, San Jose, Bjj tour

Sun Mar 31st Grappling X Gi & NoGi Kids and Adults, Elk Grove

Sat & Sun April 13th & 14th San Jose Open Gi & NoGi Adults and Masters Only, IBJJF

Sat & Sun May 4th & 5th American Cup, Gi Only, Kids and Adults, San Jose, Bjj Tour

Sat June 8th Sacramento Open, Gi & NoGi, Kids and Adults, UC Davis, Bjj Tour

Wed-Sat August 21st-24th Master Worlds, Las Vegas Open, Kids International Gi Only, Kids and Adults, Las Vegas, IBJJF

Here are some links for registration:

https://grapplingx.smoothcomp.com/en/event/1416

http://bjjtour.com/

https://ibjjf.com/championships/calendar-2019/

RE: IBJJF Competitions

All competitors are required to be IBJJF members to register and compete in their tournaments. The process can take a long time, so if you plan on doing the San Jose Open, Master Worlds, or any other IBJJF event, you need to go through the application process. It’s $35 for an annual membership.

https://ibjjf.com/athlete-membership/

Fight 2 Win 97:

Also, let’s show Eliot our support and get a huge group for his title match at the Fight 2 win on Friday January 11th! He puts so much time and attention into everyone’s jiu-jitsu, let’s show him how much we can cheer for him in a couple of weeks.

https://nitrotickets.com/event/49/Fight-12-1Win-197-1Sacramento

As Always, I’ll be here for anyone who needs help with the curriculum or competition planning. Please schedule with me if you need help with anything like curriculum testing. I have 30 minutes before 12pm classes on Tuesday and Thursdays, and time after 10AM Class on Saturdays.

I’ll be competing and coaching at the San Jose Open Gi and Nogi, the Sacramento Open Gi and NoGi, and Master Worlds. Possibly the American Cup as well, but I will be at the Grappling X to coach competitors. If you plan to compete, please let Eliot and I know after you have signed up for a competition.

Thanks again, and good luck in 2019!

Coach Aaron

El dorado hills Brazilian jiu-jitsu coach Javen shows how to do the hip escape mat exercise. This exercise is one of the fundamental jiujitsu movements used on the mat in Bjj.

View Link to video

The hip escape is one of those movements that can be difficult at first, but once mastered is like riding a bike. The hip escape is a full body movement that could be likened to tapping your head and rubbing your stomach. It doesn’t come easy at first. However once you have it mastered, you never forget how to do it.

We encourage parents to practice this movement at home on days they don’t have practice for a couple minutes at a time when they first start learning jiujitsu. Doing so will help expedite their child in learning other movements on the mat!