Our new artwork by Carmel Paints

Posted on June 25, 2019 by byronjabara

A big thank you to Carmel paints https://www.instagram.com/carmelpaints/. Working with Carmel to get this done was great. She was dedicated to the task of delivering something great. She has a great attention to detail and amazing skill. I would highly recommend her to anyone looking for some BJJ art work.

The final image

We get to finally have Joe appear in the podcast art work. Plus Gary now has a black belt, that he received seconds after seeing the art work for the first time.

Just for fun I will give you a behind the scenes look at how we got to this image. It started with contacting Carmelpaints and telling her that I was looking for a new image to represent the BjjBrick Podcast. She wanted to know what we looked like so I sent her a hand full of pictures that I pulled from facebook.

Here are a bunch of the pictures i sent Carmel.

We then had some back and forth conversations about what I was looking for. And she started sending me some sketches.

Carmel had some ideas for adding color.

The last step was to get a few patches made.

If you need art work done for your gym or website I had a great experience working with https://www.instagram.com/carmelpaints/.

Pictures From Bellator 171

Posted on February 16, 2017 by byronjabara

I recently got to take pictures at Bellator, good times!

Byron

” A choke in the hand is worth two in a book”

Posted on June 26, 2015 by byronjabara

This is an adaptation of an old saying “A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush”. In modern day thought, this means that it is better to have a sure thing than to risk the sure thing for more.

A choke in the hand is worth 2 in a Book

A choke that you know well and can perform at a higher level compared to your other techniques is worth two (well way more than two) in a book. In this day of BJJ and the internet, one of the biggest mistakes is for students to perpetually switch from learning different techniques and never mastering any of them. This style of learning is a mistake, and a common one.

Falconry

Now for the original meaning of the phrase. This phrase comes from medieval falconry. The bird in your hand is your trained falcon, this falcon hunts other birds for you. The skills and tools you posses are worth way more than the rewards of a days work. Your skills, on the mat, at work, with people… falconry 🙂 are important to your successes. Spend time collecting powerful skills, not an overflow of knowledge you can’t use.

What are your thoughts? Modern meaning or original? BJJ related or off the mat?

Byron

The BjjBrick Podcast- We do not say this enough, “Thank you listeners for the support”

Posted on March 6, 2015 by byronjabara

Merry Christmas

Posted on December 25, 2014 by byronjabara

The BjjBrick Podcast wishes you and your family a Merry Christmas.

The Shrimp Crawl

Posted on December 9, 2014 by byronjabara

It was not designed to be a odd way to quickly scoot across the mat during Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu class. It was designed to help you move your hips. Keep shrimping my friends, it is not a race.

The Shrimp Crawl

Many BJJ students race across the mat at full speed. Focus on curling your body and getting a lot of hip movement. “There are many different kinds of shrimp” Bubba from Forrest Gump once said. Try these different shrimps: using one leg, both legs and shrimping with the opposite leg. Feel the difference from shrimping with a flat foot and shrimping with your toes. Try moving your feet close to your butt and then try shrimping with your feet at a distance. All of these shrimps will produce a different result. From white belt to black belt, everyone uses the shrimp to escape side control and mount.

Epi 45 Three Important Analogies to Better Understand BJJ

Posted on August 25, 2014 by byronjabara

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

The BjjBrick Podcast is in iTunes, and Stitcher radio

BjjBrick (metaphor) it’s important to have a few key techniques that you can perform at a high level. You need to have a well-rounded game, but having some great techniques will help you excel at BJJ. To your opponents it will feel like they got hit with a brick. It takes a lot of blood and sweat to make a BjjBrick, but if you are making the correct bricks the effort will be well worth it.

Big strong tree-

The Bjj Tree, Click to enlarge, feel free to share!

Trunk- Fundamentals, Posture, and Game plan
Big branches- Positions, some branches will be stronger than others
Smaller branches- Techniques, from the positions
Leaves- Owning the techniques
Big roots- The pioneers of BJJ, and/or your instructor’s instructor
Medium sized roots- Your instructors and training partners
Small roots- Other methods of training and learning
Pile of leaves and branches on the ground- We all discard some techniques and positions when we are searching for what works best for us, this is normal. You should avoid having a giant pile of leaves and branches under your tree. Focusing on key things will help keep you from having this problem.

How important is it to have really good fundamentals? Having poor fundamentals is like a tree trying to grow branches without having a strong trunk. Strong fundamentals are the foundation of your game, like a strong trunk supports a large tree.

The Building Burns-