One of the best things about living in Toronto are the things you can do on a Saturday afternoon. You can visit organic farmers markets, take in exhibitions at the art gallery or visit one of the many shopping districts and spend some time buying their unique cultural consignments. But who cares about any of that when you can be training BJJ and learning how to take your game to a new level at one of Toronto BJJ's 'Skills Clinics' with resident Black Belts Jorge Britto and Eduardo Dib. For a fraction of the cost of a private class you get alot of attention to detail and access to some high level BJJ instruction.

I attended the first one with Professor Eduardo - Chokes from the guard. The focus of the 90 minutes was firstly 4 different ways to break the posture of your opponent when he is inside your guard and how to establish your first deep collar grip. After we drilled those we worked on 5 different types of cross choke - from the classic Helio Gracie choke to different variations and set ups of the cross choke depending on the situation you find yourself in. The choke details included positioning and repositioning yourself using hip and leg movement, how to properly 'snatch' all the Gi to complete the submission, where to grab the collar and why and even a triangle set up thrown in for good measure.

As there were only 9 pairs on the mats Eduardo spent time with everybody throughout the seminar and help make adjustments for each person as they needed it.

One of the main things I took away (as a guy who professes to like to use cross chokes) was that I immediately noticed Professor Eduardo set up his deep collar grip using his left hand even though he is right handed. His rationale was his right hand is his smart hand so it's better to have it free to finish the choke instead of his 'smart' hand being anchored in the collar with the deep grip and relying on his other hand to finish. Makes sense. I use my 'smart hand' to secure the deep collar grip (my right) so on Saturday I started using my left and it did make a difference to have my right hand free to finish the submission. This is a fundamental difference that I will try to introduce into my game.

The second clinic is "Essentials of the De La Riva guard" with Jorge. For those of you who like to play open guard this is another great opportunity to pick up some tips that might have a positive impact on your game.

Space is limited!  

For more details stop by the Toronto BJJ Facebook page