Every Saturday Team Third Law’s women have a great opportunity to train for an hour and a half together in the Women-Only BJJ class.
Women at Third Law train in all of the classes along with the men, but on Saturdays we get the mats to ourselves. We do the same curriculum as all the other BJJ classes in this class, but it’s a great time to talk about BJJ specifically for women — because there are certain techniques that are particularly successful for us, especially when we’re fighting someone bigger and stronger.
Women-Only class students on Saturday, June 11: Rachel Ranschau (left), Kerrie Durham, Amy Irawan, Katy Torralbas and Crystal Bradley
This week, we started the June curriculum of open guard. Open guard is a very effective set of techniques for women, because you’re using the strength of your legs against your opponent — and if you’re fighting someone who is bigger and stronger using the strongest part of your body, your legs, is a very good strategy.
To start Coach Joey showed us how to get to the position by breaking grips and pulling open guard.
Coach Joey demonstrates a grip break before showing the class how to pull open guard
Next, he showed open guard attacks, including sweeps and submissions. We worked on sweeps from two different open guard positions, as well as the triangle choke.
Coach Joey demonstrates a triangle from open guard
Each time he showed a new technique, the women broke into pairs and practiced the techniques with their partners. Drilling is a very important part of learning BJJ, as its necessary to practice any move you want to hit live many times before it comes naturally.
Amy Irawan works on her de la Riva guard with Kerrie Durham
Another reason these techniques are important for women is that they are great for self defense.
90 percent of self defense situations end up with the weaker person being put on their back on the ground, which is a dangerous position if you don’t know what to do.
Rachel Ranschau drills a triangle choke with Crystal Bradley. This choke is an example of offensive moves from the ground that would be very effective for women for self defense.
Brazilian Jiu Jitsu teaches its practitioners to fight from the ground, and turns the bottom position into an advantageous one.
There are many techniques to choke or submit your opponent from the bottom position, like the triangle we’re learning this month.
Many women who want to learn self defense fear being controlled by a strong attacker. In our BJJ classes they’ll learn to move around their opponent’s strength and use the strong parts of their body, their legs and hips, against the weaker parts of their opponent’s body: arms, neck, throat, etc.
Then, after finishing up all the open guard techniques, it was time for grappling.
Katy Torralbas works on the open guard as she fights Crystal Bradley during the grappling portion of the class
It was an hour and a half session of technique and grappling, and the women had a lot of fun and got a great workout!
If you’re a current female student at Third Law and have never attended the Women-Only class you should definitely give it a try.
Third Law BJJ's Women-Only class is a lot of fun!
