"practice curriculum and dont do that fancy RG stuff"

[Craig Murray]

" At Lovato's we get 4 whitebelt strips, plus yellow, orange, and green. " How old are you?

This is the adult progression. After the green you test for blue-belt where you perform the entire curriculum followed by an onslaught of upper-belts for live sparring. If you survive you get blue.

After that it's based on merit when you are promoted. But they give stripes on every belt color all the way up... so you see purple belts with 2 stripes or whatever.

[Craig Murray]

I've decided I'm going to start taking at least one private a week focused exclusively on curriculum. I have a guy in mind who will be inexpensive and can coach and drill me through to 4th stripe whitebelt, which allows me to go to intermediate classes, which are longer and include positional and live sparring.

[Craig Murray]

Also, because people will consistently pass your weak, self taught RG, you won't be respected playing that game and you'll constantly hear that that game (RG) doesn't work. .

Well at this point people are passing my closed guard a lot easier than my rubber guard, but point taken. I am planning a trip to Altus to work with Jason doing 10p. I realize I'm probably doing more wrong than right. I'm hoping to make a habit of going down there as often as I can, and hopefully that can give me a real perspective on what I'm doing wrong and how to fix it.

[Craig Murray]

I just hope my attitude about fundamentals and Lovato's curriculum didn't come off wrong in this thread. I have every intention, and always have, of learning everything they are teaching as well as I can. I'm going to try to do both. Will it slow me down? Maybe, we'll see.

Right now I'm putting in more time and effort than any of the other white belts I have seen, except one. I'm at class at least 5+ nights a week, I study at home, I watch tons of videos, I drill on my grappling dummy, and I lay quietly and visualize all the different things I've been learning.

I want to learn it all!

Also for some perspective. I've been going to class most nights for 5 of the last 7 weeks (2 weeks out in the middle for ACL tweak). During that time I have used RG 3 times, all of them during open mats.

[Aaron Gustaveson]

The fastest way to make progress is to follow the program taught by your school. Trying to learn RG when your school is teaching something different isn't very logical and itt will absolutely slow your progress. Also, because people will consistently pass your weak, self taught RG, you won't be respected playing that game and you'll constantly hear that that game (RG) doesn't work.

It makes more sense to work your school's curriculumn until at least blue belt, and then find a training partner at the school who wants to work RG and start drilling and practicing together. That way when you're trying your early attempts at RG and people are passing you, at least you can go to a more traditional technique and recover or tap them. That way, at least your training partners will respect you because they know the only reason they are passing your (Rubber) guard, is because you are working on something new.

I guess fastest is good. I like having fun so I'd feel less restricted when it comes to open mat rolling. I am a white belt though.

[Apperz]

I don't think learning the fundamentals before branching out into more specialist areas is such a bad thing. I'm not sure how 10th Planet works these days, but I know Eddie says his beginner classes are focused almost solely around the warmups (which, I imagine, look very similar to most BJJ Fundamentals programs). The problem I've seen with people who want to base their game around Rubber Guard too early is the same with those - I was one, by the way - who try to base their game around Triangles too early. They get very comfortable off their back, which is fine - but it stops you learning pressure and balance and the many other areas of Jiujitsu.

I used to play almost purely Rubber Guard and Triangles to the extent I'd be pretty happy being taken down. At White Belt I was winning golds at nearly every competition I entered... As soon as I stepped up to blue / purple level competitions (although, technically, I am still a white belt - I don't have anyone to grade me) I was losing on points in the first round. I'd get taken down, I'd get guard and be sure I'd Triangle / Invisible Collar my opponent. Didn't happen. Blue Belts know how not to get Triangled by White/Blue Belts. A lot of Blue Belts don't make getting Invisible Collar easy. If they train at a 10th Planet school it will be even harder. It took a good year to 18 months of work to catch up and fix things and begin winning medals again.

The most important piece of advice I ever got was from Eddie through MTS: 'Do not be the Triangle guy', but I think that extends to anything - don't be the guy who relies on 'X'. Be the guy who is good everywhere. Follow the curriculum until you are awesome at the basics - keep working your Rubber Guard, etc, but do it with the lower belts and your friends. Once your fundamentals are solid start playing with new stuff. Once the higher belts know you have a solid base they will expect you to begin looking for new techniques.

[Brian Debes]

But Rubber guard is set ups, which ARE fundamental... An arm bar without set-ups can only be done off a mistake. And good luck just yanking the arm into position... Good points are made about take advantage of what your school teaches though.

But JJ Machado was also a Legend... and didn't keep eddie from doing his own thing, even first starting off.

For me personally, when I started, I was so weak that almost everything I was taught would not work. I had to find my own path. Be it rubber guard or something else, you'll always put together jiu-jitsu your own way, just have fun!

I think its weird that on a 10th planet forum I'm the first person to tell you I don't think your a bad person for playing rubberguard lol!

P.S. Lovato is awesome and has some great stuff. I like allot of the ways he passes allot.

[Nick Paul]

But Rubber guard is set ups, which ARE fundamental... An arm bar without set-ups can only be done off a mistake. And good luck just yanking the arm into position... Good points are made about take advantage of what your school teaches though.

But JJ Machado was also a Legend... and didn't keep eddie from doing his own thing, even first starting off.

For me personally, when I started, I was so weak that almost everything I was taught would not work. I had to find my own path. Be it rubber guard or something else, you'll always put together jiu-jitsu your own way, just have fun!

I think its weird that on a 10th planet forum I'm the first person to tell you I don't think your a bad person for playing rubberguard lol!

P.S. Lovato is awesome and has some great stuff. I like allot of the ways he passes allot.

I like the way you think, coach Debes. My coach doesn't play any rubber guard but he totally supports me developing my rg game.

[Craig Murray]

My coach doesn't play any rubber guard but he totally supports me developing my rg game.

For the record: every instructor at Lovato's that's seen me do RG on an open mat has been supportive and cool about it.

[Arman Fathi]

At the end of the day, you're training with an instructor renowned for his passing. I believe he has a couple DVDs out on pressure passing. From my experience, there have been periods of time (maybe a month or two months, or even a week or two weeks) where I'm only thinking about one or two positions or a certain set of moves. After enough drilling, even though I probably couldn't catch a blackbelt on it, it's good enough that I could go for it in rolls confidently and catch it against a good sample size of partners. I don't think your top game is going to be neglected solely based on the school that you train at. I anticipate you'll go on a similar evolution with your game. You'll be adding piece by piece, and slowly your game will have more layers and will grow incrementally more sophisticated