New to 10th Planet/Grappling!

Greetings everyone,

My name is Vincent Viglione and I am just beginning what is assuredly going to be a long term love affair with 10th Planet. Presently, I train in Krav Maga at Fight Fit in Cleveland, Ohio. I have mostly been doing it for the practical aspects (weapons defense, multiple assailants, etc.) and now that I feel I have a decent grasp on striking and defense, I am getting into grappling.

I have only been studying/training BJJ for about 3 months and somewhat unfortunately, it has not been as pure or official as I would prefer. I have been rolling with a friend of mine who is mostly a Muay Thai practitioner but he is a solid white belt in traditional BJJ. Because of my background of Krav, I was able to pick up the basics pretty quickly. I also developed a serious interest in it extremely quickly so I had and still am in that phase where I just scour the internet for as much information on grappling as I possibly can. In doing so, I found 10th Planet and I knew I found what I wanted to learn and many years from now, master. I am 6' 6" and 180 lbs at 22 years of age and I am in rather good physical shape. I have always worked on my flexibility so it was natural that I found the rubber guard to be an effective strategy for me to employ. My training partner and I started to host grappling tournaments every Sunday at his homemade mat and we film all of the matches so that we can review and learn from our rolls. One of our regulars uploads them to Youtube and I catalogue them in a simple blog:http://www.submissiongrappling.blogspot.com/. Most of the people that participate are completely green and in many videos it is literally their first time ever rolling with someone, so get ready for some janky technique, heh.

As I am just starting my grappling journey I am trying to be patient. I also want to enter the world of BJJ as fast and efficiently as possible so I have a question: Obviously, there is no 10th Planet school in Cleveland, Ohio. What am I to do as someone who desperately wants to learn? Should I just seek out every traditional BJJ school and learn what I can there while furiously watching Eddie's DVDs, videos, etc?

Cheers to you all, I sincerely love and respect what you do. I truly hope to learn what you love so very much.

Welcome, learn everything you can from the books & vids. Check out the bjj schools in the area and find the one that fits & vibes with you!! :cool:

Thank you very much. I do have one question and I have searched the web and the forum for about 10 minutes to no avail. I am a complete noob so I have no idea what a hotbox is. It seems like a small group of people who train 10th Planet. Also, what is a moon? Sorry for the noob questions, but I read the whole front page on hotbox locations and there is no information on what they are.

The short version, a moon is an official affiliate gym. A hotbox is a group of 10p guys who want to rep the system but can get to a moon, it's also the first step to becoming a moon.

Welcome!!!

Welcome! Your best bet is to learn the basics of each position. Learn as many escapes and defenses as you can first. LEarn escapes and how to solidify and maintain dominant positions and get fluid in your transitions before you worry about submissions. Ive never been to a school and I practice out my garage also so Id probably get rag dolled by the experienced guy but you gotta start somewhere:cool: If your starting with 10th planet get the books and dvds and watch Mastering the system that is the core of the system. Id start from half guard learning how to use the lockdown. Thats where I started before I even thought about learning the rubberguard. Worked for me :)

Welcome aboard

Trez hit the nail on the head, you have got to be able to survive until your offense comes along. Get as much mat time as possible and be creative, there is a lot you can do alone to speed up your progress. And of course stretch.

Welcome buddy!