Fledgling Irish Ronin in Spain wants to pick your brains!

[Sean Dardis]

Hello 10P Nation!

First off I'd like to introduce myself. I'm a BJJ white belt training in and out of the gi but competing only in nogi, at it since September by now, am from Ireland but am currently on an exchange year in Spain and will be back in Dublin next September. As such, once I have to leave Spain and return to Ireland I fully intend on repping 10th Planet and making it over to Glasgow and Birmingham with some semblance of regularity once I'm based back home, and try make it over to 10th Planet Stockholm and do some gi stuff at some point!

Ever since I first saw the 10P system I have been enamored by its aesthetic, intricacies and the cerebral and eccentric approach towards grappling. Pulling off my first crotch ripper from lockdown -> whip up -> cross body ride I knew then that 10P is the direction I want to take me jiu jitsu in. There's nothing quite like watching the frustration on your rolling partners face as they try to pry off your lockdown, hahaha.

On another note, as a language student and being able to speak Spanish, I help my non-English-speaking rolling partners who also like 10th Planet by translating videos and stuff for them! If anybody needs translations or bjj terminology in Spanish, I'm your guy

So basically, why I am making this post is I would like to talk to some other Ronin and 10Pers and get your perspective on learning the System without consistent instruction, how you organise your training (what to learn, when and how to learn it etc.), finding people to train with, repping 10th planet and still going to other gyms to train, things a new Ronin should look out for, general advice that you would have liked at my stage of jiu jitsu developement and so on.

General advice from anybody is also very much welcome!

From what I have seen already, 10th Planet seems like a really close bunch and I am looking forward to getting to know you all!

my instagram is @mcarmbar if anybody wants to take a look at my ugly mug. It's a bit bare right now but once my patellar tendon heals up I'll be putting up more bjj and European travel-related content.

Anyway, a pleasure to meet you all

[Keith Kavanagh]

Hello from Louth, Ireland! The system is responsible for my game jumping leaps and bounds. That and the content people share on the forum too. As long as you have a training partner who's also willing to learn you'll figure the stuff out over time. Some stuff might not work well at first and you'll figure out a few details a few months later that help it make more sense. Then competition is good to put that all to the test. If they shut down whatever particular path you choose to go, watch the footage, try figure out what they did different than your training partner. I train at an MMA gym in Louth but also visit Ronin CrossFit in Dublin to roll with some of the people there and get smashed. Just stay consistent is the main thing to take from this I suppose.

Also, the new playlist of the warm ups on youtube is so much more comprehensible than the older ones, fantastic work by Frank, Tito, Eddie and anyone else who helped out.

[Sean Dardis]

Hows she cuttin'. Keith? Hope you're well, thanks for the advice! One of the reasons I joined the forum is to make some connections in the Irish bjj scene for when I get back!

I've been really working on the lockdown and will eventually work my way up to rubber guard (have the flexibility, just not the time outside of normal mat time to really have at it) and have been successful in using it to get to the crotch ripper, I'm just wondering if there's any logical progression or order in learning the System that would help a Ronin learn as effectively as possible, or as a Ronin is it simply that you bit by bit integrate the System into your game?

Also, do you rep both 10th planet and your own gym in competition, or just 10th Planet? I want to be able to rep my Spanish gym in Spanish competitions and 10th planet back home when I go back to living in Dublin!

[Keith Kavanagh]

We're not an official 10th planet affiliate so we rep our own gym but also throw up them 10 gang signs in the competitions too, haha! When I first started, I was given Mastering the Rubberguard / Mastering the lockdown from a friend so that helped a lot but I think warm ups are key along with the "Technique Guide" that's pinned at the top of the forum which also has a "Lockdown Flow Chart" which is brilliant. Sometimes I might feel like my arm in guillotine is lacking so I'll go back to the technique guide and see if there's any relevant videos from an older episode of MTS. Imagine being in a competition and just having a training partner shout out "B - 1" from a certain position and you snap into xguard and start working your leg locks from the warm ups B - 1. It's like a secret language but not only that, the stuff is golden and covers so much offence/defense.

[Danny Kennedy]

Hey Sean,

Danny here from Dublin, we have a crew training out of Ronin Crossfit in Fairview, next time you're home, drop into us for a roll.

It's definitely harder to progress on your own, we're a bit behind the scene out on the western fringes of Europe, but like Keith said, the warmups and the technique guide are the best places to start. There's so much info here that it can be a bit overwhelming, so getting some high level pointers every now and then is great.

We had Jeremy Fields and Sean Bollinger over, gonna try get to the Freaks in London, and there's talk of Denny Prokopos coming over soon too.

See you on the mats bro