The seminar was held on The Roof at Langes MMA.
Rigan developed Jiu Jitsu flow to better serve his celebrity students, those who cannot afford for their faces to be marked, damaged or disfigured like the rest of us. Ashton Kucher, etc.
Rigan Machado designs jiu jitsu system without sparring for celebrities
The Jiu Jitsu Flow curriculum does not involve hard sparring. Nor are regular Jiu Jitsu belts awarded. There are three levels in the curriculum, beginner, intermediate and advanced.
About 70 flow drills joining multiple techniques are included, similar to those included below.While Jiu Jitsu Flow is not competitive, Rigan claimed that some of his students who practised Jiu Jitsu Flow had had competitive success.
The aim is to perform the drills repetitively, to the point where thoinking about the individual movements is no longer necessary. It’s all about continuous movement, transition, and flow.
Drills
1. He is in your closed guard, you have two sleeve grips. Put your L foot on the floor, and use it to turn onto your R hip while moving your hips to the L. Keep your R leg tight to his torso so he can’t push it down. L shin goes across his torso diagonally. Get your L foot on his R hip, the push away to get your R foot on his L hip for a baby spider / foot on hip shin on bicep guard.Work your hips away from him until you have enough space to put your feet on the mat between his knees for a butterfly guard. Sit up and get both underhooks, don’t have to be too deep. Rock back in butterfly to lift his hips, transfer your hands onto his shoulders so you can push his shoulders up with your hands while lifting his hips with your hooks. He should land on his feet, straddled, with your hooks still in. Underhook his L leg with your R hand, disengage your R hook and spin under him to X guard with your legs hooking his R leg, your R underhook on his l leg. Grab his R collar with your L hand and pull down so he cannot posture up. Push his R leg away with your hooks, peforming the leg split sweep. As the weight comes off his R leg, you can come to sitting and then do a technical standup to sweep him onto his back. As he is swept, he should already be getting grips to move to spider guard with his feet on your biceps. From here he pulls you into closed guard. His turn. Repeat.
2. He is standing facing you, you are lying on your back, hooks inside his knees, hands behind your head. Put your L foot on his thigh (not his knee, safety). Push his L leg with your foot and pull with your R hook to get him to turn to his R a bit. Change your feet around to pull de la Riva guard with the outside hook on his L leg. Crunch and move your head and torso around to your R to start getting behind him. Your R foot drives through to hook his R leg as your L DLR hook changes to behind his L leg. Pull, push and crunch to get directly behind him. Disengage the hooks. He turns to face you again. Repeat. Hands behind your head the whole time.
3. He is standing facing away from you. You are on your back with two hooks inside his knees. Grab his R ankle with your R hand. He turns clockwise 180 degrees pivoting on his R foot so he is now standing facing the space next to you on your R. Pull DLR guard, outside hook on his R leg. Move head and torso towards his back. Change hooks as in 2 to get behind him. It may help to change hand grips on his ankle to facilitate getting behind him. Grab his L ankle. He steps anticlockwise pivoting on his L foot. Repeat the drill, getting DLR and then to his back on the other side.
4. You are both standing. Get judo grips, his R sleeve with your L, his L collar with your R. Put your L foot on his hip, pull guard, swinging your R leg out clockwise, keeping it well away from his grip. Put your R foot on his shoulder or bicep. Change grips on his R sleeve to your R hand, grab his R ankle with your L. Move your torso and head toward his back, change L to R grip on his R ankle, and change hooks as in 2 and 3 to get behind him. Push his knees out with your ankles to get him to drop his hips. Reach up and grab his belt at the back. Repeat.
We drilled the above five or ten times each, swapping partners in sequence. Rigan urged us to go fast, flow, and think about what we were doing as little as possible. Let muscle memory take over.
A good sequence for a class might be 5 or 10 reps of technique 1, then the other partner, then the same with the other three techniques, repeating the whole sequence up to 4 times.
5. Your partner is on his L knee with his R foot out to the side so his R leg is fairly straight. Get half guard facing him on his R leg, L arm around his leg, posted up on your R elbow. Your legs should be in a suitable control position on his leg. Come off your R elbow and roll to your L onto your L side, bringing his R leg with you, so you end up in deep half guard. Head should be on his L thigh as if lying on a pillow, you can take your R foot over his R leg to the floor to keep his leg controlled. Now take him back in the reverse direction so you end up facing him, coming up on your R elbow so you are back to the starting position. Repeat.
6. You are sitting in front of your kneeling partner with your L hand gripping his R collar. Slide your R leg between his knees and pull Z guard. Use the collar to push him away to the R and take the weight off his R knee, then spin underneath him all the way to deep half guard on his R leg. Spin back as in 5, but this time as you come up on the R elbow use it to come to your knees with your legs still controlling his R leg, so you are now facing his R side on your knees. Grab his L knee with your R hand, his L ankle with your L hand and drive him over his L shin onto his L side or back. you can now kneel up and allow him to perform the same drill on you.
7. You have butterfly guard on your kneeling partner. Get double unders, rock him up and use the elevator to get him to his feet above you. Move to X guard as in sequence 1. You can get the second X guard hook in, but you’ll have to take it out again. This time he drops his L knee to the floor near your head. Move to deep half guard on your L side, moving your legs to keep appropriate controls. Your L arm probably moves from his L knee to his L hip. Come to your knees and take him down as in 6 above. His turn. Repeat.
8. Butterfly guard, elevator, go for X guard, he drops his L knee as in 7. This time he turns his R foot so the toes are facing away from you and puts his R foot flat on the mat. This time reach your L hand behind/inside his R foot and scoop it toward you. Your L thigh moves from controlling his R shin to on top of his R thigh. Triangle your R leg over your L shin, pull with you L arm on his R ankle while you push down with your R leg on your L to sweep him backwards. You need to keep his L leg controlled with your R arm and head. Keep your legs triangled or at least ankles crossed until you get to your knees and complete the sweep. Traingling the legs or crossing the feet prevents him from being able to get a toehold, or heel hook, etc. His turn. Repeat.
Repeating all of these these drills in sequence, and at speed, can be a good cardio workout. The drills where you pass through de la Riva guard to the back work the core pretty hard as well. And, obviously, are Jiu Jitsu specific.
