When I was sixteen, after a night of "Quarters" with some friends in the beach town where I spent my school vacations, I found myself near the dunes with a pretty girl I'd been pining for all summer. After bearing with my fumbling for a half hour or so, she took control of the situation and pushed me to my back, smiling as she closed in.

The most important thing you can do as a good training partner is keep yourself clean. Come to class clean, and shower as soon as you can afterwards. Wash your gi and rashguard after every session. Trim your fingernails and toenails. Make sure you wash your hair. And if you have, or even suspect you have, a skin condition like ringworm or staph stay off the mats until it’s completely healed!

Rickson Gracie recently sat down with our friends at BJJ Hacks and shared his thoughts on Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu competitions, stalling, approaches to training, modern MMA and what training means to him.

Jimmy Pedro shows us a quick Power Play on breaking grips.This technique is from the standup, but the same concepts can be applied to breaking the grip while you are in your opponents guard.  Snap, Slap, Back - all at the same time and there’s no way your opponent will be able to hang on to your lapel!

Make sure to look at last week's guard pass for the De La Riva Guard, when Formiga goes to his left side. Sometimes though, your opponent will be able to block that variation and you need to be able to come around to the right side.

In my travels for BJJ Weekly I've noticed that there are 3 kinds of guys. Gi only guys, Gi and rashguard guys, and Gi and tshirt guys. I've been planted firmly in the Gi and tshirt catagory since I started training. If I had more disclipline with my diet I'd probably be a Gi only guy, but I respect my training partners too much to subject them to the sweaty belly choke, and so I always wear a tshirt.

Formiga shows us another variation of passing the De La Riva guard. Make sure to check out week one and week two as these techniques all tie together. At :25 Formiga uses a technique to get an inside grip on his opponents knee. The sleeve grips are critical to most DLR sweeps, so learning how to win the grip fight before starting the pass is critical.

If you're in the New England area this weekend you should make plans to join us at the North Woods Escape! Enjoy a long weekend of training, white water rafting, paintball, cookouts, and good old fashioned Maine camping fun!

In this episode of BJJ Submission Chain Gabriel 'Gladiator' Santos shows us his favorite progression of side control attacks. Submission Chains are important because as you train and compete against more skilled opponents it's unlikely your first attack will be successful. A Submission Chain uses one or more attacks to force your opponent to react in a predictable way. You then have an attack that takes advantage of that predicted movement.

Rener Gracie discusses why the Bullyproof program is so important to his family, and how it is being embraced as a realistic, non violent way for kids to fight back against bullies.