The Salad Bar

The way most people teach Jiu Jitsu or martial arts is pretty similar. That's because they teach it the way they've been taught and/or with their natural tendencies. There is no BJJ education class for you to take so you know how to teach it, you kind of just do it and learn as you go.

So this is how most people do it. And I don't mean just your instructor, I mean you, or your higher belt friend, or a buddy who shows you some moves. It can be a seminar or as personal as trading moves on a mat in your garage.

What will happen is, the person teaching will string a few moves together. Like let's say 5 moves back to back, practicing each one as you go. Or 5 random moves. But either way there is no unifying theme. Maybe the theme is 5 different armbars. or 5 moves that you can hit one after the other. But just because you can eloquently string some moves together, people get easily awed and think, wow, this guy is so detailed or technical or knows so much or, what a great teacher he is. But anyone can string moves together. And anyone can speak clearly if they've they've ever had a sales job or went to college, or they just naturally can.

And when its all shown, and because there really is no theme unifying the moves, they will say, pick a few moves you like or can add to your game. You don't have to remember them all (and how can you when they are all so random or disjointed), just remember the ones you like. Like a salad bar. A BJJ salad bar.

And then what happens to the person learning? They too have a game like a salad bar, where they have an unorganized game based on all the moves they like, and they force it to flow together. Pass on the left side heavy, on the right they speed passs. On the bottom they will try to play closed guard or invert upside down. Nothing is related. Their game becomes confused. It may work, but that's because your confused game is better than your opponents confused game.

Imagine you went to math class and every day it was a new topic. Today algebra, tomorrow geometry, the next day arithmetic, with no order. The unifying theme? I guess they are all math? Well with BJJ sometimes its more like, one move is algebra, next move geometry, next calculus, etc. all in the same lesson and same day. Even more confusing. You wouldn't do that in higher education and as bad as our education system is, even our public education system wouldn't do that. Because that would confuse you. Confusing someone, especially in as complicated and delicate art of details as this is not a topic that is discussed nearly enough. They always assume the reason someone doesn't get it is because they are new or they need to drill it or it's not their game or whatever. The delivery method of the teaching is never questioned. Instructors who have been around for ages who keep losing student after student and keep trying to make their school survive never question that their own teaching method may be the problem. Why would they? They won so much, so just do like what they did. It must be the student's fault. A rule of all businesses, never fault the customer.

Instead of stringing moves, the unifying theme or the lesson should not even be based on any move. Learning a whole series of moves just makes you a disorganized catalog of moves and you will never be able to pull a move out fast enough because you will have to go through your memory to remember it.

So my contention is, they should be based let's say on a position. Like cross side. Everything cross side. How it works, what makes it work, how to balance on it, the inner workings of that position. Forget the submissions, that's more of the expression of understanding cross side. How many submissions do people know, without even knowing anything about cross side or how to hold someone down? The whole d'arce is based on your inability to hold someone down so submit them as they come up. Actually most submissions are now based on your inability to hold someone down. It's strengthening your weakness, now eliminating your weakness.

Or the unifying theme could be "heavy hips" and all the positions and places you can use it from. Or the hip escape and how that relates to every submission.

Now something like a half guard is not always a unifying theme. Why? Because there are so many random moves that are nothing like one another that we still call half guard. So just because they all share the same name, people may think it's all unified. For instance, a deep half guard is closer to a single leg than it is a traditional half guard. Jeff Glover actually calls it a BJJ single. So you have to look at what idea is in common, what are all the principles, what are you trying to accomplish. I hate also when the theme is leg locks, and all the crazy angles you can hit it from. So random. All that there is in common is that, a leg joint is being attacked. But how it gets attacked, the set up, the angle, the principles change from move to move, it's just strung together on a flimsy line. A better theme would be, using the hips on submissions and how the armbar and knee bar both use the same principles.

We get so easily impressed by the, "look how many moves this guy can remember and regurgitate" style of teaching. BJJ and true intelligence are both related to creativity and the ability to improvise.  The more you try to learn every move or every scenario or possibility is when you get too close to the problem to see the solution.

Two Ideas For Playing Top

There are really only two ways to play top. One is the common way, which is to hover over your opponent and look for a quick submission or quickly improve position, or quickly get swept. You have the option to use more speed and can maneuver better because instead of pinning your opponent, you are hovering over them, with your weight on your knees or feet or arms or head or any combination. This gives you mobility to jump on something once your opponent makes a mistake. This is the speed player.

The other way to play top is to pin your weight on your opponent, this makes you less mobile but frees up your hands to look for a submission, or take your time as you look to improve position. There are high levels of both kinds of players. Actually there's probably more speed players than pinning players. The players who do pin though, almost look unstoppable. This is the positional player.

Speed takes more athleticism, position takes more patience and sensitivity. Depending on your natural aptitude, one is easier to learn than the other. But positional is much better for self defense, it is also much better if you are looking to conserve energy. BJJ, you always want to conserve energy and slap on a submission on a tired opponent. That's the best set up for any finish.

Expressiveness

One of the mystique of rolling with someone who is a higher level than you is how calm they seem and how that calmness undermines your ability to gain any ground over them. It totally ruins your confidence, it gives you the illusion that they don't care about anything you do, they are impervious to it in fact. Actually they already knew what they you were going to do before it and they are now 2 moves ahead. You ever hear this for descriptions of higher belts? A lot of respect being shown here.

And why? Because they have learned one skill that beginners have not yet mastered. The poker face. If they are close to tapping, their face is still blank and when you let go, they will say, "why did you let go bro, you almost had it?" Oh really? You showed no sign of being under any duress nor did it even seem like it was something you were worried about.

A beginner, watch their face. Just from their facial expressions and noises they make you know how new they are. Everything they feel, all their panic is expressing in their behavior, noises they make, or expressions. The blanker your face, the more the beginner will project all their worst fears on you. That you can read their fucking mind!

If you are a higher belt, you know what I am talking about. You can sense a beginner who rolls well with other beginners but roll like crap with you, and you can count on them making mistakes because they are frantic. You almost think, well if I sit here and do nothing and have no facial expressions he is going to abandon whatever he is doing currently because he thinks it is not working, even though it is.

You know they are a white belt, it's written on their face. Every anxiety they have on their brows, their heavy dysfunctional breathing, their gasping for air, they surges of energy to exhaustion, the way their hand shakes a little before you slap hands, the way they keep changing their mind on which hand to lead with, then abandoning everything they know to lunge at you like a dog with behavioral problems, etc.

It's a mind game better players learn unconsciously. How often have you seen a better player with no expression or maybe just a smile and do absolutely nothing? Doing nothing is actually losing in BJJ. But how come when they do nothing it seems like they are kicking your ass and you are seconds away from being tapped? So it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy and you get yourself tapped.

I remember a good wrestler walking in the door and giving all of us at our academy all kinds of hell. He didn't know we were supposed to be better than him so he showed us no respect. After being taught by other students and the head instructor that even though he didn't get submitted or ever got dominated, that there were lots of chances a supposed "good guy" could have hurt him, or he could have hurt himself. And eventually he starts getting tapped. His mind gets undermined. He starts to show too much respect. He runs. He starts to get tapped. Then a lot, then viciously. Now he truly respects BJJ and how dangerous and hard of a sport it is. He entered a blue belt tournament as a brand new white belt, maybe training just 2 months. He won a few matches and eventually lost by points (he didn't understand the point system and thought it was like wrestling). That tournament was called The Worlds. Years later as a real blue at the same tournament he gets submitted in his first match every time.

It's why the mental game is so important. Whenever he is getting closed to tap, you can see it. The panic setting in. The calmer you are, the more undermined he feels. When he knew nothing and didn't know to be scared he was an animal. It's like the Coyote chasing The Road Runner and running off a cliff, and not falling down until he looks down.

I've seen it in myself. When I rolled with someone and didn't know what belt they were, I did extremely well. Once someone told me their rank, I started to get dominated. I got in my own head. I lost my poker face as he showed no signs of fear.

People say there are only two ways to defeat someone, they can out technique you, or over power you. I think there is a third way also, they just have a tougher mind and break you mentally.

Stick Drill

When I am trying to convey an idea to someone who is just learning Jiu Jitsu, I use a simple teaching device. It's not a grappling dummy, I don't even need to use another student. I just grab a stick. It's so simple and basic and easily available. We say we must use leverage, use levers, fulcrums, etc. We use all those analogies without ever grabbing an actual lever and showing what we mean. So a stick is a lever. It's a simple way to show what will happen. You put it on a fulcrum, press one side down, other side comes up. Prevent other side from coming up and the stick snaps. It also shows what parts of your own body that you can brace the stick with, to use as a natural fulcrum. Finding natural fulcrum points.

A lot of times in weird angle armbars people can't figure out where to apply the pressure and they even ask where does it hurt. Like if you are bracing from above the stick or below the stick in relation to the sky, how do you pull on the stick to force it to snap? Or the two brace points on the stick in relationship to the fulcrum. If I am attacking an armbar let's say, and its above my armpit on my shoulder and the crook of my neck, I pull down on your elbow. If your arm is underneath my armpit, I push up on your elbow. If I brace the stick from above, like with the bottom of my armpit, then I push up. If I brace from below, with the top of my shoulder, then I pull down.

When people first figure out how to submit an arm from holding it in the armpit as opposed to on their neck and shoulder, they get confused in pushing up or pulling down because the opponents arm is in the same position, and you are nearly in the same position, but the bracing points have changed. But the stick is a straight line, if you push it up, it wants to go up, so you prevent it from going up with the bottom of your armpit, it will snap. If you pull the stick down but block it from going down with your shoulder, the stick will snap. Same is true for an arm. Same is true for a leg or any other joint for that matter.

The stick, its the best example of a lever because it is one. So why are we not using it when we are discussing levers? How many jointlocks do even really good guys lose because they didn't know where exactly to aim all their pressure? Where the guy looked like they were done but they weren't and somehow got out. You can only be so flexible, and with the proper brace and leverage, you can snap a stick or even an arm and make them touch end to end. So how did we miss that leverage point? We always relied on just sensitivity and not so much a mastery of the concept. Sensitivity keeps us in the game, concepts turn the tides.

How Do I keep Posture Broken?

We've talked about the triangle and three points of contact before. Now to break someone's posture, you have to make them sit down or bend over. This isn't hard to do, sometimes they will do it for you. The hard part is keeping their posture broken. I talked about this in a previous post about the single leg. You have to make them step real heavy on one leg. So they have to have all their weight on that one point and you force them to sit down on that one point. All of a sudden their bodies become really heavy because instead of carrying it on multiple points, its just on one point. This is an important idea.

The idea of making your opponent post really heavy on one point.

Let's say you're opponent is sitting down on their knees in your closed guard. You have broken their posture down and want to submit them with an armbar or a choke. Everytime you try to go for it, isolating their arm or neck, you lose control of their posture and they posture up, beating your submission. Now if you have great timing or speed you can still catch this as they posture or transition to something else. You can save yourself a lot of time though by preventing or at least slow down their ability to posture. BJJ is a game of steps. I need to be only one step ahead to beat you. Not 3 or 4 moves ahead like some people say. Only one move ahead. To do that I need to be ahead of you in moves, so I need to either speed up or slow you down. It's hard to always be the fastest guy but anyone can slow someone down.

So back inside my closed guard. I have their posture broken. I want the arm or the choke. I can shift my body, use my arms, or my leg, or shift my body and use my arms and my legs to push him to one side. His weight is already down because his posture is broken, but now I shift all his weight let's say to his right side. Now his weight is down and to the right. That means he is sitting down with all his weight on his right heel. He is also bent over, with his chest on his knee so he is even heavier. This gives you the time and to go for the submission because for him to posture, he can no longer just pull his weight straight up. He has to square back up first, then pull his weight up. This gives you that one step lead to submit him. Not only that but its your legs, arms, and body weight along with his own body weight making him sit down on his right heel. That's really hard to fight. So for them they have to prevent that from happening.

You can use this also to break their posture as well. Force all their weight onto one point until they collapse from the weight of you and their own body. You can also use that to sweep easier. Now that all their weight is on one point, they can now be swept to every other point (as long as you prevent them from posting).

A great example of posture break to a sweep is the flower sweep itself. Before you can even do the sweep though you have to make them really heavy on one point. It's not actually their right heel this time, it's right right shoulder. But that's the arm you have trapped so they can't post but you are pushing all their weight to that side, breaking their posture down, and with nowhere to post they get flipped over and swept.

A spider guard is another example, where you force all your weight onto one of their shoulder joints or elbow joints, and when you shift, you also force all their weight onto that joint. Forcing them to bend over and break their own posture and a lot of times giving you the sweep because they are tipping over. (Not that I am a huge fan of the spider guard but it still is a great example of how that guard system works, its just not the only place you can apply this, it's just one of the more obvious ones.)

This concept can be used in every situation that involves person to person contact. Either you are preventing your opponent from doing this, or you are doing this to them. I especially like this for triangle set ups. Whenever you don't apply this principle and you are flat on your back, wrapping them up in a rubber guard let's say or a guillotine or a choke and they aren't heavy on any one point, there is always a chance they can lift you up (if they are strong enough of course) because they can still post on their knees or feet and it becomes just a deadlift. The idea then though is to submit them up in the air or finish them before you get lifted up or only train with people your own weight. None of these are what BJJ means to me.

When someone does try to pick you up, you hook their leg. A lot of times though they pick your lower body up but your torso is wrapped around their leg. You aren't preventing being lifting by grabbing their leg. You grab the leg to shift your weight and make them post heavy on one side, so when they do try to use their energy to stand all they will do is sweep themselves. That's what will prevent being picked up, the shifting of their weight. The grip on the leg itself helps but its for assistance. Like any grip. Grips just help positioning. Positioning is not what helps grips. (Or that would not be the most efficient use of positioning)

You see this in triangles. Sometimes when it's done wrong you seem the person get picked up, and they hold onto the leg, but their body now is so spread they can no longer maintain the triangle or posture control and they have to let go.

Now this doesn't mean you will never get picked up. But the idea is it's harder to squat on one leg than it is to squat on both legs.

To Clarify Who BJJ Is For

I think I didn't clarify the point I was making as I tend to get off point. There is a certain level of strength and athleticism you need for BJJ. I think what happens though is, the expectation, the feel, or the need, to be at a professional athlete's level for a sport that is not a professional sport. I know there are competitions where competitors get paid and they are working on making professional leagues but its still far from a pro sport. There are competitions sponsored by the Sheik of Abu Dhabi but when all the money is coming from one person and not from the viewing audience (or lack of a general audience), it cannot be considered a professional sport. It's still a hobby sport that was a martial art. Wrestling is not even a professional sport, it's an amateur sport (it's played in schools and Olympics whereas BJJ is not).

If you do it for the honor or you want to compete and win, it's still understandable. Yet still even for the people who never compete or never want to compete and only want to train a few days a week as a hobby, there is a certain peer pressure to take it up a notch and do this thing at a professional level (without pay of course). I probably train way too often and I am in a pretty good shape so this isn't a post about me. It's for those guys who don't feel like they have enough free time to commit to this or are in good enough shape who feel disenfranchised. BJJ should be able to adapt to everyone, everyone's circumstances, commitment level, and level of physical capability.

Imagine this level of peer pressure and expectation for other hobby sports like disc golf, employee softball leagues, etc. Actually a professional disc golf player can earn over a 100k a year just on their winnings believe it or not whereas a lot of BJJ players train 8 times more than they do and are in way better shape of course, but don't make any money and in fact lose money every year they are in BJJ (tournament fees, academy fees, gym fees, personal training, missing hours from work, medical bills, etc.) Fantasy football players even make money. In most professional sports, you don't lose money competing, you make it. Also most sports have seasons, whereas in BJJ the expectation is to be in great shape year round.

When BJJ players and wrestlers want to turn pro, they go into MMA. And in MMA, it makes sense to have the expectation to be a professional athlete.

There are a number of great athletes I train with. An old man who trains with us who always complains about being too old or out of shape saw a younger player sparring and saw his athleticism. It truly is phenomenal. He said, "that guy is such a tremendous athlete! He's in the wrong sport."

I asked him what should he be doing. He replied, "that guy could be Tiger Woods or Michael Jordan. What's he doing this for?"

He does it because he loves BJJ. There are a lot of professional football players who love BJJ too, but no one will stop playing pro ball to train BJJ full-time. Their athleticism would be underserved.

Someone made a comment that those "fat coaches" I mentioned before used to be athletes. He is correct for the most part but I know for a fact there are a lot of coordinators and coaches in football who have always been fat and never played pro ball (or ever a good player) who are excellent at what they do. But actually that's not the point I was making.

For whatever reason in BJJ, no one wants to train with the fat coach. Whereas in other sports you don't care what shape your coach is in. In BJJ you want your coach to be a World Champ, still competitive, still winning, still an athlete. Nothing wrong with being an athlete, that's great, if you are an uber athlete, even better. What doesn't make sense is the expectations, for the students and even the teacher to be like The Ultimate Warrior. Not only that but to be like him year round, even when your done competing and just teaching. You also become a master of strength and conditioning, crossfit, nutrition, supplements, steroids on occasion, pain relievers, doctors, and of course weight cutting. I've never known a person who plays league softball at work or club tennis on steroids, but I've known of and heard about so many in the BJJ world that they want to start testing. You don't get paid yet you go on roids???

But maybe through BJJ people live out some fantasy, of being that professional athlete they always wanted to be...

Who Is BJJ For?

Sometimes I wonder who BJJ is for? I know who it was originally for, but who is it for now? When it was created, anyone could walk in, be in any kind of shape and do the moves, feel good, and defend themselves. Now BJJ seems about being, bigger, better, stronger. Now it doesn't feel like its for the Average Joe, but for an athlete to become a better athlete. An uber athlete. I've seen people walk in and see a class and be intimidated or feel like they need to get in shape before they can do this. Its the difference between a martial art or a sport. To be great at a sport, you need to be a great athlete. Athletes do sports. Where as normal people, peasants, the downtrodden did martial arts. With BJJ becoming more and more of a sport, it disenfranchises the guy who is out of shape, can only train 2-3 times a week. There seems to be no place for them with the peer pressure to train more often or constantly feeling left behind by everyone else who trains all the time, who are younger, faster, bigger, and stronger.

Sometimes a guy who has been training a long time but not very athletic will roll with someone who is the opposite of him, hasn't trained long but very athletic. There are two ways to overcome someone, overpower them or out maneuver them. With all this technique and maneuvers, chances are there will be a lot of times that it won't be enough to overcome the power difference. Then they get discouraged...

There is a certain elitism that happens with all martial arts, and I think it's actually what leads it to become watered down over time. It becomes too much about strength because anyone can get stronger, its very easy. Getting more technical is very difficult. Too much about competition or winning. Too much about living the life. Then you gotta train according to specific rules. Learn specific techniques to beat competitors. Learning how to not get submitted as opposed to learning how to control your opponents limbs so they can't hit you. How to be up on points in a short period of time as opposed to taking your time to completely finishing your opponent. Athletes learn to play according to the rules of the game and according to the habits of their competitors. Whereas a martial arts was about having no rules, so you can learn core concepts and principles and use your creativity and ability to improvise to adapt it to all situations. You don't need to be an athlete to do that because a lot of those bad situations, an athlete would be too quick and likely never end up in them.

What if you don't want to compete, live the life, you just enjoy martial arts and want to participate? You just want to participate in something, be a part of something greater than yourself. Is it better to have a school with super elite guys who can dominate anyone that walks in the door? Or a place that is more like the real world with a lot of normal people and no one feels intimidated to try it out and feel welcomed?

Just from training BJJ you will be in a good shape compared to most people. But now the expectation is ridiculously high. You can't be just an athlete like I said, you need to be uber athletic. That you can spar 2 hours twice a day, do a million pull ups, 100 burpees, and do it all over again the next day. When did the baseline athleticism for BJJ become so unrealistic or sustainable for the average student?  How does looking like a Greek God translate to being a better martial artist I wonder. An athlete can play pick up basketball, for BJJ you need to be an uber athlete.

It's ultimately best to be in a good shape, healthy, and a martial artist. But just because you are not in good shape doesn't mean you can't be a martial artist either. I know you will tell me, what about those fat traditional martial artist guys? How can they teach or be a martial artist? I can flip it and say what about those fat boxing coaches or wrestling coaches? How can they be an effective teacher, boxer, wrestler? Yet somehow they are.

The Third Rule

I did some guest blogging for www.rollothecoach.com who wanted to see my perspective on the rules to BJJ training.

Here is the actual entry.:

The Third Rule

Rollo has asked me to write the third rule for his list of BJJ rules. This is interesting because BJJ has always been a game threes. Three points of contact to the ground, three points of a choke, three dominant positions, the triangle which is the symbol of BJJ and The Gracie family. My name Sam even means three in Korean, I was named this because I was the third son. So I take it as a great honor that I get to pen the magical third rule for RR AKA Rollo's Rules.

So the rule is simple. I think about this every time I step on the mat and feel like a winner when I have applied this rule.

The rule is: Do your body no harm.

It doesn't matter if you are a beginner or an expert, this rule applies to everyone. From your first day to last. Every time you step off the mat and have lived this rule and leave the mat unscathed, you are a victor!

This will affect the pace you train in. It will also make you sensitive to your body, how well you feel that day and what is the level of output you can put forth safely. It also affects how you play and ultimately design your game. If I play a certain way, like constantly grab my own foot and pull it towards my face in the guard, what will happen to my knee and hip? Is this game sustainable? Or intertwining your leg in an odd angle in someones sleeves or with their legs. Or rolling and playing off of your neck constantly. Will I be doing myself harm over time? Maybe not an instant injury but there is something worse than an injury that is even more common, chronic conditions and chronic pain. Injuries heal, chronic problems do not.

Ask yourself, do you have a self destructive game or training style?

This can also determine the people you train with most often, the ones who show your body the most respect. Where you put your limbs. Like if I am being throw and I put my arm out, will it get broken? Or even other things like, from this position, can this person harm me (submit, punch, gouge, elbow, etc.) If I grip here, can he possibly wrist lock me? At any point in this roll, can he touch my face? If he can touch my face he can touch my collar or control my head (in a self defense scenario he can also gouge your eyes or punch you). Can he hurt me? Can I hurt me? Whether accidental or through submission, BJJ is supposed to create awareness of your body and your opponent's body (where are all my limbs and their limbs and what are they doing?) and also spatial awareness. What's going on around me? If you haven't developed that you haven't really developed anything useful outside of the training mat yet, like even for the street. A martial artists with no awareness is no martial artist. He's good in a controlled environment against people who don't want to hurt him, what about outside in a chaotic world? I'm not even talking about a mugger, what about not tripping over a curb or bumping into people because you didn't know they were behind you.

I know so many BJJ players who have torn their own knees out or hurt their own necks because of either the way they rolled, or refusal to tap. Who cares if you lose, it's just a roll. Don't make it more than it is. You guys were friends before you rolled, don't make it personal. Be friends on and off the mat. Be happy if for them if they beat you, they are your friend not your enemy. They should be happy for you too if you catch them. Tap early to show your approval.

I apply this rule to everything I do. Not just for my body, but my stress levels and mind as well. Like with diet, I try to eat things that do no harm. When I work out, I only do the exercises that will not hurt me or exercises that make me more impervious to injury. I only put myself in situations that will not make me unhappy. I don't like to read books or listen to people who complain too much. I do myself no harm. It's a lesson I've learned from BJJ that I now apply to life.

Think long term. If you apply this rule to BJJ and everything else, you probably will live longer but guaranteed you will be on the mat for a longer period of your life, if not to the very end.

If you can never remember this rule remember this: the third man in every professional fight is the referee. His job is fighter safety.


Sam Y.

Thanks For The Support

Internet truly brings the world together. Many blogs have given me write ups and linked me to their page. One of the ones I recently saw was this one:

http://dannythaobjj.blogspot.com/2011/04/inner-game-of-jiu-jitsu.html

Another is a school in Adelaide, South Australia who was generous enough to share a link to my blog to his students as a source of inspiration:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Millennia-Academy/54718676715

Along with this one, a new blue belt in Washington who is already waxing poetics about BJJ.

http://journeybjj.blogspot.com/

A youth BJJ coach and BJJ philospher.

http://www.rollothecoach.com/

So I've decided to share their sites as well to return the favor. I know there's more and others, thanks for the constant readership.

Listening To Your Body

We all know what it's like to be injured. Its sudden and it sucks. But in this day and age, most of our pain doesn't come from some injury. It's more of a chronic pain that gets worse over time. Something small, usually if not dealt with right away can become a chronic problem. Within the first few days of a new pain or slight injury is the most important time to prevent it from becoming chronic.

We live in a modern world and because of technology and laws and our culture, our chances of getting injured are far less in years past. Even for BJJ, though injuries happen, it's still a pretty safe endeavor. What we do have to watch out for is chronic pain, from repetitive movement or repetitive stress. Whether it's moving your knee over and over in a weird way or constant use of a mouse at an office.

Take care of yourself because no one else will.

What Is Inner BJJ?

I visited a very prestigious tennis club not too long ago. There was an award ceremony for their best tennis trainer. He's trained many professionals on their way up so obviously he is a sought after and very good tennis trainer. Here is the twist, he is physically handicapped.

He had a bad car accident years back, which caused severe damage to his spine. Now he can only hobble with a cane, and has very limited use of his arms.

Since then he has become a better tennis trainer. Now people say, well they can't do this or that, they can't show me the move, who can they beat? Sounds familiar? You hear this all the time in BJJ as well.

For this tennis trainer, tennis exists in his mind. His lack of physical tennis makes him better at observation and pointing out critical errors and ways to improve it. He also can tell from just watching people play who is about to break mentally.

Physical games, especially like BJJ are easy to confuse as a 100% physical game. This does not mean there is not an Inner Jiu Jitsu. Sometimes someone may have a better physical jiu jitsu game, but that does not mean they understand the inner qualities of BJJ better. Can they play the game or visualize it in their mind? I don't even know how to play tennis and I can beat this tennis trainer because he just can't play anymore. Am I the better trainer of tennis? No. Are 90% of the high level players out there? No.

In almost every other sport, we assume the coach cannot play anymore or never have played at a high level. From football, to basketball, to even gymnastics. We almost expect them to be out of shape, but we also expect a keen mind and lots of experience. It's different for BJJ and I think its because its still a young sport so there aren't the old coaches with a legacy of winning yet but teams like Alliance are proving otherwise. I would be very surprised if Jacare still rolls every day, if at all. I am sure BJJ exists in his mind now. If by that time you have not internalized BJJ and you still need to go out there and train and roll to teach BJJ, it has not been an efficient use of time. A good leader knows how to delegate and paint big pictures.

I think because it's easy to put a lot of emphasis on the physical and we forget or overlook the great BJJ minds that exists out there who may be a great coach.

I have arthritis all over my body, especially in my neck. It gets worse every year. I know my physical BJJ days are getting numbered. I hope before that happens I can internalize all the values of jiu jitsu so I can still be a useful voice for BJJ. That has been the impetus of my Inner BJJ journey.

Time Management

People will say, they don't have time to do this or that. No time to get anything done or for any hobbies. Or no time to even fully commit to a hobby. I think that has more to do with the person than the workload. Jiu Jitsu is all about efficiency. Are you being efficient with your time?

You could give two people the same schedule and same amount of work and the same job. As always there will be one person who thrives, does his work well, and has time for a lot of other activities. The other person will work super hard and spend all their time just to be adequate and complain of having no time for themselves.

This says more about the two personalities than the work load.

If you want to train, make time to train. Schedule it. If you train too much and don't have time to do other things, schedule it. Other people are doing it. Don't make excuses. No matter how much stuff you have going on, there are people who do more with less. They say the modern person has way more free time than every previous generation. We also have more social and psychological disorders and anxiety as well. A lot of people aren't really busy, they just have a busy brain or worry too much.

This art takes so much of our time. Figure out how to do more with less. Figure out what you want to accomplish. Tap everyone out? Or maintain a love of the art. One will demand much more time than the other.

Time is infinite. So there is always enough time.

Building Blocks Of Life

I was watching this program on the birth of computer animation, and said that at its foundation, the whole thing is made up of very small triangles. That's the building block of the resolution and 3D modeling. Triangles also are key to design of all kinds, even in business. From pyramid schemes, to the branches of the government.

It's key to jiu jitsu, the whole thing is about turning your body into a whole sequence of triangles, every kind of triangle, whether you are on top or bottom, to fit and maneuver around your opponent as he makes his triangles, and you try to make each other fit into a certain set up, until you finally latch on a submission, like a triangle choke.

Jiu Jitsu Exists In Three Dimensions!

Sometimes people think of moves as 2D. Like a side scrolling character, you just either push or pull. It's easier to think like that, it takes time to expand your thought and mind and absorb BJJ in all dimensions.

An example, let's say you are trying to control someone, maybe with a guillotine grip. Eventually you want to submit them. Before you can submit them though, you have to stop them from escaping. If you are only squeezing in 2D, then they will escape. You have to control them in 3D. Meaning do not allow them to escape by moving forward or backwards, up or down, side to side, or pull out in a diagonal angle, or twisting angle, or rolling angle, etcs.

So often when I am teaching a beginner how to control my head in a guillotine, I find they are clamping down in just two ways. Not allowing me to escape going up, or to just one side. Everything else is loose and open. It takes time to fill up the gap in every angle but it's important for control of every kind.

Same is true for an armbar. You have to control in a way where they can't pull their arm forward or back, up or down, or roll out. Same is true for all control.

Some people get good at this over time mindlessly. Be mindful and get ahead of the curve.

Dead Weight

I have been putting a lot of thought into this. I have discussed connectedness already. The concept I want to piggy back off of that is, dead weight. I said when you are connected, and things are tight to your center, it stays tight to your center. Especially with flat things, flat things stick to flat surfaces. Because of the lack of space to pry or release the forces of gravity.

So in essence space is the enemy of connectedness. So then it becomes harder and harder for you to pass my guard if you are far away from me, and easier for me to stand up. My job in passing, stabilizing, mounting, is to connect you to me as quickly as possible to initiate my control because eventually I want to get chest to chest. Not knee on chest, or my side on his chest, or sit on hip, but chest to chest.

What he will do is use his legs as a defense, to create space and openings, you then must connect his legs to your center. If you try to fight his legs with your arms, you will be the one getting tired, and lots of space will be created so you have to get as close to him as you can as quickly as you can. So connectedness. Connect to his legs. From there, settle down like you are dead weight. Not only does this conserve energy, it naturally makes you heavy and will find all the weaknesses and gaps in his tension. Your center though is naturally always the heaviest.

We make the mistake of tensing up or flexing or rising or pushing when we are trying to get heavy. But what does a kid do when they don't want to get picked up? They become dead weight, meaning their body sags with no counter tension, so as to find all the gaps and weakness in the tension created in the person trying to pick the child up. Like a 5lb brick is a lot easier to pick up than a 5lb blanket, its just becomes cumbersome.

Same thing here. As I explained, space is the enemy of the passer. So when you do pass, smearing him onto the mat, and you stabilize and hold your position, if you flex, lift your butt high in the air, lift your head up, knee on belly, hold him down in a scarf hold, bring both knees close to his side, etc. there is a lot of space created. Your opponent will take that space and create more space with it. A little space will become exponentially more space until possible you are both standing or he has swept you. So literally smear or smash someone, you have to become like a crashing landslide, rolling pin, or whatever your analogy is where there is direct constant pressure on everything as it moves forward. You can't do that with just putting pressure on certain areas at a time. That's like trying to flatten dough only using your fingers and not your palms or a rolling pin or a flat bottom surface.

When you are dead weight, your body will naturally find and plug up all the natural space, gaps, and crevices. When they say Roger is very heavy, or like a blanket, its not because he is squeezing, or he is arching his back or flexing or getting onto his toes and driving down on you or whatever people do to try to be heavy. Because none of those are like a heavy blanket. A heavy blanket is weight that is evenly distributed and a perfect example of dead weight, it has no tension so its always gonna find the gaps and fall into it. He will then pass you like a mudslide.

You look at Roger and not only is he technical, he is also very strong, and has a good BJJ body. Meaning long, and though he is not a very big and muscle bound guy, he is wide. Meaning the from front to the back of his shoulders may be smaller than other men, from one shoulder all the way to the other shoulder is very long. Like a sheet of paper or like a blanket, flat and wide. With the gi and his length it becomes amplified.

So flexing doesn't make you wide, it lifts you up. You want to be wide and spread out. BJJ is a teritorial game, thats why they even have positions and they have point value. Because like a war game with points, it is a game, and you want to occupy enemy terriory. Being as wide as possible allows you to take up as much territory as you want. If there was a pile of money on the ground and whatever amount of money you could grab you could keep, wouldn't you lay flat on it also and act like dead weight? Or there was a hundred dollar bill under your chest and you wanted no one to steal it, or for that matter under your back, what would you do? Become as flat and as dead as possible.

Think about it. The ground is flat, your opponent in the middle, to flatten him between you and the ground, shouldn't you also be flat as well? Like a press? Imagine how hard it would be to hold someone down on an uneven surface, when also you are not flattening but trying to use speed and just pressure on different areas at a time, like his knee, his hip, his chest, his arm, his neck, etc. Rigid things are easier to maneuver, its why we use trays to carry things in as opposed to sheet of paper.

It's very common sense and practical. But like I said sometimes with the mystique of martial arts, common sense goes out the window. I may not be a black belt in BJJ, but I am trying to be a black belt in life and attain black belt common sense.

Let's Be Realistic

And set our expectations. If I am sparring with someone and they weight 270 and is about 6'5 of muscle and I am 5'10 but only 140, it obviously sounds like a mismatch. Common sense tells you this. Somehow though through martial arts, your common sense goes out the window. Here is why. You will then notice he is a white belt and I am a purple belt. Now you will think I have the advantage. You are wrong. Your first assumption was still correct. You see a big bear and see a fox, you don't care if the bear is young and the fox is old and wily, you just know from everything you've learned in life, the bear will win.

Especially if the big person is particularly aggressive. Now of course sometimes a hyper aggressive animal can fend off bigger animal like a badger verses a bear. But that's all he can do, is scare them off or fend them off. The bear might retreat but if the bear put his mind to it, it could kill that badger, I have never heard of a badger killing a bear. Poisonous animals being the exception but they too also end up dead in the fight against bigger animals.

So back to my imaginary fight. A lot of times a smaller guy will beat a larger guy in BJJ, but I notice in those times the bigger guy is very conservative, knows to fear submissions now, knows to respect higher belts skills. Like an elephant that's been whipped since his youth by the ringmaster. What if the bigger guy was very aggressive, didn't know to be scared of submissions, and didn't respect your rank? What happens when the elephant finally snaps and goes on a rampage?

There is a probability that I would catch this guy, maybe initially. After that if he stayed aggressive and realized that he shouldn't overextend, 9 times out of 10 he will smash me.  His size, strength, and 1 year of BJJ trumps my years and years of BJJ. But he trumps me in one way. In a straight up fight. This is the mistake people make and forget what BJJ was for. The whole reason someone like me gets into BJJ is because there was such a huge natural gap between me and would be giant bullies that I needed years and years just to have a chance and match up with them, not even to surpass them.

My mistake was to engage him in a straight up fight or a straight up match, which is poor strategy and planning on my part. All my training affords me the opportunity to prevent his takedown, or if taken down prevent his pass, stand up, and escape. Every time. Over and over. I don't want to use my jiu jitsu to defeat this guy, I have to use my jiu jitsu to diffuse the situation, escape the situation, nullify the situation, or not allow any bad results to happen from this situation.

Now a world class black belt may toy with a big guy like that but the black belt will be very athletic, and the skill gap will be quite phenomenal. But an average purple, or even an average black belt who is outweighed by over a hundred pounds will struggle if they engage head to head, move for move, bite for bite.

Someone bigger doesn't need to know all the techniques, because physics has blessed them with an automatic edge, mechanical advantage. Its why a bigger guy, even if they know nothing about the game of "mercy" and you are really good at it, if they are tall enough, they can hold their hands higher than yours and create that downward force until you beg for mercy. That's mechanical advantage and it doesn't matter what you know, they still own and possess it.

Ed O'Neill's First BJJ Class

The Pedagogy of a BJJ Instructor

If you go to class and do all these warm ups and drills and your instructor never explains to you why you are doing them and what concepts they are expressing, in an incentive driven world you will never have the incentive to do these things correctly because you don't know why its important or what application they serve. You don't see how this leads to the ultimate end game. So a lot of people want to skip this stuff and go straight to the end game, the rolling.

We call it a class and call the person leading it, our teacher or instructor or professor even. But all these terms are used rather loosely. It is not anyway close to a physics class. It would be closer to a fitness class at a gym, with different exercises and routines we run through mindlessly that is strung together with the incentive to be either more fit, or in BJJ's case more tough.

But in actuality there are also problems with how most things are taught even in the school systems. It's not natural learning. Once you know what the reason behind certain drills are and what your goals are, then you have incentive to get better, you will have a more mindful focused and inspired practice and get better with less effort.

Kid Gives Inspirational Speech On Practice

Sitting Up From Guard

Why would you want to sit up? In a sport perspective, it becomes more difficult in some aspects to pass someone's guard when they are sitting up. Basically they are wrestling you from a seated position. So you have to try to take them down and pin them.

Many one legged or no legged wrestlers have shown that someone so low is hard to pin.

The other reason is to stand up or drive into them. Whether stand up and try to take them down, stand up and run away, stand up and strike, or sit up and take them down or sweep them or knock them over.

How do I make this effective? One of the first things I noticed was when my heels are close to my butt, it's easy for them to push me onto my back and start the pass. And of course that makes sense, I am closing off my own power angle that I spoke of in the previous post (90° or 45°) and I become like a stone that you can tip over. I become a very narrow triangle if my heels are one point and my butt is the other point.

I want to spread out a little bit, not too far but enough where I can post evenly from my heels to my butt. This way I can always lean forward.

Their goal then is to try to tip you over. They can either shove your shoulders down which gives them the opportunity to scoot back to realign their angles. Also you will be pushing them into the ground so they can resist. If you push them off at an angle though, you will get more success but they will post on their hand on that side.

The other easier option is to lift your leg or control your pants or knees. This will break those power angles and put you on your back, and if they have pant grips either steer your or pin you momentarily for the pass.

They can also step in with knee first, which is what you want anyway.

So on the ground, sitting up, the biggest threat is not them gripping your high or trying to shove you over, or stepping in with a knee. It's them controlling your legs. First rule of sit up guard is break all grips off of your legs.

First rule of defeating sit up guard is to control their legs. If their heels are already close to their butts then just push them over.

The Angle Concept

When you create angles in BJJ, it's what allows someone much smaller to pass the guard of someone much bigger. It's also one of the hardest things to master.

You see 45°, 90°, and 180° angles most often. What happens if you are standing and I simply shove you at a 45° angle? You lose balance on one leg, get heavy on the other leg, and get slightly pushed backwards. This works on either sides. What about when they are on their backs? You drive into them at a 45° angle, you are pushing their knees together, flattening them out, and getting to a chest to chest position.

What if they are standing and you push them at a 180° angle? Well basically you are shoving them backwards and they get heavy on their heels. What do they do? Step backwards. At what angle? 90° from their other foot.

Same things when you are on bottom and they stand up from your guard and you double ankle sweep. They fall straight backwards, 180° angle. What about when they are in your closed guard and you do an up and over sweep? You direct your energy up at a 45° angle. When you have a single leg what angle are you using to push them down? Or how about even a double leg? A 45° angle, 90° angle, or driving straight through to a 180° angle.

Now when you hold cross side what angle are you to them? 90°. What about when you are mounted? You are at 180° to them. What about when they try to hip escape? They are trying to frame off of you at a 90°. What about when they buck and you post? You post out at a 45° angle.

Sounds like a simple set of rules. It's all based off of triangles, the building block of all formations. Nothing can stand without at least 3 points.

So what does your opponent want you to do? They want you to prevent those angles while they create those angles. Or also possibly make you move play outside of those angles. If you are in someones butterfly guard, and they have their feet at a 45° or 90° angle from their heel to their butt, they can generate a lot of power. If you can smash that and make their heels touch their butts, like an angle of 10°, it is easier to press their heels all the way to their butt or to get to 0° than it is for them to push you back to 90°. Or you are passing and they make a frame with their elbow at 90°. You somehow threaten their arm, they seal their own arm in to prevent the submission, and now you can flatten them out because that frame is now less than 90° or even 45°.

If someone is turtled and you make them sit on their heels, it is really hard for them to get up. The concept is sitting on their heels, it's to break any right angles. If you flatten them out bellydown after taking the back, it is also hard for them to get up. Flat or 180° angles stick onto other flat surfaces. If I am flat on top of them, I stick on them, if they are flat to the mat, they stick to the mat. My flat palms stick better to the mat than basing on my knuckles. Which makes knuckle push ups harder because I am forced to balance. It's that centeredness and attachment I spoke about previously. Their whole center is now attached to the mat, and your center is attached to them. Making it difficult to get up, so they are now forced to roll to their side.

Its simple because its only a few effective angles, but BJJ is not 2 dimensional. It's 3 dimensional. So those angles also are created up and down, side to side, front to back, and vary from whatever you use as the center point. Not only that, their is also roll, pitch, yaw. It's also constantly changing and moving and changes with body types and our body types in comparison to theirs. Then there is also weight involved...

So how can we calculate all this? We can't really consciously but our brain and body can do it very quickly. We call this sensitivity, alertness, or experience. This is how smaller guys can literally smash bigger guys at times, they understand being heavy, but it's easy for a big man to fling a small man off of them. So they use proper angles to always alleviate their power. Big men just like little men have to abide by those same rules of angles and if a small man can out play those angles and use it against a bigger man, then the small man can feel very very large. But they are large, look at all the angles and surface degree they control. They control a lot of you, and a lot of the mat, moving from area to area. That's what makes them feel large and heavy, like a mobile rolling pin.

Now with the awareness of angles though, our sensitivity will grow with purpose.

Even the way we stand up in BJJ are based on these principles.

Watch the first 30 seconds of this video. Rickson is demonstrating moves. The guy sweeps Rickson with the double ankle as I described at 180°. He tries to come up and mount at 45° (mounting off of that is a bit greedy as far as strategy goes), Rickson scoots backwards at a 45° angle then comes forward at a 45° to stay on top.