3-D Control (Video)

Here is a video I made to expand on this idea of controlling someone in all angles.

As They Disconnect...

As they disconnect, for example from on top, trying hold you down with their arms, pushing their arms down but lifting their own body up, or look and disconnect to look up at the clock or people or to look for a submission, monitor their movement and follow them up at that pace. As they disconnect, space is created, suck that space up to escape or move yourself. The saying, where the head goes the body follows? So if they look up their body leans up instead of leaning down on your. There is your moment.

As they disconnect, start occupying that new space.

Teach Them Nothing

You really want to teach them nothing, show them everything.

If you try to teach a whole year's worth of history in one day, the class will remember nothing. This is true for most things. This is a good tool to use for teaching and learning BJJ as well. If you teach too many things, moves, concepts, details, the student will remember nothing. The teacher should then pick just a few things to focus on and drill a lot. The student if shown a great deal of moves should try to only remember a handful of those moves and focus on that the rest of class. Make the most of the situation.

In history, those who always did the best or knew the most, always had specialized knowledge in one area. With one area of expertise they learned everything.

So instead of learning every move or teaching it, just learning a few moves really well, teaches you nearly every move BJJ has to offer.

A Short Cut

Some people like to bypass the pass by just going for a footlock. Some people like to bypass the open guard or guard by holding onto half guard.

I guess then inversely if becomes very difficult to pass or use any of your attacks from cross side, mount, back, knee on belly, etc. if you only go for leg locks. It also makes it difficult to play guard, open guard, all the sweeps and submissions from guard if you just hold onto the half guard and never try to get to guard.

I know some people who complain about never being able to pass and never being able to get to full guard. They also always dive for footlocks and hold onto half guard for dear life...

Bad Posture!!!

Your coach, instructor, your teammate, your own mind will tell you to maintain good posture. It's not even in the back of your mind, it's at the front of your mind. And what happens? You break posture. What belt are you? You could be belt color and this can happen. More seldom at higher belts but if it never happened at higher belts, there would never be any sweeps or finishes at higher belts either.

So even when we know better, why do we have such "bad" posture? Meaning, bending over? Because we want to grab or control something. And when we reach with our hands, we bend our back. There it is. The secret to all this mess. You know to keep posture, yet you also know you need to control grips, so how do you marry the two ideas? Normally people don't. They normally take turns vacillating from one idea to the other. Controlling grips and breaking their own posture, to weakening their grips or letting to completely and regaining posture.

This happens a lot in BJJ, the seemingly contradictory concepts we are supposed to maintain at the same time. This being one of them, there are plenty of others, I will cover them as they come up in future blogs.

For now, control and posture. My arms are only so long, how the hell am I supposed to get a hold of him, or control him so I don't get swept or submitted without breaking my posture? How am I supposed to ever win this fight if all I do is posture? They don't work together and you feel like you have learned nothing in BJJ and that you must suck at this stuff.

Bad posture is sort of a plague with modern BJJ and it's one of the reasons so many old timers complain about how the art is not as good as it was before, or is being diluted. And the proper techniques are now invisible. Well if they were just a little bit better at explaining it or their English was a little better, maybe it wouldn't seem so invisible to us, this connecting of concepts.

Bad posture doesn't just happen in BJJ, it's something you carry with you throughout the day, throughout your life. A bad habit that was passed down from your parents and parent's parents. Why? Because we humans walk on two feet. This frees up our hands so we can grab things, such as tools or open doors, or pick something up. So because of this ability, we tend to lead with our arms. So we slouch, have poor posture because we are always reaching for things in front of us, pulling ourselves forward, where even standing upright, we look slouched and now are starting to look un-evolved like an ape again.

What should we be doing? Instead of reaching far for something, walk closer to it and get it. We need to pick something up from the ground, what do we do? We bend over and reach with our backs, instead of using our legs to kneel down, bringing us closer to the object, allowing us to pick it up with greater power.

If we are trying to pull something, what do we do? We pull with our arms instead of gripping it with our arms and using our legs, hips, back, and our whole body weight to pull it. Thing of your hands as hooks, arms as chains, your body as the tow truck.

So back to the dilemma of constantly breaking your own posture to get grips and feeling like you are not improving. What should you be doing? Leading with your hips and legs like I said in a previous post. What else? You should be bending your legs to get lower, or dropping your weight on them and planking to get heavy. Instead of trying to shove them down with just your arm strength and hunching over.

Get your position first, then get your grips. Grips are there to help positioning. Don't get your grips to get your positioning, Don't use positioning to help grips. Imaging trying to pull yourself up a flight of stairs using your arms on the banister, as opposed to walking up the steps and using the banister for balance.

If something is on the ground like I said, what should you be doing? You lower yourself to that object, in this instance your opponent. What happens if you reach and bend over? Well half of your body is still far away from the object, meaning everything from the waist down is still where they are, and the other upper half has lowered itself. So half your weight is where it was, half your weight is now bending down and being pulled by gravity. If you were a building, you would have toppled over by now. A vertical angle is easy to maintain, a broken angle that bends any degree down is hard to maintain. And also, you can only pull or use the strength of half your body, the other half is using all its strength to keep yourself upright. Lower your whole body, maintaining posture, and use the might of your whole body, upper AND lower half. Bring yourself, your whole self closer to the thing you are reaching for, not just part of your body. Otherwise that half is gonna gonna down and the other half is coming with it. It's like splitting up your army into two battle fields, when your enemy is only occupying one.

If you were climbing a tree, which is very similar to BJJ, the best way to waste energy is to grab a branch and do a pull up, then set your feet. It's way more efficient to climb up the tree as high as you can first with your feet, then set your grips on a branch, climb up the tree some more with your legs, then set your hands on the next branch. Walking up the tree instead of doing a series of pull ups, up the tree. Look at monkeys, they use their legs and walk all the way up, using the hands as anchors.

Hands are hooks, arms are chains, your body is the tow truck. So think about that before you break your own posture, don't REACH with your hands, LEAD with your hips and legs, don't worry about setting your grips they have no way to escape your grips.

Get close to your opponent, remember you want to be tight. Meaning walk up to them as close as possible, squat down if you have to. The worst thing you can do is be far away and bending over. You are mechanically weak there, vulnerable, have your worst balance, and also you are now allowing your opponent to get grips on you! When all this time you wanted grips on them.

How do you marry grips and posture? Get grips last, position and posture first. That order will make you better than you are. Do it the opposite order and you will look a lot worse than you are and not in a good position to show how good of a finisher you are.

What will happen if you never fix this inefficiency? You will try to use speed, arm strength, acrobatics, or some combination of all three. Or if you are passing, you may just give up on learning how to pass and dive for crappy footlocks that you are not good at, because even footlocks need good posture.

Hate BJJ

I have met a few people who have quit BJJ shortly after getting their purple belt. I asked them why, they said they didn't like it anymore. They in fact hated it. Waking up sore, tired, always injured, in pain...

I think what they really hate is rolling and all the wear and tear on your body. And they assume all BJJ is, is rolling and hard training sessions with conditioning. If they could enjoy the theoretical side, the practical side, the constant repetition of movements, discovering of moves, the soft art of Jiu Jitsu, they may still be training today.

It's a common perception, people think all BJJ is, is the sparring. If I hate the sparring, I hate BJJ. I am sorry they never got to discover and enjoy the technical, theoretical, the Inner side of BJJ.

Why And How

Those are two philosophical trains of thoughts. Why and how? A lot of Western philosophy is all about why, why do we do this, why are we good or bad, why do bad things happen, why do I think, why do we believe in gods or God, why do we care about quality, etc.

Another more Eastern way of thinking is not focusing on the why, but on the how. Like how can we fix this, how can I move on with my life, etc.

This method of thinking can be applied to your life. It's not important why you got fired, it's important how you can start to make money again and more of it. This is also an efficient way to think about Jiu Jitsu. Actually I think that is what Jiu Jitsu is, not why someone did something, but how do you react to that.

I've seen coaches yelling at their students after a bad match and asking them, "why did you do that?" The student doesn't know why he made that error nor is that even important. If he did something wrong, its more important to figure out how to fix that problem, or how do you enhance their strengths.

If someone grips your collar, it's not important why they did that, it's important to know how to break that grip and how to use that grip against your opponent.

Whys lead to a series of more whys and then you just end up in mental jibberish. When you think about how, you get right to the point and start to become productive. Why also has its place, but it's more about investigation, whereas how is about creativity and productivity.

Start Your Lesson From The Beginning

When you are showing somebody something, or you are learning something in BJJ, you should take the mindset of someone off the street who just walked into class. Does this immediately make sense? Is this applicable to my daily life? What if I don't plan to fight MMA or compete in BJJ? What if I know nothing about grappling?

I think it's always good to teach or learn with that assumption in mind, that they are just someone off the street trying a class. That way there is no confusion, it's starting from the beginning. And if you already know a lot of things, it becomes like a review. It's the mindset of good black belts who take a beginner class or take privates with people. It's just good review

Lead With Your Legs

A common problem people have not just in Jiu Jitsu, but in everything, is they lead with their hands or head or both. Like let's say you are passing, you look down at them and lead with your head, then you grab, then your legs follow. But now you are leaning forward so much, you can be easily swept. If not that, you are giving them enough space to play their guard. Same from bottom, instead of hip escaping and leading with your hips or legs, your are trying to shove them away with your arms or trying to escape your head away. Inefficient.

Try instead to lead with your legs, better yet your whole body, especially your hips. Then follow with your arms and head later.

You ever watch good climbers, on indoor walls and boulders, you will see they always lead with their legs and hip. Once their leg and hip have moved, then they follow with their arms. That is why girls learn to climb so much easier than guys. Guys are so grabby, they want to just grab and do pull ups to the end. Which is inefficient and tiring, as opposed to walking sideways and doing squats all the way up. The reason you have to do this is, the more space you create, the more gravity will pull you down. You lead with hips and legs, you eliminate space and use less strength.

Same with Jiu Jitsu or anything else that uses the body. You have to lead with the body, hips, legs first. A boxer with no footwork will never be in a position to throw any good punches.

Lead with your legs and body, use your arms just to help out. Your head will follow. You lead with your head and arms, your opponent will use that old saying "wherever the head goes the body follows" to counter you. Lead with your body, and they can't use your head to steer you.

Your hips, your legs, your body is so much stronger than your arms or neck. Lead with your best attributes.

Strength Matters

It matters. No question. I may not agree it is the best thing to do, or easiest thing to teach, but it works. I tell people there's two ways to beat someone. You can out technique them or you can over power them. If they are better than you technically, and you are not strong enough to over power them, then you lose. If you are stronger and better, then you win every time.

Roger Gracie is one of those guys who is bigger, stronger, and on top of that better than most BJJ guys. If he can't beat your technique, he will just over power you.

Even Rickson had a daily morning work out that he said was to maximize his balance, flexibility, and strength. So the physical aspect an element of training. We keep saying Rickson is slow and methodical, but every BJJ fight I've ever seen him in, he was sprinting to a finish.

Here is the important thing though that I have heard from a few black belts. You need to work your technique first. Once you got that, you can always work your conditioning later. Roger didn't start his strength and conditioning I read until he was a black belt and training in New York with Martin Rooney the MMA strength coach. I heard a lot of good guys didn't pick up a weight until black belt. Rickson has been a black belt so long, and probably only after his black belt and his game was more defined did he realize the type of conditioning training his body and game needed.

When you are good enough, you will meet guys who are just as good as you. Then you will definitely need strength on your side. You see guys like Caio Terra and Bruno Malfacine. Evenly skilled but Bruno I heard is much stronger. Sometimes that becomes the deciding factor. If you have both, then even better.

The Universal BJJ Rule

It is almost universally agreed that practicing moves, repeating moves, drilling, position training, or whatever you call training on your own time outside of rolling helps you the most in getting better at BJJ. So if this is universally agreed that practice and repeating moves helps you more than anything else, why is it done so little? Why do we roll so much more than practice on our free time? Ask any instructor or student for that matter and they will tell you to drill to get better. So why do so few people practice what they preach, or even encourage what they preach?

Even in every other activity, game or sport, very little is spent actually playing the game but more practicing. In basketball, people are known for all the time they spend shooting the ball on their own, and in their team practices, its a lot of skill drills. Same with football where actual practice games takes up very little of the time overall, especially off season where there is no actual game play. In chess, ping pong, golf, professional paint ball, very little emphasis is placed on actually playing a game. The playing of the game becomes the expression of your practice, your practice becomes the expression of your art.

The idea of just rolling to get better, is the same as trying to get better accidentally.

So in BJJ unlike so many other high level games and sports, is the most time spent on rolling and not on practice? I can't even think of another high level activity that does this. Even boxing, wrestling, and muay thai, the least amount of time is spent on the sparring. Even in Judo. This only happens in BJJ, even though everyone agrees its the least efficient way to get better.

But people also love that with BJJ you can spar and spar and go very hard, and theoretically not get hurt. Yeah that's fun. Getting good is fun too.

To become a great painter, you practice your stroke over and over. You don't just go start painting portraits and hope to accidentally get better at it as you go.

Getting Greedy

Something I notice people do, they will slowly work their way, pressure, smash, technique, and inch and inch until they are in a good position. 90% to their goal, which may be to pass, sweep, or finish. With the end so close, they will just jump to the finish line, losing everything they worked for.

Like for example, passing. You've smashed their legs, pinned their hips, you are almost chest to chest, it's taken you quite a while, but you are almost there. With the pass nearly complete you get greedy and want to skip the last steps and just jump to the end, and winding up in their half guard. Staying patient for so long until you see the reward, then you just get greedy and want to take it, and ruin all the work you put it.

When you are so close, it's only a little bit further, just stay patient even when the goal is in sight, and finish it the same way you started: incrementally. Not diving for the finish line.

Fulcrum, Load, And Effort In BJJ

So we've covered this before. I thought I would detail it out a bit more.

So here is a lever. Based on where the load is, this will affect the direction of the effort. Now this picture in real life can be flipped upside down, sideways, and roll in every direction. You have to imagine this as a 3-dimensional diagram. People get confused when applying certain holds, on where they are supposed to exert effort and where the pressure is supposed to be applied. A good example of someone who has this mastered is Marcello Garcia who will apply armlocks from all angles, even when you feel safe. He sees (or more like, he feels) where the fulcrum and load is at all times to create the effort.

Most of us are still watching this, trying to figure out where the fulcrum, load, and which way we are supposed to exert effort (extend). People started calling this the phantom armbar. But it's not, it works under the same principles as every other lever/armbar. May take a while but look for the fulcum, load, and which way he is exerting effort.

Here is a video I created to help explain ( I even include the simple version of the lock Marcello used. He of course modified it on the fly):

Improvising Not The Same As Breaking The Rules

There is the saying, first learn the rules, then you can break them. I was having a conversation about how the true  judge of how strong your Jiu Jitsu ability is, is to learn the concepts and improvise. He said, "I've been telling you that, learn the rules first, then you can break them."

I don't think improvising is the same thing as breaking the rules. Improvising is learning all the rules and concepts, then improvising your application of them, or how you express them. You would never break the rules. Breaking the rules is more like, you learn the rules, know how it works, know its strengths and weaknesses, so that you can break the rules without getting exploited by it, because you know the rules so well.

An example of learning the rules to break them is, giving up your back to defend the pass. You know how the pass works, and you know giving up your back leads to a possible choke, so you do it with that in mind, and you learn to get good at giving up your back without getting caught and recovering.

Improvising would be, you know giving up your back can lead to a finish, and the rule of course is never give up your back, so when you are almost passed, instead of giving up your back, you still protect your back, and  improvise some way (whether you flip upside down or roll inverted or backwards somersault) to not give up your back and keep that between your legs.

Improvising is the truest form of not breaking the rules, and figuring out all the other ways you can apply the rule without breaking them. Breaking a rule takes no creativity, improvising, and learning to use the rules and concepts in all situations, that's a true sign of BJJ intelligence.

Einstein used to say that anyone can memorize things and regurgitate it, the truest form of intelligence is creativity. Sometimes the more technical knowledge you have, the less creative you become, getting too close to the problem. The more you memorize, the dumber you become in a way.

Connectedness and Attachment (Video Included)

Okay so I have made up terms for the sake of explaining some concepts. Such as centeredness and connectedness. But I feel these concepts are useful enough to be named.

I spoke about things that gets attached to you, especially to your center, stays attached. Once you make this connection, you want to keep this connection. I've also spoken about angles and dead weight. Using angles to make things more efficient and using angles to create better leverage. Also the idea of dead weight, to drop your center of gravity, but also to conserve your own energy. These are the concepts, I thought I would FINALLY make a video to show the application. By no means is this an instructional, nor is it created like one, nor am I even talking. I'm even being sloppy about a lot of things on purpose so we can focus purely on the concepts I have above mentioned.

Notice me falling like dead weight, falling at a 45° angle, maintaining the same distance and not allowing my opponent to create any more separation by chasing him up. Separation is the enemy of being connected. Also not yanking with my arm but staying close and using the strength of my back and my weight and leverage to fight the strength of his back to maintain posture under duress. Me being close has eliminated the use of his arms to posture whereas when their was distance, when I yanked just with my one arm, I had to fight his back and both of his arms.

Doing all of this has allowed me to be strong, even with only one arm. Imagine if I was using both.

Guillotines, Ankle Locks, Overhooks, Oh My!

The way I squeeze all the moves that are based around my armpit are exactly the same. The way I do all my extension moves whether it's a knee bar or an armlock are the same. My wrist locks and heel hooks are the same. Triangles and rear chokes are the same. They are all universal. They all have one thing in common as well, 3 dimensional control.

The easiest way to show this is with any grip that you hold under your arm. Guillotines and anklelocks are good examples. You make sure you have it tight side to side, between my arms and my ribs. From there I hold it tight under their chin with my forearm, with upward pressure, and downward pressure pushing down on their head from my shoulder. Then I seal in all the gaps. Same with the ankle, secured against my rib and the side of my arm, holding it below the heel and pressing up with my forearm, and down on their toes with my shoulder. Then sealing in all the gaps and even trying to squeeze their toes together if I can like a vice.

I do the same thing when I hold onto an overhook, to keep them from escaping. Squeeze up, down, side to side and seal in the gaps.

Same is true for the triangle. I squeeze in tight from side to side with my thighs, down with my shin, up with my hips, and sealing in all the gaps by turning the corner.

From there they are stuck and you have a firm grip. Then how you finish it will vary slightly on how you are using this grip and for what purpose.