Multitasking

Your brain has to process a lot of information when you are sparring live or fighting for real. You know what to do, but does your brain know in which order of importance?

1. Take no damage.
2. Conserve energy.
3. Win the fight.

Too often it is:

1. Win the fight.
2. Win the fight.
3. Win the fight.

BJJ Exchange

Imagine a BJJ class setting where maybe the teacher presents a certain situation and asks the students to try to figure out their own solution to the problem presented. Using purely their own creativity and individual problem solving skills. Or they can even brainstorm in groups, test their ideas, etc. Then come back to the middle and each person or group shares their results, their problems, situations they are getting stuck with.

This will encourage better problem solving skills for the student. The teacher also shows what he's come up with to solve this problem. It is not the right way, it is just one solution he has come up with. He has delegated several other minds though (the minds of his students) to come up with a better solution. 30 heads is more efficient than 1 head. Every good leader should be a good delegator, and the best delegator is not always the brightest mind. He delegates to the bright minds.

In this manner, the teacher becomes a teacher/student and the students become student/teachers.

It's just a class scenario I would love to see someday...

You Vs Your Opponent

Your goal, based on if you are attacking or defending changes. If you are attacking, your goal isn't to simply pass the guard, get chest to chest, sit on their chest, then submit.

It's even more basic than that. It is to get a tighter and tighter squeeze around their body. If they are on their back and you are standing up, you will start out with just their pant legs. So you are pretty far from each other, and barely have a connection, you are not squeezing them tight yet but you are starting to pull them in.
As you drop your weight, your elbows bend, you get close to their body, you are pulling them a little closer, squeezing a little tighter. You are not in half guard, you have their partial waist. You are pulling tight, squeezing their waist. You manage to pass their guard, now they are even close to you, you are squeezing more and more, you have chest to chest. It's hard to pull them in any closer to you, into your squeeze unless you get parallel to them.

So you do, you get mount. You are low, squeezing and coiling and wrapping like a snake. Squeezing their head with your arms, squeezing their hips with your knees. Then you finally isolate their arm or neck and squeeze that as tight to your own chest as possible. Either breaking their arm or choking them out.

So its like a big lasso. You started out with your arms opened wide and pretty straight. Then your arms closed in a little more. Then a little more, each step of the way. Arms closer and closer to your chest, with them in the middle of this lasso of course. Moving from the hip, to the chest, to the neck or arm (sometimes both). You don't have to necessarily squeeze with your arm strength, it just means getting tight. You can use your weight, gravity, your hips, legs, etc. But without a good squeeze, you got no pressure, you are too far from them.

What does your opponent want to do during this whole squeezing, tight, pressure, mess? He wants to do one thing and one thing only. Separate.

The Eyes

Think of your hips as eyes, wherever your hips look, is where your center looks. Which is eventually the direction they want to go into. So whether I am upside down, sideways, or straight on, if my hips point at you, you are still within my guard.

The same is true with the head. Where the head looks, your center also looks. I have a special leash for my dog. It's called a "Gentle Leader." It's a more humane way to control your dog. It works by wrapping a harness not around your dogs neck where he will choke and pull against it but it wraps it around their snout. How it works is, it will turn the dog's head the direction you want the dog to look. Like horse reigns, that is how you will steer the dog.

So now back to BJJ, when you are holding someone down. When you look up (and this happens often) to look around, look who's watching you, or look at the clock, you are not only lifting your head up but you are also slightly lifting your weight off of your opponent.

When you take your opponents back, and you start peering around looking for your opponents neck or trying to see how he has his hands configured, you start to disconnect, you start to shift your weight and give your opponent an opportunity to escape.

This is why sensitivity and blind training (drilling moves with eyes closed) is so important. So you can feel the move, without having to shift your weight by moving your head around like my dog does.

In wrestling, you look into your opponent to finish certain takedowns. Your opponent crossfaces you (turns your head the other way) to stuff the takedown. Why would you then in key situations move your head around and shift your weight or redirect your momentum?

Skilled and Highly Skilled.

A skilled person does the same moves as a beginner, only at a very skilled level. A highly skilled person only does the highest percentage moves at a very skilled level.

From Experience

It seems after a while it's not a matter of knowing more moves but using better strategy. And using the moves you already know better.

Why Do I Train?

Few of us will fight professionally or on the street or even have time to compete. So why do we train things that are all about that?

Tim Cartmell in a recent interview stated very intelligently that, the goal of martial arts is self cultivation.

Exactly. It's why to some, then why the sparring, the competing, the hard conditioning doesn't interest them. The technical aspect interests them, in knowing the techniques and concepts better, they understand themselves better. Their goal is purely self cultivation. A martial artist vis-à-vis a fighter.

Sniper Analogy Continued

One of my friends is an avid marksman who was taught by family members who were in the military. He told me when you train to shoot, you first do everything very slowly. Aiming, waiting, breathing, then squeezing the trigger.

He told me you start out like that, then eventually you want to shoot quick tight groups of shots in the middle of your target.

Even like a snake, it moves slow then attacks sudden and bites more than once.

BJJ gets very fast, you start out training and practicing moves slowly then you need to become like a sniper or a  cobra.

One Attempt One Kill

Rickson said a submission should have one attempt and one end. How should one train to have a one to one ratio, attempts to finishes?

Probably very differently from the way you train now.

It reminds me of how a sniper trains. Sniper academy not only teaches marksmanship but also reconnaissance, camouflage, and weapons.

It's broke down into three phases:

Land navigation and marksmanship.
Stalking techniques and field skills.
Communication and surveillance.

To quote Gunner Sgt. Richard Tisdale who leads some of the training said, "When many people think of a sniper, they think of a person who randomly shoots people. A sniper selects his target and fires upon it. Marksmanship makes up only 10 percent of being a sniper.

 He also said, "we train our snipers to be patient and wait for the perfect opportunity to fire upon the target when it will best support the mission. They could lay in a dormant position for days at a time before actually pulling the trigger and engaging on the target."

So being a sniper isn't just about shooting. It's a lot of other things outside of it. If we trained BJJ in this way, where we learned how to get to strong positions, some basic submission practice, patience, reading our opponents weakness, and learning how to listen and communicate to our coaches, we could become BJJ snipers.

Before all that, that inner fortitude of patience and that ability to not get distracted and hone in on one task. That inner game they have is the biggest key to becoming a sniper, not just being a good shot. Otherwise you would just be a trick shot at a rodeo.

MMA, BJJ, And Reality Fighting

Some people want to learn MMA because they want to fight in a cage. So they learn MMA. A lot of people have no ambition of fighting in a cage, but still want to learn MMA. But it seems kind of misdirected to teach people about all the rules of cage fighting if they are never going to fight in a cage.

When most people say they want to train or learn MMA, what they really mean is they want to learn reality fighting. MMA almost looks like pro-wrestling. Except it's real. It uses only the most realistic moves for a fight situation. So maybe certain moves from Kung Fu or Aikido do not seem realistic. But something like a double leg and a jab makes sense. But that doesn't mean MMA is reality fighting. In MMA you have 5 minutes, you are inside of a cage, no body else is in there except you two and the referee, and there's a set of rules. Compared to every other fight sport, it is the most real, but nothing about time rounds is realistic. Does that mean those weird traditional martial arts where they have 200 moves to hit the groin is more reality based? No probably not. The groin is pretty hard to hit because everyone is always expecting it. And plus how good can you ever be at gouging out eyeballs when you've never had a chance to do it?

MMA in its root form is an amalgam of martial arts moves that are the most effective based on the laws of physics. So people want to learn these moves to defend themselves because they've seen it work.

So when most people want to learn MMA, they want to learn those realistic moves of MMA but not be tied down by all the constraints, and they want to know how to use these moves in a self defense scenario if the other person is unarmed. Or how to use MMA moves against a untrained attacker. This is where pure BJJ comes in.With a 5 minute round, it is very hard to do BJJ against an opponent. In a real situation with no time constraints, this is where BJJ is at its most effective. BJJ doesn't care if it's slow or boring or stalled out, as long as in the end you don't get hurt and you finish your opponent.

Now imagine BJJ in an MMA match. You have 5 minutes. Go. Okay 5 minutes to feel my opponent out. I've felt him out now I have 3:30 left to clinch my opponent. Now I got the clinch and have 2 minutes to take my opponent down but he keeps breaking the clinch. After several attempts at taking my opponent down and them standing back up, I have finally taken my opponent down and held him down. I have 1 minute to pass my opponents guard. I mounted my opponent, 10 seconds to finish! Buzzer rings and I am still working ground and pound and a choke.

Round 2. I am exhausted, my opponent is sweaty as hell and now it's even harder to clinch, takedown, pass, and finish...

This is an example. Sometimes maybe you get knocked out in attempting all this. Sometimes you may KO your opponent. Sometimes it hits the ground fast and you finish. But the way I have outlined is the typical gameplan of a BJJ fighter, but under realistic passage of time. The first round is always most tiring for a BJJ guy because all their energy is used to take it to the ground and implement their plan. Your opponents plan is simply to stifle your plan which is much less tiring. The BJJ fighter can use all this energy because in their art, they rest on the ground, while their weight crushes their opponent, and their opponent gets tired. Then they submit a tired opponent.

But in MMA after you used all your energy to take your opponent down, you have the energy loss of taking down and opponent but the 2nd round starts with them standing up again. So you have the energy loss without any of its reward. And because you never got to hold him down for very long, your opponent never got crushed or felt your weight on him. So he is fresh. Imagine a 15 minute first round. Let's say there is a takedown after 5 minutes. Then it stays on the ground. Imagine how tired the guy on the bottom will be after 5 minutes on the ground with someones weight on them? Wonder how many finishes there will be? Pride had a 10 minute 1st round and had spectacular 1st round finishes on the ground. It's this use of time that makes MMA sometimes very boring. People stall out the clock. It's also what makes it exciting. People try to do as much as they can in 5 minutes. It's what also makes for great knock outs. Even if I am an inferior wrestler or inferior on the ground, I only need to stuff takedowns for 5 minutes. In that 5 minutes I may knock out my opponent. Sometimes that happens. Then in their next fight if they get taken down easily, and you are shocked at their takedown defense, how much did you really know about their takedown defense in 5 minutes? Its easier to stop takedowns for 5 minutes than to stop their takedowns for a full wrestling practice.

Now even if you want to learn MMA to fight someday, forget about age or athleticism, but the level you will reach in your MMA career in the modern times will be very limited and will plateau very early unless you have a wrestling background. Here is why. Yes wrestling dictates where the fight goes. It also does something more important. It dictates the energy use of the fight.

The better wrestler can determine how physical the match is. They will dictate how much energy you exhaust, it's why a wrestler, even though they may be an inferior striker, may knock out a better striker. Sometimes its luck, other times they wore out their opponent so bad.

All strikers have an initial advantage because the fight always starts standing. BJJ is good at finishing the fight with the least amount of damage. Wrestling though is good at controlling the intensity and energy use of both fighters. So they dominate MMA. GSP learned wrestling later, but even he dominates with wrestling and passes the guards of exhausted BJJ players who may be superior to him on the ground...

But in reality fighting, you don't have to worry about the time so much. In reality most of the times it will go to the ground. You don't have to be a wrestler, you don't even have to shoot, you can drag people to the ground. Or people trip or fall over by overswinging punches. Once it hits the ground, you don't have to worry about stand ups (though you may have to worry about their friends). You now can conserve your energy, and look for the finish.

Someone thirty will have a very hard time learning how to wrestle people at a high level. Which limits their MMA career. But they can learn to jab, clinch, drag their opponent down, and finish them. So you don't necessarily need to be a good wrestler to defend yourself in real life.

Ignorance Begets Confidence.

"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, and not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science." - Charles Darwn

I think what most people don't appreciate about BJJ but the main reason people love it so much is that, it is in the end based in science. Presently anyhow. Other martial arts may have to rely on vague notions, mysticism, chi, or some quasi-religious explanation. BJJ is rooted in physics.

When you start it seems so simple. You don't understand why you are not getting it. Then as you get better, you realize how complex it really is. The ones who know the least have the most opinions about it. It's probably why black belts hardly ever write blogs and so many lower belts do. I started mine as a white belt...

Guillotine And Ankle Locks Tip

When I do either of these techniques, I try to use the full power of my hips. It is why when I am squeezing, I drop my elbow towards my hip...

Speed

Jiu Jitsu isn't so hard. It's not. Sure there's a lot of moves but there's only 4 limbs to attack, one neck to choke, and you can sweep by removing one or more posts. It's mostly made up of a few gross motor movements such as the hip escape.

It's just when you go live, things happen very quickly. You don't have time to go through your database of moves and know which one to do right when you need to do it, and when you do, your timing is off. It's not that you don't know how to properly execute a move, so a lot of times going over that move isn't necessary. It's that when you roll live, things are happening so quickly, you don't have enough time to do every move properly or sometimes you don't have time to do a move at all. Very few competitors do every move perfectly, it's too fast sometimes to even do the simplest move correctly. That's why I don't know if it's like kinetic chess, because in chess you get turns. In BJJ you don't always get turns, your opponent may take all your turns. And speed isn't as important in chess as strategy. The best competitors can do maybe a few moves properly at a very high speed and under duress.

You do the best you can in the time allotted. Doing moves properly is important, doing moves against resisting opponents is important, and practicing moves quickly and making it as minimal and efficient as possible is also very important. Start things slow and speed up as you get better at them.

Shortening The Lever

For someone smaller and weaker to generate more technical power, they can try to shorten the lever. You can sit back deep on your heels when someone tries to break your posture, or when applying a kimura from on top, pull your arms tight to your center, that connectedness and centeredness I spoke about. And try sitting on your heels. Then your lever is that much shorter and easier to generate force.

When let's when someone is in your guard and trying to pick you up, you can extend that lever by sliding your shoulders backwards and climbing your legs high onto their back. Now your weight is no longer underneath them where they can pick you up, but extended far beyond their head. Now you seem a whole lot heavier. It's like holding a weight close to your chest or holding that weight far away from you with extended arms.

Instead of physical power, this is the power of physics.

The Student

Improving in BJJ like anything else is beyond just a question of your instructor or training facility. It is also a question of the dedication of the student and what the student is made of.

This is a treatise on what that student is:

In the poorest sections of Brazil, kids play soccer and become some of the best players in the world. 

On little Spanish speaking islands, little boys with makeshift baseball fields, no technology, no dedicated coaches, no athletic performance institute, no one to record their baseball swing and make minor improvements, have a disproportionate amount of players in the major leagues. 

Russian kids train in small tennis courts, not elite clubs like in the US. They can barely afford lessons, their training regiment is unusual and seem disorganized. Yet they play and play with conviction, without break, without boredom, and repeat the same swing over and over.

Inner city kids in the US who don't have the same privilege, private coaching, or paid trainers who work strictly on their vertical jump, somehow even with underpaid coaches who were terrible basketball players or sometimes never even played basketball somehow keep winning titles. There's even a story about Vince Lombardi who is a god amongst football coaches, who has never played one game of basketball, somehow took a high school team to the city title...

You look at boxing, mostly a sport of the poor. Most of the coaches early on are in all honesty, terrible coaches. Hardly pay attention, train several fighters at a time, they themselves were never a good boxer, and got hit so much they hardly make any sense when they speak. They can barely demonstrate a technique properly themselves. Yet somehow champions come out of these janky gyms.

What these coaches can't account for, all the things their gyms lack, all the special attention they don't get or high tech equipment they don't have, it still doesn't account for this: 

All these places have a huge number of very very hungry kids. Sometimes more so than their privileged counterparts. Hungry kids who really love something and somehow make it work with whatever they've got.

Countless BJJ heroes started out in no names schools no one ever heard of. They didn't care, or know that that should matter.

If a school had a "bad" teacher but everyone there loved the sport and loved training and trained twice a day, they will produce stars and beat the high priced school with the nicest and most technical instructor with rich kids who train three times a week. A lot of good guys hardly train with their instructors. How often do you really get to roll with your instructor? A lot of the good players came up training with each other and also training during off hours when no instructors were around, watched tapes together, brain stormed, helped each other, fueled each other's fire, and motivated one another.

So who takes the credit there?

Sometimes people get good in spite of the teaching. Look at guys like Greg Jackson. But when he started out, who was he? Some guy who was not a good wrestler, never fought MMA, not a good kickboxer, didn't have a rank in BJJ. Yet he formed a team with great guys, brought the right guys in, treated them well, and now he is the Greg Jackson we know. Everyone of his fighters say he is a great motivator or thinker, but no one talks about him teaching them any actual technique...

Then you got guys like Ted Williams, Walt Bayless, and Gokor Chivichyan. All non-BJJ guys who have no strong BJJ affiliation system, not a ton of good black belts coming through the door, who had early successes at BJJ tournaments and then transferred that to MMA.

I have a friend who helps teach at a school with a lot of poor kids. Tells me the instruction is bad, the teachers are no names. That it's just a bad school. That it's just very inexpensive and large so a lot of people can go (Wow martial arts designed for the mass as far as price and space, what a terrible school). And he knows better because he's trained at a very expensive small school with a famous teacher. Yet maybe he has the wrong definition of bad. Or he is using the wrong criteria. Because the kids there don't know its bad only my friend does, and yet they keep winning these little kids tournaments whereas that small school...well doesn't. It sort of reminds me of the joke about the blind guy who is dating a model but is somehow convinced she is ugly. Yeah this school has already a good amateur MMA team, tough guys, wins things, but he tells me, "Sam you don't understand. They got this guy teaching that, that guy teaching that, and you know they suck."

Well seems like all these kids didn't know they were supposed to fail. And I hope they never figure that out. Kind of the the story of any kid coming out of the inner city. 

The Center

I've talked about the center a whole lot. I keep thinking of new ways that this becomes relevant. I think about how important it is to control your center in a BJJ match. Like when you are playing guard, where their hands are? Is it in the middle or is it on the outside? Like in your closed guard, are their hands on your center line or is it on your biceps/armpit? Controlling all the action that happens in the middle is key to victory. It's harder for your opponent to stand up or break your guard with their hands outside of the middle, so you have to be ready once they place their hands on the centerline to move their arm to one side or the other of that centerline or midline.

A good example of this concept is when someone is trying to knee through pass your guard. Imagine you split your center up. Your waist is one line. There is also another line from your nose to your crotch. As they attempt to pass, you have to see where their weight is relation to those two lines. If they are just starting to pass, their weight is still behind your waistline, so you can push off their knee and hip escape backwards to recover guard. If they are too far pass your waistline and their weight is too far forward, you can push them even more forward with your knee as you get to all fours. If their weight is too far too one side, you can look to sweep. If it's too far to the other side, you can swing into deep half guard and sweep right away.

The Game Of Inches

We always hear BJJ is a game of inches. Especially true for black belts. What happens when it's at the highest levels? It has to be a game of millimeters. Nuances and feeling, sensitivity over gross motor movement improvements. How you shift your weight because you are already good at smashing your opponents hips...

Wonder how it feels when you can notice even those small subtle differences...

Torn Up Toes

A good sign that you're getting better at jiu jitsu is when you notice the bottom of your toes are getting torn up and calloused. It means you are staying on the balls of your feet more and they are getting mat burn. That's some good pressure.