Chuva Brazilian Jiu Jitsu

"One must try, everyday, to expand one's limits." ~ Mas Oyama

If you aren't in class, do you think about grappling? If the answer is no, then you are missing a way to improve your jiu jitsu outside of the gym. There are two kinds of really beneficial study for making yourself more successful on the mat. The first one is analyzing your class performance which requires no research or outside sources, just simply think about what was and was not successful from class that day. If it helps keep a log and refer back to it. The second is watching matches. It doesn't matter if it's judo, wrestling, MMA, sumo, or jiu jitsu, whatever grappling you watch can be beneficial. Technical instructionals are interesting, but watching matches shows what works at an elite level. Those ideas can then inform your ex*****on. You don't have to be like me and spend significant amounts of free time watching old ADCC and IBJJF tournaments, but if you feel like you are stagnating, start thinking about grappling differently utilizing examples of more skilled practitioners.

Ex*****on is hard, Jiu Jitsu is simple. There’s a limited number of things that you need to do to win in grappling. Combat sports are very simple games. In the most general sense I need to inflict more damage on you than you do on me. Damage in Jiu Jitsu comes from dominant positions and submissions. There’s only so many ways to submit someone and so many ways to hold them down. If you make things harder unnecessarily, you lose the fun part of doing this.

Your body type can make things both easier and more difficult in grappling. It’s easier for a longer person to get to a triangle position, but if a shorter person gets to a triangle, it’s tight from the start. This applies across many things and is why I suggest watching people that have similar attributes to yourself. Once you start to use the body you have instead of trying to make things work that you’re not uniquely suited to, a lot of this becomes easier.

if you’re not offensive or aggressive you have to be stingy. Without the advantage of being in someone’s face attacking, at the very least they can’t attack you. If you aren’t putting out any offense, neither should they, and if you can’t stop them, then you need to change something. You can only be stingy to a certain point though. Not doing anything and preventing them from doing anything doesn’t win matches. If you want to be a counter fighter, you actually have to counter not just roll from turtle to your back waiting for the bell to sound. At the very least make it one sided in your favor.

Momentum takes you somewhere. When anything stops the hardest part is getting it going again. If I can offer you any advice, it would be to train at least once a week no matter what. Find a way to get to class, because the more you convince yourself not to go, the harder it gets to start again. it is the same with anything, the more you stack wins or activate the behaviors you seek the more you do those things. Whatever your goal is, use momentum in your favor.

You never just hold someone down. There are constant major and minor adjustments you have to make to control an animate object. When someone is really good at grappling it can look like they’re unmovable, but they are just more efficient. I move less and in smaller ways because I address things before they become a problem. This ties into a proactive versus reactive mindset. I’ve done small things to limit you in predictable ways which leads to better outcomes and less movement for both of us. This is unilaterally beneficial for me. You can apply the same process. I am trying to hold someone in place, they’re the only ones that have to stay there.

I play a relatively similar game most of the time, but it’s not predictable. Even if I play the same positions, the attacks are different, the setups are different, you can’t say with certainty what I will do next at any given time. If a plan fails apart, that doesn’t destroy what I’m doing and if someone figures out a piece of what I’m doing I can move on. Everyone has an A game and the goal is to never leave that place, but eventually someone will make you and it’s better to have the B and C games already in place then to have to scramble as it happens. Force yourself to change your approach.