Current Training Projects

Over the long haul, I've found it necessary to spend longer periods of time largely focused on one area of my game. Having played Judo before I tried Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, and because I had plans of fighting MMA, my first JiuJitsu coaches forced me to start on my back. I spent the better part of a year or 2 working for submissions off my back in the Gi, and when in training MMA to fight in the cage, getting off my back and back to my feet. One of the first names I watched and found online to take from for this skill was BJ Penn. As I got better at submitting, but also the overall level of guys improved, and against heavier opponents, it was time to start sweeping. I spent most of my blue belt (close to 2 years - part of which was spent returning from full knee/ACL reconstruction) sweeping: deep half guard, reverse de la riva, combinations of spider and reverse de la riva et cetera. I got to purple belt and spent the first year or more working on my guard passing in an effort to catch it up to my bottom game. I moved to NYC, joined Renzo's and due to my work schedule and training, I had no real direction. I trained in the Gi, but had no overlying direction to where I was going. I finally sorted out work, and life, and the balance necessary to train when I wanted to and.......
About a year ago I transitioned to focusing on NoGi full-time. I spent the better part of that first year attacking the legs from the bottom, and elevating, hand fighting, making angles, but again - with the sole purpose of attacking the legs. Due in large part to the positional rounds we do every training session in the blue basement, I never left other skills very far behind (back attacks, armbar defense, attacking the turtle, referee's position, wrestling - we've spend extended periods of time both learning and doing positional rounds for all of the above and more). When I competed NoGi for the past year I almost exclusively attacked the legs.

Rewind to two months ago: now I'm focusing on passing the guard/legs again. My NoGi passing game is bare bones to say the least, but it's time, as passing results in back exposure and opportunities to threaten the legs. The real question looming: do you invest ALL your time and energy into a very narrow range of the game, for example: bottom position, open guard, attacking the legs and sundry other submission and getting to the back, or for example: your wrestling, fighting for top position and passing and getting to the back et cetera.

Danaher always stresses the importance of both having competency in all areas of grappling (both Gi and NoGi) but at the same time that real progress is made by truly delving into a position and/or submission on an exceedingly deep level.

I've been doing grappling as a whole for coming up on 15 years (between Judo and the overlap into JiuJitsu), and yes, there's a million techniques, but then again, in the big picture, there's essentially a -10 set of skills within which to work.

In NoGi (for the sake of simplicity):
Bottom position -- sweep, submit (upper body or lower body), get to the back, back to your feet
top position -- pass, submit (upper body or lower body), back take, attack the legs,
There's some overlap in the above, of course, but you get the idea.
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When you compete sub only & with all leg locks, the nuances between the positions and transitions change pretty significantly - as evidenced by the fact that experienced leg lockers have not won black belt level nogi world titles and black belt world champions have not fared well in EBI. Counter point? What about ADCC? ADCC is submission wrestling, and those 40 minute finals matches, or the fact that Orlando Sanchez won it without actually scoring any points, leaves it as a strange sort of outlier grappling entity that's not really a mix of sub only and IBJJF as some would like to partition it. There's a lot of overlap between the two, but ADCC, to me, really is an option C in terms of skills.
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At any rate, in my match last weekend, I defended a back take, came up to top position into a guard pass, forced enough pressure from the pass to create back exposure, locked up the kimura grip, and transitioned to a back triangle, forcing the tap via armbar a good bit later.
Sub Systems/Skills at work over the course of the last 2 minutes of the match:
Back Defense + guard passing leading to back exposure + kimura grip + back triangle + control and several submission attempts ultimately resulting in a back-triangle- armbar.

When you begin to see grappling as a macrosystem of microsystems connected together, and the real skill becomes forcing errors, capitalizing on the mistakes, or progressing in a repeatable fashion to the same junctions whereby you then overwhelm the defenses leading to a submission, the attributes of speed, or athleticism, or courage blah blah blah, while necessary, seem to fade into the background, and it becomes more about sensible structure of training, details, and problem solving under duress. 

The Power of "Why?" - Reason from Essential Truths

Disclaimer: posted from iPhone- 

https://blog.percolate.com/2014/05/first-principles-elon-musk-problem-solving/

I've mentioned previously my minor obsession with Elon Musk.

   

Reasoning in reverse or backwards in some regard is not a new idea per se. 

As it applies to JiuJitsu, I'll liken it to Sakuraba or Masakazu Imanari: pass the guard? Why? I can attack the legs. There's an interview by Scramble ( I think) where they ask Imanari why he loves leg locks and the like and he laughs and sheepishly says he wasn't very good at guard passing. It's a "duh" moment but it's sort of brilliant in its own "duh" or obvious way. In the long run he's become so dangerous at attacking the legs that it completely takes guys out of their game when facing him even, often in MMA. He does something which feels counter-intuitive to a trained Jiu-Jitsu practitioner. He doesn't do what's expected in that sense. 

But furthermore, it breaks down more deeply into fundamental and what's called "atomic componenets": Pass the guard? Why? More importantly, why pass guard when I can attack the legs? If the purpose of JiuJitsu is to submit the opponent, and I can do so without multi-part/protracted guard passing battle, especially in the realm of MMA or submission grappling (ADCC or EBI rule sets) then why pass the guard indeed?

I find this reasoning of interest as I'm a devoted guard passer and open guard player. I'm as interested if not moreso in the "why?" behind a high level competitor as opposed to the "how" he/she might do something. Example: I'd be far more interested in hearing at length why the Miyaos prefer getting to the back as opposed to a back take instructional series with x or y number of moves or techniques. Is it they feel the most dominant finishing position? If so, why? Is it the safest control position regardless of opponent size? 

Sweep the foot, you must 

Why not just go directly to the back? I spent most of last year training with Sean Spangler, a black belt under Drysdale. He has a front headlock series whereby if/when he gets to your back or if you turtle or move to escape the Darce, he controls the head/arm with this lasso type Gable grip he does (he has a ton more set-ups, I'm generalizing here). Rather than traditional JiuJitsu whereby you control the hips and/or pass to mount or get hooks and back control; once he gets ahold of your head your options become exceedingly limited. I've seen him control, frustrate, or finish a ton of guys this way in training and in competion, gi and nogi. In rolling with him it feels super counter-intuitive and like he's violating the order of operations in JiuJitsu, akin to a team that plays the full court press in basketball and wears down their opposition by not playing to the gentlemen's agreement of high offense/minimal defense. 

It's kind of like, why pull guard? Why not fight for a takedown? Why pull guard rather than seek a takedown? In sport Jiu-Jitsu, off your back you have more options to sweep or submit rather than on top where much of your options begin after passing the guard (minus dropping back on an ankle lock, toe hold, jumping to a guillotine perhaps). To be on top and sit back on the ankle lock or toe hold also means conceding two points if/when the formerly bottom player escapes the submission attempt. The rabbit hole runs deep when you begin asking "Why?" and considering your goals in winning, how to win, and the nature of the rule set governing the contest. 

At its core though, it's the same kind of reverse problem solving: why control the back or seek the position of the back and spend time/energy fighting to take the back if I can simply control the head and therefore the body and have a series of submission options more directly? Again, if the purpose is to submit, why then seek a further step away or a position a further step away to then begin my submission attempts? 

I'd liken it to using the submission attempt as a position of sorts: like jumping to the armbar at the start of a match rather than 1) takedown 2) pass guard 3) achieve mount 4) spin off to mounted armbar. 

All of the above stems from "why?" Why seek to submit? Why seek to control position? Why seek to submit potentially at the expense of position? What is the purpose of JiuJitsu? To what purpose do we seek to control position rather than seek to submit? What is the purpose of position or submission? How are they different? How does one serve the other? How can seeking one at the expense of another change the content of the interaction between the two grapplers? Where do we spend our pennies in the piggy bank that is limited training time each day?