Jiu Jitsu as Meditation

Something I started to realize a long time ago is the fact that Jiu Jitsu is my meditation. When people think of mediation they tend to think of sitting in a dimly lit room, legs crossed, being silent. But all it really is to me is giving your mind a chance to take a break. Focus on nothing. It’s actually really hard to try to think about nothing. It takes years of practice to do it for more than a few seconds I’ve heard. Now I don’t go in for all that stuff in general, but I cannot deny the fact that grappling gives my mind a much-needed break.

When you are rolling with someone, and they are trying to choke you unconscious, or break your arm or what have you, it’s very difficult to think about anything else. If I let my mind wander for even a moment, if I lose focus, I am going to lose. Your mind will not let focus on something else. It is a primal instinct to survive, even if deep down you know it’s just practice. I cannot think about my bills or homework, or any other stressful thing. The only thought allowed is the present moment. Which when you think about it really is sort of meditative in nature. I actually find it incredibly healthy for my mind to have a couple of hours of giving the mind a rest. All day long, my mind is non stop thinking about this or that random thing, focusing on tasks at work or what I have to get done. Getting to the gym is a relief, as soon as I step on the mat my mind is only allowed to think about one thing, the only thing that matters.

Then I realized that probably exists in all things that require complete focus. If I am into rock climbing, and I’m on a rock face, I can’t think of anything other than that moment or I’ll fall. A skateboarder focuses on the board or he misses the trick. The examples are endless and I’m sure you can think of plenty of your own, no need to keep going. The point though is that I think the stereotype of the peaceful monk as the meditation master might not always be the case. Sometimes the big wave surfer is the meditation master in reality.

All in all I think it’s very important to have an activity that you do regularly that lets you “check out” mentally. It’s helpful for relaxing and getting rid of stress. When I come home from the gym the stress has dissipated and the feeling of relaxation comes easy. But it doesn’t have to be physical! It could be writing, playing chess, artwork, etc. Something that requires you to be actively engaged just enough so that you can’t entertain other thoughts. Sometimes the best thing you can do is turn off your brain for a little bit and enjoy the moment.

Attitude is everything

Over the years I have seen all kinds of people walk into the gym; some stay, but most don’t. Some guys have amazing natural athletic talent, but poor attitudes. Or vice versa. I can say for absolute certain that a good attitude is all that is essential for learning jiu jitsu. I honestly have lost count of all the talented and amazing people who have come in only to get frustrated and leave, never to be seen again. I can tell pretty quickly who will last and who wont, and it has nothing to do with physical attributes.

Lets be honest, we all know that no matter what shape you are in, or how gifted you are athletically, week 1, hell month 1, you are going to be tapping pretty much non-stop. The guys who get frustrated, can’t hang. Guys who appreciate the technique, ask you how to escape that submission, have the right approach. If you come into any skill dominated arena, such as jiu jitsu, you cannot expect to do well right away. It is really important to embrace the idea that you will lose constantly.

I remember when I started, even being a big guy, I was basically a training dummy for everyone else. In fact after a while my goal was not even to not get tapped (like it was on day 1), it was actually to take slightly longer to get tapped than the time before. Focusing on the small improvements, and they will be small, is the key to mastering anything. It seems to make sense for other sports, but in grappling it’s not as obvious. For example if I wanted to suddenly get into track, my improvements would be measured in seconds. Maybe I could run the mile in 8 minutes to start, maybe after a month I’d be down to 7:30. A whole month of hard work for 30 measly seconds. In jiu jitsu its no different. After a whole month of hard work you might be able to avoid tapping for 30 seconds longer than before. Because we are not timing your taps you might find it hard to realize you are even improving, but you are.

The person with the proper attitude for learning jiu jitsu also will have the proper attitude for learning anything. If you want to learn how to master draw portraits, play chess, fix an engine, whatever, you have to go into it expecting it to take a long time. These guys who come into the gym I train at get frustrated and upset after training for 6 months or a year and still lose. I’m sorry to say that comes with the territory. You are being tapped by people who have been doing this 5 to 10 years longer than you have on average, it’s just not reasonable to expect much else. That is why jiu jitsu is the great crucible of ego and attitude. You simply will not last in this sport unless you have a great attitude. And that is why most of the people I’ve ever met in jiu jitsu are really cool. They are all people who have been ok with losing 1,000 times at least.

What you can do as a coach or a teammate however is you can help make this tough beginning phase much more bearable by doing a couple of things. First of all, toss out a compliment every once in a while. When I first started I could live off a positive critique from my coach alone for months. People tend to talk about you, but not to you. If you tell everyone else that the new guy is doing really well except the new guy, well that doesn’t really help him now does it? No matter how bad someone is when they start you can always find something positive to say unless you are just a totally unimaginative douchemonger. “You are doing a good job staying on a hip”, “way to stay relaxed”, “you really make me work for those submissions”. It not only motivates them but helps you build a nice rapport with them.
You can also give them tips or show them some techniques after class that might help. If you take the time to watch them roll, or roll with them yourself, you will probably see something fundamental you can help them with. Even something as simple as building a frame to escape bad positions can be really helpful to new players.

We all remember starting out and how rough it was. If you see someone with a good attitude, its important to help foster their attitude because it also positively affects everyone else in the gym. Those are the kinds of people you want to be rolling with, and representing your gym. Keep your goals small, and I mean really small, and you will start to see improvements where you couldn’t see any before. Also remember not to have such high expectations. It will take you a few years before you are even tapping anyone decent, so keep that in mind. Every great grappler you know of is just some guy who never gave up. That’s literally all they are.

Is MMA about winning and skill or about entertainment?

I have been meaning to tackle this subject for a while now. There is a warring of philosophies in the sport of mixed martial arts with regards to so-called “boring” fighters. There are several good examples here we can discuss but in an effort to keep the post sizeable we will be looking at GSP and Ben Askren specifically.

The average fan is uneducated with respect to grappling

Before we get to the bulk of this discussion however I want to address an issue upfront. That the average fan of Mixed Martial Arts is yet to be fully educated on the sport, especially grappling. It makes sense that seeing a knockout is one of the most exciting things in combat sports. Even though there is plenty of technique involved in the stand up game, even someone with little to no knowledge of the technique can still understand what’s happening when punches and kicks start flying. The problem though is when things hit the ground. Sometimes crowds will boo, because they are bored, they don’t understand. They simply can’t appreciate what’s happening. It would be the same thing for any sport where things might not be all they seem at face value. For example I don’t watch NASCAR, but I know that its more than a bunch of left turns. Even with no real knowledge of the sport what so ever I can imagine there is a lot going on I can’t see. The types of engines, fuel mixtures, tire types, pit crews, drafting strategies, etc. It’s the same thing when two fighters hit the floor to the lay fan. They don’t see slick guard passes, high level sweeps, clever submissions set ups, etc. Over time as MMA grows in popularity that will start to go away but for now we are just going to have to suffer the average fan. For me as an experienced grappler I see a lot happening when two fighters are on the ground, but I am also aware I am in the minority. But this post is mostly geared towards the person who understands the ground game but still may frown upon “boring” fighters.

Ben Askren is a reality

Ben Askren was released from his contract (let go) by the fight promotion Bellator in 2013 while still reigning champion following an unbeaten streak of 9 wins. READ THAT AGAIN. Ben Askren was let go while 9-0 and still champion of a promotion. What? Why would they possibly do that? The reason is unspoken but obvious, his fights are not exciting to the average fan. You see if you are unfamiliar with Ben Askren’s style of fighting what you need to know is that he is one of the most dominant wrestlers the sport of MMA has ever seen. The guy takes down opponents at will, and smothers and controls them while hitting them with short shots for however long the fight happens to be and usually wins by decision. In his last fight for Bellator he hit his opponent an unbelievable 248 times, while only being hit himself 3 times. This guy IS ground and pound. He is an NCAA 4 time All American collegiate wrestler. While his fighting style might not be as exciting to watch as someone like Anderson Silva, it shouldn’t matter. Being a good fighter should not mean being exciting or entertaining. The UFC and other organizations also lose legitimacy by stonewalling high level wrestlers. Think about it, if you are the UFC and you are proclaiming yourself as the organization with the best fighters on the planet, then you’d think they would contract fighters who find a way to win. Sadly when the UFC was given the option to pick up Ben Askren they declined. Why would they decline picking up a current Bellator Champion with a 9-0 win record? Most likely because they think he is “boring” too. Let’s talk about the UFC quick since I brought them up.

The UFC is a business

I love the UFC. I have been a huge fan since UFC 1. They are probably the reason MMA still exists and wasn’t banned long ago. They fostered it during the crucial times and are now enjoying the aftermath. Unfortunately you cannot afford a huge stable of the worlds best fighters, and go around the world hosting events, if you can’t sell tickets and pay per views. Who pays for these tickets and PPV’s? The average fan does of course. Remember the ones we talked about earlier that don’t like to watch grapplers as much as knock out artists? Brock Lesnar is responsible for several of the biggest PPV draws in the history of the UFC. Anyone who knows the sport knows he isn’t the most skilled fighter out there, but that’s not why people watch him. They watch him because he is a freaking giant man and they want to see him man handle people.

Hey, I loved watching him fight as much as anyone, so I’m not hating. What I am saying though is that when you are a slave to ticket sales and PPV buys you are then slave to giving the people what they want. And if they don’t want to see an elite fighter like Ben Askren use his wrestling to effortlessly dominate fights, then they aren’t going to offer him a contract. Now understanding this is one thing, but realizing the dangerous path that this thought process could lead us on is another. Right now the UFC is heralded easily as the number one organization for MMA hands down. Part of the reason is because they boast the best fighters on the planet. But if you start to pick up less and less winners, and pick up more and more exciting fighters, what do you have? You will be left with a bunch of fighters who are really fun to watch but have no substance, a paper tiger as the saying goes. Many fighters claim they want to fight the best fighters in the world, period. If another organization has them, then they will start going to where the best fight. Overtime this process, albeit slow, could severely weaken the UFC as we know it.

Back to reality

Ben Askren and fighters like him are the reality. If you are a professional fighter and some college wrestler can hold you down for 25 minutes, then that’s a reality you need to deal with. You can’t complain, you can’t bullshit your way out of it. If you can’t stop someone from having their way with you then you are losing, bottom line. It’s tiresome to see all these guys lose to Askren or GSP and then complain afterwards that they just held them down. That’d be like complaining that a football team you just lost to ran the ball every play so you couldn’t do anything. It is your job to shut them down, whether that be knocking them out, stuffing their takedown or getting back to your feet as many times as it takes. When those cage doors close the time for talking and excuses is over. You either win or you don’t.

What’s a wrestler to do?

Many collegiate wrestlers have no real avenue of pursuing wrestling after they graduate besides MMA. Some can go to the Olympics but only a handful of the thousands of talented guys and girls nationwide. Wrestling is also a fantastic base to start learning MMA from. The thing about wrestling is that you completely dictate where the fight occurs, on the feet or on the ground. If you are fighting someone who is a knockout artist, obviously you take them down and take away their strength. If you think you are a better striker than them, use your takedown defense to keep it standing. Dan Henderson has made a career out of throwing overhand rights to win fights while using his wrestling to avoid takedowns. My advice to wrestlers turned fighters labeled as “boring” would be to work to pair your skill with a complimentary skill. The two that immediately jump to mind are heavy hands or a highly offensive submission game. I can think of more examples of wrestlers who develop heavy hands for success than those that developed submissions however; Randy Couture, Josh Koschek, Dan Henderson, Chuck Liddell, Cain Velasquez and probably 50 more. There are some wrestlers who have implemented submissions into their game but they are fewer. Either way wrestling alone can give you wins by decisions but if you want to win by a more dominant means you are going to have to focus on one of the aforementioned skills as well.

The curious case of GSP

GSP has often been called “boring” by uneducated fans too. He has a high degree of control in his matches as well, and I would argue the best control of any fighter in UFC history. Why its interesting though is two-fold. For starters, GSP never wrestled prior to becoming a fighter. He is known as probably one of, if not the, best wrestlers in UFC history. His takedown percentages are staggering, attempts succeeding 74% of the time and defending 84% in 27 fights. The second reason GSP is interesting is because despite having a controlling style, he is one of the best PPV draws in UFC history according to Dana White, president of the UFC. It is curious to me that a fighter who some consider to be boring commands such high PPV numbers. There are a few reasons why I speculate that this is the case, but they are simply my own opinions.

Skill or Thrill?

In the end the market is ultimately going to dictate which fighters are contracted out to organizations like the UFC. In the past it was the fighters who won. It still is for the most part but we are starting to see some disinterest in signing fighters who are viewed as “boring”. I believe that this is a terrible philosophy to have and that it could weaken the UFC as well as the sport if continued. When Royce Gracie came along in UFC 1 and exposed the power of grappling, and the vulnerability of many fighters thought to crush him, he changed the landscape of martial arts forever. Gone was the fantasy martial arts movies had created, and the harsh reality of being smothered and choked was undeniable. As a fan you are going to have to decide for yourself if you want to see fighting as it exists in reality, or fighting that’s exciting. And realize that as you educate yourself on the ground game, so too does it become exciting. Years from now I’d like to see the UFC still putting on the best fights, with the best fighters period. Whatever form it may take.

The hardest thing about Jiu Jitsu

I have been meaning to do a short post for awhile now about what I think the hardest thing about jiu jitsu is. I have been training long enough to see many people come and many people go. To me, the hardest thing about jiu jitsu is sticking to it. You might think that sounds strange considering how physical of a sport it is, but it actually makes a lot of sense. Even if you are the most out of shape, weak, slow etc. person, if you stick with jiu jitsu you will eventually become great. The problem is that the beginning is the toughest part by far. You are usually training with people that are far more skilled than you, and you get dominated incessantly. Your body isn’t used to rolling and its exhausting. On top of all of that you are trying to remember these strange and alien bodily movements, each day attempting to move you body in a way it has never moved before. You get sore, you get tired, and you get frustrated. When you daydreamed about learning jiu jitsu you forgot this part apparently. Getting stuck in a guy’s side control who is twice your size, just smashing pressure, breathing the same hot air, is a new kind of personal hell. But as you stick with it you start to become comfortable in this hell, you learn its nuances. You start to see it like a puzzle, a puzzle that you know can be solved given enough time. The problem is that most people never stick around to really enjoy jiu jitsu. Of the people I’ve seen come into my gym, over half will not be there in 3 months. A select few will be there though, and they will have gotten past the worst part. Granted they are still experiencing all of the same frustrations as before, but are lessened. When I meet someone who is new, training for the first time ever, sometimes they will ask me questions. Questions about all sorts of things related to jiu jitsu. I answer their questions of course as best I can, but what I really wish I could say is just don’t give up on jiu jitsu. I don’t think there is a single person out there who has trained to proficiency who would say they regret sticking with it. What you do is going to say something about you as a person. Do you just give up when something is hard? When you cant figure someone out right away? When you fail? Jiu Jitsu is a great filter in this way. Not only is it a great filter for people with unhealthy egos, as I covered in a previous post here, but it also filters out people who don’t have determination.

If you are relatively new to BJJ, do not give up! Just push on through, embrace the suck, and enjoy it because you will look back and smile. The longer you do it the more enjoyable it is I have found. It is a lifestyle and once you are hooked it will be a part of your life forever.

How to defeat bigger and stronger opponents! (Advice from the big guy)

One of the cornerstone concepts of jiu jitsu is the ability to use leverage to defeat bigger, stronger opponents. Theoretically you should be able to defeat anyone of any size, once you have become proficient in jiu jitsu. I have seen this with my own eyes a thousand times. In fact the first UFC showcased Royce Gracie winning the tournament as one of the, if not the, smallest guys competing. If you have ever attempted to try to roll someone at a gym, chances are you also got tooled by someone half your size.

With all of this being said, I will also say it is not easy. One of those “easier said than done” situations. In my mind I evaluate someone’s game with 3 facets; Strength, Technique and Intensity. Someone who is very strong can in fact defeat someone who is more technical. And likewise someone who is more technical can defeat someone who is stronger. You can also make up for a lack in both of those categories simply by being aggressive. Everyone has some of all 3, but at different levels. For me personally, I have a high strength, followed by technique, and almost no intensity. I am a very calm and patient grappler. It is probably an oversimplified way of assessing but it helps me to quickly categorize grapplers and strategize against them.

Now there are many people out there who have written about this topic but I feel I bring something unique to the conversation, the fact that I am usually the bigger, stronger guy. Yes, you read that correctly. I think it gives me a new perspective, because I know many of the ways a smaller opponent can and has beaten me in the past.

One of the first things I’ve noticed is that a smaller person can use their superior cardio to wear down a bigger guy like me. If you try to out muscle me, you will always lose, and get tired just as fast as me. However if you focus on movement, and make me chase and move constantly, I can sometimes wear out very quickly. Even if you are on the defense, even if you are on bottom, keep working for that underhook, keep shrimping, keep hand fighting, etc. Do things that don’t require much energy from you. Don’t try to push me away, it wont work. Don’t try to bench press me, that also wont work. But things like shrimping wont tire you out and it will keep me in a state of movement. Never let the big guy rest. After a few minutes you will notice a guy like me start getting lazy. The pressure lessens, my grips get weak, I don’t scramble as well, etc. This is often overlooked I have found, which is too bad because it’s really effective if you ask me.

Secondly, your game need to be focused on mechanically superior techniques. What does this mean? Here are some examples to illustrate. If you can’t lock your feet in a closed guard, abandon it, you will do much better in a butterfly guard. Like I said I am a big guy, always have been barrel chested. This means that about 50% or more of my training partners/students have a hard time locking their ankles behind my back. Even when some do it hurts their feet if I simply push back against their lock. There is no point to closed guard now. You have to be able to switch to a new guard temporarily for this big opponent. Butterfly guard, open guard, rubber guard, I don’t care. Now outside of guard, you are going to have to be more choosy with your techniques. If you weigh 140 lbs, and I weigh 250 lbs, a triangle shouldn’t be your go to is what I’m saying. Also a sweep like a scissor sweep becomes much harder, but with a minor adjustment you can turn it into a knee push sweep which works very well. The body’s ability to kick/leg press is substantial. If you put your foot on my knee and kick straight, I will never be able to stop it. There are lots of examples that illustrate this concept but I think you get the idea. Lastly your game plan needs to shift as well. You want to focus on chokes and taking the back. You try to kimura a guy twice your size, chances are he will straighten his arm. That’s ok because instead of fighting it, just throw it over your head and take the back. There is no muscling out of a choke! Even a big guy with a thick neck can be choked easier than can be Americana’d. When you take someones back, their strength counts for very little. That is the position you want to be in, you want to be a human backpack. Mount you will get tossed off, side control you will get bench pressed, but the back takes their power out of the equation for the most part. I can’t tell you how frustrating it is to have someone small on my back, and not being able to escape for 5 minutes.

Lastly you need to realize that time is on your side, big time. I don’t mean in the immediate sense, we already talked about that in the cardio paragraph. I mean in the sense that your technique will be 10x better than a big guy’s over time. Small grapplers are far more technical than big grapplers. Why? Simply because they have no choice. When I get in trouble, as a bigger guy, I can “cheat” often times by powering out of certain situations. If you are a smaller grappler, that option simply doesn’t exist. Stuck in side control under a big fatty for the last 10 minutes? Too bad, you are going to continue to be there until you figure out a way to squirm out. And on side control escape days, you are going to be paying 100% attention to the instructor because you know what that little piece of hell feels like. And I am not just talking about escapes either. Even offensive techniques like submissions require more from you. The angle, the pressure, the grip, it all must be that much more perfect. I have seen big guys tap people out with a forearm choke before, but as a small grappler you know that will never work for you. You are going to have to really nail the technique to hit that north south choke on the big boys. In a way I am slightly jealous as a larger grappler to be honest. I got a head start when I entered my first class. I was already strong, so I could survive much longer, I could impose my will on guys who had been there awhile based on size alone. Well in the beginning that was nice, but now I am having to revisit all the techniques I thought I knew to improve them. If I would have started as a small man, my technique would be so much crisper by now I imagine.

So don’t get frustrated as a small grappler, which is easy to do. Just stick with it and know that in time you will be better for it. Focus on chokes and any movements/sweeps that employ kicking motions and stiff arms to the face. And always remember that your bigger opponent is more exhausted than you at every point of the match, which should motivate you to push even harder against them.

Affording a gym membership and why you should

I can’t afford it.
Something that I have encountered a lot over the years is people’s excuses for not training. I’m not talking about the average person walking around the street, but the people who come in for a free class or an open mat and seem to love it. They are interested, see the benefit, seem excited, but then come up with tons of excuses why not to. I would say however that the excuse I hear the most is that they can’t afford it. Now I understand that a membership at a grappling or mma gym can be daunting. Ranging anywhere from $50-$150 on average, that is a serious commitment any way you slice it. What can be irking though is these people seem to have no problem coming up with money for other things. These same people who claim they really want to train but can’t afford it, are going out to the bars every weekend, drinking fancy coffee from Starbucks, buying cigarettes, etc. Its funny to me that these people don’t realize how much disposable income they actually do have. What they should say instead of “I can’t afford to train” is “I don’t want to make the financial sacrifice to train”. Just a thought exercise, lets say you go out to eat once a week. Lets say with your food, drink and a tip you are spending on average $15. That’s $60 a month. If you are like me you probably eat out closer to twice a week but I’m being conservative. At my gym you can get a grappling only membership for $50 a month. That means that if you were willing to skip one night a week eating out you could afford to train. This is just counting eating out. It’s not counting the beer, the coffee, the cigarettes, the fancy clothes, etc. My point is that it’s actually really not that hard to make room in your budget for a gym membership, especially if its something you genuinely want to do. I could go on an on with examples of how to make it affordable to you, but I think you get the point. The money is there, you just don’t want to give up certain things in your lifestyle. I am not criticizing that decision, I am just criticizing the excuse that people come up with. I would rather someone say to me “I don’t want to pay that much” instead of “I can’t”. You can, you just don’t want to.

Why would you want to pay a membership to an MMA or grappling gym when you could get a membership at a regular gym with tons of weights and aerobic machines?
Back before I discovered jiu jitsu, I was an avid weight lifter. I was a casual power lifter of sorts. I didn’t take it very seriously, but I was a lot stronger than the average guy for sure. Even so, my first jiu jitsu class I was helpless. I literally could do nothing to anyone. I was getting tapped even by people half my size. It was a big eye opener for me because up until that point I thought being strong was enough. Once I realized that I was wasting my time in a sense, I trained grappling instead of lifting weights. The other thing that’s interesting to me is that the technique is mental, and doesn’t really degrade. If you are into fitness you know that a few weeks off can really hurt you. You will lose a couple of pounds of muscle, lose your cardio, flexibility, etc. With grappling its knowledge so that doesn’t go away if you take a short break. The cardio is the only thing I’ve noticed that goes away but you get in back within the week. I like the idea of putting in the time and energy during training and knowing that its more or less permanent, unlike fitness in general.

Outside of that there are the numerous benefits I’ve already addressed in previous blogs. First it is a total body workout. You will use muscles you never even knew you had. Grappling is a combination of strength training and cardio. It is very unique in its nature and you will definitely lose weight.

Secondly it is a great stress reducer. Wrestling around with someone is exhausting, and its good to get that pent-up energy out. Especially if you work at a job that involves very little movement, like sitting at a desk. Our bodies are made to move. We have millions of years of evolution hardwired into us allowing us to do amazing things with our bodies. If you deny it of that, I believe it’s really bad for not only your body but also your mind as well.

Thirdly the social aspect is really cool as well. I worked out at the traditional gym for years, and maybe talked to 3 or 4 people, briefly. Its more or less a solo endeavor. In grappling you really get to know people. It’s a tight-knit group, you are all struggling and learning together. You talk before, during and after class. You make friends and end up hanging out sometimes even outside of the gym. I think that is a really cool benefit that isn’t talked about much.

The last benefit I’ll mention, even though there are so many more, is your confidence. If you have never been tested, if you have never been in a bad situation, then you are always walking around with some level of fear. I don’t care if you are a big strong dude who thinks you are a badass, you know and I know there is a small bit of insecurity lurking somewhere in there. That fear actually affects how you interact with people. You might act tough when there isn’t really a call for it, you might carry a weapon, you might play out scenarios in your head of what might happen walking to your car in a bad area of town. This anxiety is expressing itself in your actions and is a really bad thing because people can read it, whether they are aware of it or not. I think we have all met someone like that, who is always acting tough, or trying to start something. It’s actually because they are so insecure. Training jiu jitsu will give you the confidence you need to never feel that way. You will start to be more relaxed in social situations, easier to talk to, friendlier etc. I believe this is one of the biggest benefits of training because I feel it bleeds into many aspects of your life.

If you are one of those people who has tried grappling and really enjoys it, but comes up with excuses why not, you need to stop. Realize it is just fear on your part, and that it is holding you back from what could be an amazing new aspect of your life. Stop telling yourself you can’t afford it, you aren’t in shape enough, you are too small or weak, you are too old or too young, or any other negative thoughts expressing your insecurity. Jiu Jitsu will change your life, I have seen it with myself and many others. It requires sacrifice, and it is a lifestyle change, but I’ve never met someone who has looked back and regretted it.

Pulling guard in BJJ and MMA

The idea of pulling guard in MMA and BJJ is often looked down on. Which makes sense because you are giving up your chance for a dominant position. However I’m starting to think that there are times when it is not that simple. I am going to try to make the case for pulling guard as an effective strategy for certain situations.

As an avid fan of mixed martial arts, I rarely miss a UFC event. At some of these I see the same scenario play out time and time again. Demian Maia’s last fight against Rory MacDonald at UFC 170 is a textbook example of this. Maia is a world-class Jiu Jitsu expert, winning an impressive number of world titles. As such we can all safely assume his ground game is highly superior than Rory’s. However on the flip side Rory has a much crisper stand up game. Demian Maia spent all of 3 rounds trying unsuccessfully to get the fight to the ground, but Rory was stuffing every take down attempt thrown his way. Fast forward 3 rounds later and Maia loses the decision.

Now lets rewind the fight to the 1st or 2nd round. Lets say Maia realizes he can’t get the takedown, and is eating punches doing so and wasting energy. Instead he decides to pull guard. Demian Maia has a highly dangerous guard, and you can’t tell me that he doesn’t have a decent chance of pulling off a sweep or submission from his guard. I believe that if your jiu jitsu is amazing, especially your guard, and you aren’t being successful with your takedown attempts, it should not only be an option to pull guard but seen as a clever strategy.

Pulling guard is a give and take proposition. On the one hand you will be on the bottom, which can be dangerous in MMA especially, but on the other hand you are forcing a ground fight. Pulling guard is also much easier than taking someone down. I am no wrestler, and I probably never will be. When I enter a local grappling tournament, I want to waste as little time as possible in the clinch. I give myself a less than 50% chance for getting a takedown, and that number only gets worse if my opponent has a wrestling background, which is pretty common at a grappling tournament. So why give them a free 2 points? Why waste the first minute or so of the match pushing each other around with a collar tie? I just sit right down, or jump guard. I believe in my jiu jitsu and I also believe that the longer we spend on the ground, even if I am on my back, the better chance I have of winning. If the match was 30 minutes long, nobody at my level would probably ever win.

When I see a match up between a wrestler with powerful punches, and a jiu jitsu ace, I see the wrestler winning. As much as I root for the jiu jitsu guy, the style match up is advantageous for the wrestler. Because why? Because of his takedown defense. Wrestlers have the best takedowns and takedown defense of any discipline, period. This means they can dictate where the fight happens. If they want to keep it standing, they wont be taken down. If they are taking big shots, they hit a single or double leg and the fight is now on the ground. Here is where the problem lies for the jiu jitsu player. Every fight starts standing, and if you can’t take someone down, you cant use your jiu jitsu. That is just a fact. But with that being said I am not advocating spending all of your training time working on double leg takedowns. Should you know how to do one? Absolutely. Are you going to pull it off against a guy who has been wrestling 20 years longer than you? Doubtful unless your name is GSP. So what option is left? You guessed it, pulling guard.

If I am Demian Maia and I have to fight someone like Johnny Hendricks, I would not even waste my time trying to take him down. If I don’t get knocked out for my trouble, I’ll probably just get exhausted. I would however jump guard and start playing it aggressively. If you are concerned with a guy like Johnny countering your strategy by simply standing back up, there are many things you can do to prevent that. Playing a tight closed guard, or a rubber guard will keep him where you want him.

So in closing I am not saying that pulling guard is the answer for everyone. What I am saying though is that if your strength is your ground game, and your takedowns aren’t happening, then it is your best option. My opinion flies in the face of the standard opinion of pulling guard which is basically, don’t do it. But I think we have all seen plenty of matches where the wrestler wins simply by stuffing the takedowns over and over again. What does everyone else out there think, can pulling guard be an effective strategy? Does your opinion change for either MMA or BJJ?

Should there be a No Gi ranking system?

No gi grappling traditionally does not have any formal sort of ranking system. In gi jiu jitsu there is a ranking system based on belts and their colors. They are white, blue, purple, brown and black. There are also stripes that can be added to each belt to further separate the ranks. In this blog I am going to approach this topic from several angles in order to properly explore the idea.

Competition:

I first encountered this problem when I was considering entering a regional tournament. I had been grappling for a few years in a no gi gym, and had won several tournaments before by this same promotion. This time, to make the most of my entry fee, I was going to also sign up for a gi division just for fun. When I got to the divisions however I realized it was separated by belt color. Normally, in no gi they separate you by Beginner, Intermediate and Advanced, and those are usually broken up by years of experience. For example a Beginner might be 1-3 years, Intermediate from 3-5, and Advanced 5+. Now I am technically a white belt, so I thought am I supposed to sign up for white belt? I didn’t feel this was very fair, considering I had won the intermediate the year prior. You hear complaints of sandbagging, or entering a lower bracket on purpose for advantage, all the time at tournaments. Would I be cheapening the experience of the other competitors and myself by signing up for the white belt division, or would the fact that I never trained in the gi help even out the experience advantage? Luckily some tournaments allow you to compete at a higher belt level if you choose to, so a no gi grappler could at least enter the blue belt division.

Gi and no gi grappling are very different sports, but they are also similar enough that someone with many years experience in one could theoretically do well in the other. For instance a guy who wrestled his whole life would probably have a very good chance of winning the white belt division having never worn a gi in his life, just on points alone from takedowns and holding top position. In fact once we a teammate from my gym, won the absolute and the blue belt division in the same day having never worn a gi one time. But blue was the highest he was allowed to enter so what could he do? Its up to the tournament organizer to create the rules, we can only abide by them.

It is from the competition standpoint I feel that a no gi ranking system would make sense. Even if it wasn’t a formal ranking system, maybe some tournaments should have some guidelines in place for a no gi grappler interested in trying out some gi matches. Maybe tie it in to the no gi division guidelines by saying enter white/blue if you are a beginner, purple for intermediate, and brown/black for advanced. This would, at the very least, help to keep the matches more even. Even matches are more fun for everyone, and a better representation at the end of the day of your skill level. This of course would not solve the sandbagging problem entirely, but it would help the people who are trying to play by the rules find their place easier.

Personal:

Now outside of the competition aspect, there are other perspectives to explore. The next one I want to discuss would be from a personal standpoint. I have been grappling since 2008 and have never once wanted a belt. To me the skill is what matters, and a belt does not represent your skill. Each black belt giving out belt promotions to other students has their own criteria, their own opinions on who fits where. A purple belt at Marcelo Garcia’s Academy would probably crush a brown belt at plenty of schools. Since all belts are not equal, then I wonder what’s the point? The point is that if you understand human psychology you understand that people like setting goals and achieving them. For me, my goal is to be a skillful grappler. For most people walking around their goal is more tangible, they want that belt. I have known people personally to leave to go to a gi gym specifically for a belt. As much as I disagree with that I cant say I don’t understand it. It makes sense to me on some level.

As a gym owner/instructor:

This leads into my next perspective. The perspective of a gym owner. If you understand that the average person wants a belt, they want promotions, they want rank, then having that in place at your school could be the difference between success and failure. A gym needs members, members who pay dues to keep the lights on. If your members are leaving to get something they cant get at your gym, then its something that needs to be fixed. Its fairly rare in the no gi world to offer something like that but it is starting to evolve. The first gym I heard of doing something like this was 10th Planet, owned by Eddie Bravo. I thought it was a cool concept, and I give him props for trying to do his own thing and not worrying about the established heirarchy. What Eddie did was basically use the gi jiu jitsu belt colors, but turned them into rash guard colors. The sleeves of your rash guard were your promotion and rank. For the people out there who really need something like that, it was a big deal. There are now at least 48 10th planet schools all across the United States. Not all of that success is coming from the no gi ranking system but at least some of it is. Eddie Bravo also does ranking by web videos, which is a very unique idea. From what I understand you basically send him videos of you in competition, and demonstrating techniques, and he grants you a rank he is confident of based on what he sees. I’m not sure if I agree with that idea, but its interesting none the less. Now there are other places following suite, Erik Paulson, Randy Couture, etc. They are starting to develop their own system for ranking their grapplers. A more traditionally minded person might be offended at this, or see it as a joke, but remember, even in your lineage of bjj, someone had to be the first to start it off.

So from the perspective of competition and as a gym owner, I see it as a big positive. Its definitely something that would take a little while to become known and respected, but its got to start somewhere. And the sooner the better for everyone. If you are a gi grappler and don’t care about no gi, at the very least you should want them to stick to their correct division at your next tournament.

Team dynamic:

The only other thing I would be concerned about is team dynamic. Right now, I love that we don’t do rank. I also love that anyone who trains with me is clearly not concerned with rank. There is no distraction to the learning and no superficial judgments made. Training at a prominent gi gym where I live for 6 months, I got to see some strange things surrounding the belt mentality. For some people I saw it motivate them tremendously, and give them a focus as they grinded out each class. For others I saw jealously and envy. My very first day when lining up for warm-ups, I was asked to move back from nearly last in line to last because I didn’t have a stripe on my belt and this other guy did. It seemed so petty. After class in the locker room I heard people discussing who should and shouldn’t be such and such belt, almost daily. I could only shake my head.
They should be focused on getting better, not other people’s rank. If no gi gyms adopted a ranking system, I think it would overall be a positive thing. It would also change the atmosphere a little, and that’s a sacrifice that has to be tolerated I feel to keep membership at a no gi gym healthy. Just because I personally don’t place a high value on it, doesn’t mean that I cant see why someone else would. This was apparent to me because the gi gym had at least 3 times as many member as my usual gym did, but only half the skill.

Its the same business plan that traditional martial arts school have been using for decades. Why are those types of school always packed even after the UFC has exposed what real fighting looks like? Because it works. It works not because the martial art is legitimate or practical, but because they have a ranking system and promote. The understanding of human nature and psychology makes it easy to see why this is so effective. With the popularity of McDojos popping up all over and essentially selling rank, it provides all no gi gym owners with a stern warning to proceed with caution. No belt is worth cheapening the art for.

The issue of Women in BJJ

Over the years I’ve noticed a trend in jiu jitsu, and that is the fact that grappling doesn’t seem to be very appealing to women. I’d say over 95% of the people who have come through the gym over the years have been males. I have spoken to quite a few friends of mine who are women, trying to get them interested in learning but its almost impossible. I’m going to break this post down into 3 sections. From my experience and opinion, why women who are interested don’t train, why they should, and what can be done about the issue.

Why some women don’t train:

I’ve had numerous friends tell me they are interested in learning bjj, but when its all said and done they don’t. I’ve asked a few of them why and gotten some really interesting responses that wouldn’t have ever occurred to me since I’m not female. Many of them were ones I’d heard before, but here are some I’d never heard before. One said that she would be self conscience about her body while rolling. She wouldn’t want her shirt to come up and show her stomach, is the example she used. I think with women in general being more concerned with the way they look, this makes sense to me, and I can respect that. As a guy, signing up for my first class that was not on the list of things that I was nervous about to say the least. Another said they wanted to but their boyfriend wasn’t comfortable with them rolling with men. Again, this makes sense but never occurred to me. Others were concerned about being physically weaker than the men, and questioned the idea that she could ever be competitive against them. Another was terrified of ringworm. The list goes on and on. The big eye opener for me was that women’s insecurities about grappling are coming from a totally different angle than men’s are sometimes. Its important to recognize this because that is going to help us defeat some of these obstacles later on when we discuss what can be done about it.

Why some women should train:

First and foremost, it’s fun. If you think it looks like fun, then it probably will be fun for you. Secondly it’s a pretty cool way to work out. I used to lift weights and run all the time at the gym, and it got so boring I could hardly stand it. When I’m rolling I’m getting a workout and having a ton of fun. I know of no other way I can get such a great workout and not even realize I’m working out. In fact a woman I met my first day at the gym and trained with for years lost like 70 lbs simply grappling. (you can read an article written about her by copying/pasting this link here:( http://uscombatsports.com/index.php?option=com_flexicontent&view=items&cid=182&id=2621&Itemid=111 ).

The third one is pretty big, self defense. If you have never rolled with someone who is a proficient grappler, then its tough to sell someone on this. But I feel that jiu jitsu has got to be one of the most overlooked and effective forms of self defense for women period. All those self defense classes teaching you to kick a dude in the nuts, or claw at his eyes, or blow a whistle, I just don’t buy. If a man attacks a woman, chances are high she will end up on her back at some point. Well guess what, jiu jitsu is all about fighting off your back. Choking someone unconscious or breaking their arm is just a couple of things you will get really good at while being on your back once you start training. Not just the defense aspect, but the idea of getting comfortable in that position is also huge in my opinion. A regular person, you tackle them to the ground, and their brain can’t process, they just panic. Spending hours upon hours in that position gets you comfortable there, and you can retain your ability to think and react properly. Because of the rarity of women in bjj, I can only say I’ve been able to roll with a couple higher level female grapplers. But what I can say is that trying to hold them down for more than a couple seconds becomes a lesson in futility. And that’s a guy who knows how to grapple talking here, not some random guy off the street. Also keep in mind knowledge is something that can never be disarmed, and is always readily available. You don’t have to dig through your purse for your jiu jitsu, and you are not going to accidentally drop your jiu jitsu in a panic.

Lastly, the same benefits that come from any type of group exercise comes with jiu jitsu as well. Making friends, getting rid of stress, feeling better as a whole, etc. Talk about something that improves your life. You are getting in shape, while learning self defense, having a blast, and meeting cool people.

What can be done about it?

I’m not a fan of just pointing out problems without at least attempting to give a solution. So I’ll throw my best ideas at this. First of all, before even getting into this, I’d like to say I don’t necessarily believe anymore that recruiting women is the solution. Grappling isn’t for everyone, and if someone wants to learn jiu jitsu they will seek you out. If you convince anyone, not just women, to try bjj who wasn’t really interested to begin with, in all likelihood they wont last. Grappling is something that at times can be frustrating and tough, and if you don’t love it, and have a passion for it, you will not last. So most people I hear giving advice on fixing the issue are saying to aggressively recruit women, I just cant agree with that. I think you will have much greater success creating an environment that attracts them, but I might be totally wrong.

So where to start. Oh I know. You HAVE to have a women’s only class. This is important for several reasons. For starters it’s so much less intimidating I would imagine. Since so many women are worried about rolling with guys, this would eliminate that right off the bat. Look, lets be honest, do you remember your first class? It is at least a little intimidating. Knowing they wont be pinned under a big gorilla would be a pretty good start. Also if any of them are self conscious about their bodies or if their boyfriends aren’t comfortable with them rolling with guys, this also kills that issue. Its essential to take away every obstacle you can, because most people considering learning jiu jitsu already have a ton of excuses, so eliminate as many as possible. This also levels the playing field. When starting jiu jitsu the frustration level is through the roof, for everyone. As fun as it is, when you don’t know what to do yet, you spend a lot of time losing. It might help a little bit if the person beating them was at least the same size. It would also show them what is possible in a believable way, by taking the strength factor out of the equation. It also would create a great support network right off the bat, a sense of belonging. Having a more experienced woman to talk to and ask questions of, would be a good thing for a new learner. There might be questions they aren’t comfortable discussing with a guy. Who knows? Just because you have a women’s class doesn’t mean you have to keep women segregated from the men. I think its very important that women train with men, to get used to it, but give them the option. If at certain point, maybe they have gotten pretty good and feel comfortable joining the mixed class, awesome. If they have no interest, that’s fine to, no big deal. Maybe from day one they have no trouble mixing it up with whoever, that’s great too.

Self defense needs to be part of your marketing. Market jiu jitsu as a form of self defense, not to get more members but because it is. Not everybody wants to be an MMA fighter, or a hardcore grappler, some people just want to learn to defend themselves, so help convince them that this is where they should be.

Keep the gym clean. Women in general are going to be bothered more by a nasty gym. It should be well lit, mopped daily, things put away, etc. If a woman comes to check out a free class and it can be a make or break situation depending on how clean your gym is.

Make sure the atmosphere is correct. This one I debated even saying because it can be taken the wrong way. What I mean is that the women should feel safe there and respected. It doesn’t have to be a big deal, the gym can still be fun. People can joke around and whatnot. But there is a certain point where it crosses the line and makes someone uncomfortable. If that happens too much, most people wont say anything they will just leave. I think as a guy I don’t normally think about this at all, but I’ve heard women complain about this before. Its probably always going to be a male dominated environment, and it doesn’t need to be stuffy, but it should be kept in the back of everyone’s minds. Its up to the instructor first and foremost to set the proper tone. The instructor holds incredible influence, and if they aren’t acting proper, don’t expect the students to. But with that being said its up to everyone, not just the instructor. If you see something over the line, don’t be afraid to check it. After all its for the benefit of everyone to retain and increase membership, you cannot grapple by yourself. Especially if you are the owner, the dues mean a lot more to you, so keeping your members happy should be a big deal if you are any kind of a business person.

Those are some of the main ideas I have for increasing female membership. I may very well have no clue what I’m talking about, this is just theory at this point. I’d like to hear from other people out there who have other ideas that I haven’t thought of, maybe certain things work well at your own gym. I’d also be interested to hear from any women out there who have wanted to try grappling but decided not to for some reason.

Training Plateaus (and my experiences with them)

This is a subject I’ve wanted to write about for a while now. It is a very interesting thing to me, and I think it’s fairly universal in most sports. Anyone who has trained for any sport for a long time has experienced one or several I am pretty sure. For me personally training in jiu jitsu I have hit a few plateaus, and they can be frustrating. Why they are frustrating is because of several reasons though. For starters, and the most obvious, you don’t feel like you are progressing. That is a pain when you are putting in hours, and hours on the mat, spending not only time, but energy and money, and seemingly gaining little benefit. I try to remind myself that the exercise alone is worth it, because it is.

The other thing that frustrating about a plateau is that I’m never really sure of the cause. Is it just a natural part of learning anything? Is there a limiting factor such as my cardio, body type, flexibility, mindset, instructor, or 100 other things? Is it even real, or am I just imagining it? Sometimes I wonder how much of it is real, or possibly exaggerated. When you have a group of training partners that is steadily getting better as well, sometimes it feels like you aren’t improving because relative to them, you aren’t really, but to anyone else you might be. Its easier to judge when someone new comes into the gym, because you can see how well you do versus how well you did against the last guy who joined the team.

Outside of that I also have a theory that in learning anything there is a diminishing returns issue. Which makes me think that a plateau is a natural phenomenon. I think of a plateau on a graph. When you start, your learning takes off like a rocket, learning all the techniques in a broad sense. But after time, you don’t learn anything new in a general sense, but what you start learning is more subtle things. Such as how to link together techniques, or set ups, or little tweaks to certain techniques that are tough to quantify. So you are learning things at a high level that seem “small” in a sense, even though they aren’t small at all. Trying to express this diminishing returns concept visually can be tough, so I think of it in percentages. Lets say I’ve been training for 5 years, and I’m at a 45% skill level lets say. Someone new joins and trains for 3 months. After 3 months, I’ve progressed to 50%, but the new student is now at a skill level of 15%. So the new student got 3 times better than I did in those 3 months. If we continue this trend however, he will never catch up to me so long as I keep practicing. Now this is a very simplified version of it, I know. There are lots of things that can increase or decrease the rate at which you learn, such as athletic ability, previous experience in a related sport such as wrestling, or just plain being a fast/slow learner. But in general that’s the way I see it, but I’m open to the fact that I’m completely wrong, as one should be. I’ll come back and edit this when I think of a better way to get the point across I’m trying to make.

So now the million dollar question, how to break out of a plateau? That’s a tough question and many sports psychologists make their living off of the secret. Now me just being a regular guy, I can’t say with any confidence that I know the answer, but I have noticed a couple of things that have worked for me. Whether or not they work for the next person, who knows?

The first time I experienced a plateau was probably about 1.5 years into training. I remember certain guys joining the gym and in a matter of 6 months or so would surpass me in skill. I couldn’t figure out what they were doing that I wasn’t. So I completely scrapped everything. I went back to drilling and relearning the basics. I focused on bad habits I had learned from the beginning, and started to learn to tweak the basics again. Shrimping, guillotine chokes, armbars, etc. What I realized was that there was so many little things I had missed. When you are new there is just so much to take in, a different set of techniques every day. Now was I able to get someone in an armbar? Sure. But my finishing percentage was lower than I realized. Once I went back to the drawing board, I started to shift away from the basic movement, and focus in on the details. The angle of my body, the squeeze in my legs, the timing, the counters to my opponents counters. From then on I started to get markedly better, and broke out of the plateau I feel. What it took was not much more than changing the way I looked at the game. I learned that I was never really done with any technique and that there are a thousand little things you can improve upon. Anyone who tells me they have mastered a technique, I think is foolish. Someone like Ronda Rousey comes to mind. Despite your opinion of her, you can’t deny her level of skill with armbars. With so many first round finishes by armbar against elite level opponents, you can’t help but come to the realization of just how far you can go with a technique. I mean, the level of skill it takes to pull off a submission on somebody who knows its coming, over and over again is impressive. I might get a guy in an armbar rolling, because he is worried about 100 other things. But if I told him that the only submission I was going to attempt was an armbar? Well it probably wouldn’t happen. And whats even more impressive is that you know her opponents are drilling armbar escapes and defenses constantly, and it still doesn’t stop her from doing it.

The second time I experienced a plateau was about 4 years or so into training. I was fine in most areas, but my guard was just sucky. I was still rocking a closed guard, and I could slow people down but eventually they would pass. I even remember at some point we were doing guard passing drills and I heard someone mocking my opponent after being in my guard for about 30 seconds saying “Whats taking you so long to pass? Passing his guard is easy!” This really bugged me because the guard is such a fundamental position for grappling. It wasn’t that they said it, we make fun of each other all the time, it keeps it light, and to be honest I couldn’t even remember who said it because it didn’t matter. What mattered was that they were right, and that’s what really bugged me. If I was bad at side control or half guard that’s one thing, but to be bad at guard? So bad that people mock it? That’s unacceptable. So I found a renewed purpose to make my guard 10x better. I focused on pretty much nothing else unless I had to.

What I did was I started watching the people in the gym very closely who I felt had really good guards. What I noticed hit me like a truck. It was the closed guard. All of the best guards in the gym weren’t closed guards, but open or butterfly. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t made the connection before, it was right in front of me. Now let me throw in a disclaimer right now before I tick anyone off. The closed guard isn’t bad, there are tons of people who excel with it. But I cant help but feel that its better for beginners because of how good it is at slowing people down. The control of that guard is top-notch. It’s also much better in the Gi I feel, but that’s just my opinion. The collar chokes are there, which make it even more deadly. I also feel that it is better for longer legged people. With my short hobbit legs, its tough to even get my feet around my opponent sometimes. The problem for me in nogi is that to do almost anything from closed guard you have to unlock your ankles. So I figure why not just start with my feet uncrossed? So whether I was right or wrong, I decided to scrap the closed guard. I started playing butterfly a bit, and open guards. With anything, starting from scratch sucks and I was getting passed even faster than before. But I was determined to get better and I thought, at least it couldn’t get any worse? I wont bore anyone with the details but what ended up happening is that I formed this weird sort of guard on my own that I’ve been using ever since. People call it the scissor guard at my gym, so that’s what I call it. It’s basically sitting in a scissor sweep position, on my hip. I’ve always liked the scissor sweep and get it more than others, so it started to feel natural to sit in the sweep position. I also enjoy the knee on my opponent’s chest because I cant get smothered or stacked anymore, I pretty much control the distance exclusively which is a nice perk. If they pressure me, pushing them back with my knee is easy, and so is hitting the sweep at will. Once I started to switch up my guard style, I feel like my game again broke free and started to develop once more. At the very least I haven’t heard anyone mock my guard since outside of it being just plain weird.

The last plateau I overcame was probably a year and a half ago. And it came from curiosity and boredom. I am fairly strong as far as grapplers go, so I naturally was highly successful with kimuras and americanas. Any 2 vs 1 arm situation was pretty much a lock. I got really bored of hitting the same submissions all the time, and I got predictable. It bothered me, I wanted to feel technical, not brutish. If I wanted to muscle people I would have stuck with weightlifting. I also have always been curious about leglocks. After watching UFC 1-10 as a kid, I’d see Shamrock hit these weird leg holds, but thus far in my training we had only briefly touched on them, but nobody really did them in practice. However being a nogi school I had the green light to do them if I wished. So I started to get intrigued by the idea of getting good at something nobody else in the gym was good at. Lots of people seemed to have this 1 thing they were great at, but not me. I was pretty run of the mill, I had no specialty. So I thought, leglocks would be perfect. They are a new challenge, they are highly technical, and nobody else does them.

So I went at it. Over the course of the next year or two, I studied anything leglock related I could get my hands on. Instructional DVD’s from Reilly Bodycomb, Ryan Hall’s 50/50 DVD, youtube videos of sambo leg lock masters, etc. I have completely fallen down the rabbit hole at this point and love leglocks above all other submissions. Much to my teammates chagrin I hunt for them relentlessly. One of the reasons I was so unhappy when I trained at a Gi school for 6 months was that there were no leglocks allowed sadly. That alone bothered me to end. Now I am fairly proficient with leglocks and have won several tournament matches with them, and even have been able to submit some people who I would normally never be able to beat. Its been a great thing for me that I have discovered them. So I guess the way I broke this plateau was that I changed my game yet again. Just like the guard problem, changing up to leglocks brought me to the next level of skill.

With all that being said I am now stuck in what I feel is another plateau. I have a feeling it could be solved with better conditioning and flexibility. I’d like to hear from other people out there who have defeated plateaus in their sport, and see if I couldn’t apply them.