Billy Joel Was Wrong: You Should Ask Why

Billy Joel once said (sang):

Don't wait for answers
Just take your chances
Don't ask me why

These three lines reveal why Billy Joel's jiu-jitsu career was brief and troubled (this is even referenced in his Wikipedia entry). Billy, despite his natural talents, struggled to look beyond the surface level details of a technique. He quickly became a master of the how, but he could never bring himself to address the why. Because he avoided the why, Billy could not explore the depths of jiu-jitsu, and when he spent a brief stint as an instructor, his inability to explain his decisions on the mat crippled his ability to teach.

Billy was a failure, which lead him to begin a less difficult career in music.

Ignoring the why at the white and blue belt levels is forgivable, but as you enter purple belt, exploring the why behind the techniques that you use can help to propel your game and combat plateaus. For my first year at purple belt, I didn't realize I was ignoring the why.

Jiu-Jitsu is Not the Gentle Art

One of my readers recently sent me a question, and it touched on a conversation that I have had many times with my students, so I thought it would be helpful to share my answer with everyone.

“One thing that I really have a problem with is 'pulling the trigger.' I got a guy in a submission, had it, but I could not ‘go.’ I felt bad about hurting him. I apologize so damn much when I train, knee on belly: 'you ok?' armbar: 'you ok?'  So, not only am I really in my head all the time, I am worried about people all the time. So, when I roll I think, think, think, and get flipped, spun and tossed.” -Mike

This is a surprisingly common problem in jiu-jitsu, and it’s not a terrible problem to have.  If you, and I mean both Mike and my readers, feel bad about hurting your training partners, that’s a good sign.  You are starting at the right end of the spectrum, which is a much better place to be than the opposite, where a student has no concern for the safety or the health of his teammates.  It is much easier to work with someone that cares than who does not care.

Everyone is Still a White Belt at Something

Everyone starts as a white belt.  I certainly did, as the faux tough guy picture above clearly shows (I am on the left).

More importantly though, every technique starts at white belt.

Your overall rank may be purple, but that does not mean that all of your techniques and positions have reached the purple belt level.  In fact, you are probably still a white belt in some areas, and you may have reached brown belt in other areas.  Your favorite spider guard sweep, the one you constantly hit in the gym and in competition, may be at the brown belt level while that new set up for the omoplata that you saw in class yesterday is at the white belt level.

3 Lessons Learned After a Weekend with Matt Kirtley (Aesopian.com)

Matt Kirtley of Aesopian.com fame visited Pittsburgh to give a seminar for the Martial Arts Club at California University of Pennsylvania (Cal U), a club that I founded as an undergraduate and now instruct.  For my students at Cal U, a seminar from Matt was an opportunity to experience black belt level jiu-jitsu and a chance to see a different perspective on grappling.  For me, Matt's visit was a chance to spend time with a friend and to repay him for the years of free jiu-jitsu that he had shared through his blog.  He accepted payment in the form of sushi and burgers, which is a form of currency that resonates with me as well.

First of all, Matt's instruction is as good as you would expect after reading his blog or watching his videos.  His seminar at Cal U focused on the crucifix and the reverse omoplata, and he was able to breakdown what some would call advanced techniques, making them as accessible as armbars to students that were relatively new to grappling.  Since his seminar, I have been receiving texts and emails about people hitting their first live reverse omo or finishing one of his choke variations.  Matt's ability to clearly explain highly technical movements and details is impressive, and I absorbed a great deal of technical knowledge from him, but the most important lessons I learned from Matt were more abstract and more important than any individual technique.

Never Lose Back Mount Again (4 Techniques and Some Hyperbole to Get Your Attention) [Video]

For a long time, I struggled with the back mount position.  Reaching back mount and setting my hooks required an extraordinary amount of effort, and once I accomplished that goal, I bumbled about trying to set a choke and my opponent would ultimately escape.  In many cases, I preferred to play guard simply because I was better at it.  Taking the back was just a good way for me to get points, not to finish fights.

Then I wrote Marcelo Garcia's Advanced Jiu-Jitsu Techniques.

Marcelo's game plan for maintaining back mount is incredibly efficient, and at it's core, surprisingly simple.  He cycles between 3 core techniques, and once I taught myself to recognize what situations required which technique, my back mount game changed.  The forth technique that I have included is a trick that I blundered into on accident, but I'm sure that guys like Marcelo are privy to it.  Before you study the graphic and video below, you should remember two key details that make this system effective:

Look, Mom, a No-Hand Arm Drag! [Video]

The arm drag is more than a technique.  It's a principle.  If you start to think of the arm drag as a concept, you can begin to see the arm drag position in a variety of scenarios, which will allow you to see new paths to your opponent's back.  The goal of an arm drag is simple: maneuver your opponent's arm into a position where he can't set an underhook or an overhook to block you from taking his back.  When his arm is across his body in any way, the opportunity to swoop into back mount is there.  This may seem silly when viewed in a simplified format like this, but I was blind to this concept for years, and I see many people missing huge opportunities because they are not aware that the back is open.

[Video] The Hip Sweep: Working in Clusters vs. Sequences

The hip sweep is a fundamental technique.  My game tends to favor technique like the hip sweep.  Minimal flash, high percentage, no prerequisite physical attributes, and integrates easily with other fundamental techniques.  In this particular instructional, I want to focus on the connections between techniques and how we think about those connections.  Capitalizing on these connections is how you get what r/BJJ would call "Mad Flow" (it's Mad Flow month over there), and mad flow makes you aggressive and efficient.

You can flow in two ways: in a cluster or in a sequence.  I owe Matt from Aesopian.com for this particular insight (and for the sketch above).  Before talking to Matt about mad flow, I knew that some techniques had a two way connection and that these two way connections, when considered as a bigger picture, form a network of techniques that overlap.  When Matt brought up the idea of thinking of techniques as clusters or as sequences, he made clear a very important distinction.  Some connections do not have a two connection.  The relationship is linear, which is key when developing a game plan.  Below is a map of the hip sweep cluster contained in the video, and below that is an example of a sequential combination.

Four Techniques That You Should Reconsider

Matt over at Aesopian.com is a jiu-jitsu nerd.  That is not an insult by any means.  Anyone who blogs about jiu-jitsu is likely a jiu-jitsu nerd, and anyone who reads jiu-jitsu blogs is likely a jiu-jitsu nerd as well.  There's plenty of nerding out going on this sport, and it often yields interesting insights.  Matt's latest obsession has been an analysis of any major competition DVD that he can get his hands on.  He takes notes on each match, which at the black belt level can be horrifically boring, and tallies successfully executed techniques.  Currently, he's working his way through the 2009 ADCC, but he completed annotating the 2004 Mundials not too long ago, and the data reveals some notable trends.  Click these links for the quick and dirty summary of the takedowns, sweeps, submissions, and guard passes that fighters landed in the 2004 Mundials.

Based on Matt's notes, there are four techniques that you should think more about when structuring your training.

A Case Study: Marcelo Garcia's Crab Ride (Plus Another Bonus Video from Marcelo)

I am a bit of an instructional junkie, and I have been that way since I started jiu-jitsu.  After spending hundreds of dollars on books and DVDs and after watching hours of YouTube videos, two questions occupy my mind each time I read or view an instructional: "Would this material actually work and will it work for me?"

Many times, there is video proof of certain techniques working in competition, even consistently, but often there are certain prerequisites that I do not meet.  Size.  Strength.  Speed.  Flexibility.  For example, I used to play rubber guard religiously, a position that I discuss in The Cauliflower Chronicles, but multiple knee injuries have made it impossible for me to execute even the most basic rubber guard tactics.  Other techniques do not suit my weak arms, and any attack that relies on explosiveness is out of my reach.

I am not physically blessed, but that's why I started training jiu-jitsu in the first place, and I suspect that many of my readers are like me in that respect.

When I had the opportunity to write Marcelo Garcia's next book, I was stoked.  I could finally get an insider's perspective on a world champion's style, and I could test every aspect of his game.  I could see if Marcelo's jiu-jitsu could translate to other grapplers or if it was the product of some genetic fortune.

5 Lessons Learned from Writing Marcelo Garcia's Next Book (Plus a Bonus Video from Marcelo)

Coauthoring Marcelo Garcia's Advanced Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu revolutionized my jiu-jitsu and gave me a unique insight into Marcelo's style.

Before I get into some of the surprises hidden within the book, you should be familiar with the process I used to write the book.  Typically, for Victory Belt books, the author, photographer, and publisher fly out to a fighter's gym and spend two or three days taking sequential photos of techniques.  When the photographer and publisher leave, the author often stays at the gym to conduct more research (or comes back at a later date).  Every author handles the process a little bit differently, but that's the general summary.

In the case of Marcelo's book, the photo shoot and information gathering took place long before I was invited to join the project.  At the time, Erich Krauss and Glen Cordoza were managing the project, but the sheer volume of work coming through Victory Belt was overwhelming (Erich and Glen are workhorses and are always working on at least two books at a time, if not more).  I picked up where they left and worked from photos, videos, and interviews to complete the book.  If I had a question on a detail or a nuance, I would email Marcelo or Glen for clarification and set up a time where we could discuss the technique over the phone.

While I worked on the book, I wrote for 8 hours a day and trained every night.  Each day, I would take the techniques I was writing about and test them in the gym, both for my enjoyment and to gauge my understanding of a move.  This turned out to be the best way to write the book because I was essentially the reader and the writer simultaneously.  I was teaching myself the material, just as my readers would be, and if something was not working right I immediately reviewed the notes and phoned Marcelo or Glen.  I repeated this process until the instruction in the book was perfect (and then Marcelo and Glen went back over it again, just to be sure).