Devolution Of My Game

So lately one of my purple belt training partners has been telling me that my game just keeps devolving. He is not saying that it's getting worse, just saying that I'm starting to resort to things that aren't considered real techniques. For example, it's common to place a forearm on the neck to pin your opponent, try and improve position, etc... I use it and attempt to get a tap from it or put as much pressure as I can to force my opponent to move otherwise he/she would HAVE to tap. I have always done uncomfortable things to my training partners to try and see what works and doesn't work in terms of setups. Just like in wrestling, setups are so important to the success of a technique. So while some of my training partners think I'm just being a jerk by doing things like putting the point of my elbow on their face, I'm actually using that to create an opportunity to attack.

It's funny, one of my friends went to a seminar with Marcelo Garcia a couple years ago and said that Marcelo was one of the roughest guys he has ever rolled against. That not only was he technically amazing (my friend at the time was a 1 or 2 stripe black belt, no slouch), but also he would do things that just hurt in order to improve his position, attack for submissions, etc... He was very astute on elbow on face, forearm in the throat, even a thumb in the armpit. He would use one of these various "dirty" techniques and within a second he would have a submission locked up. I believe there is a tremendous amount of untapped value in "dirty techniques" like this and it is only a matter of time before more people figure out the potential it carries.

I used to do all sorts of "mean" or "dirty" moves when I wrestled, and it wasn't until I had a buddy of mine do a seminar for my BJJ club at school where I began to see that there were a myriad of other "dirty" moves I could do and see how applicable they are for BJJ as well. David Jacobs showed that a little elbow to the ribs was a fantastic way of attacking a kimura. I loved it then, have used it in competition, and later found out that many people used that same move. People get so caught up on the idea of wanting to be extremely "technically sound", they want to mimic their "bjj heroes" and complain when they get tapped because their opponent did a "dirty" move like a chin to the temple to open their neck. I can guarantee that a lot of the top guys, multiple time world champs are guilty of using "dirty" moves regularly, it's just impossible to tell by watching a video, the art of these moves is about being subtle so the ref can't see what happened, do a move just hard enough, quick enough to accomplish your technical objective whether it's a pass, sweep, submission or whatnot.

Don't close your mind to things you possibly morally object to when it comes to training. I'm not the type of guy that's going to do knee on face to my training partners, I'm not that big of a jerk, but an extra tough forearm on the neck to get that pass is something I'm not opposed to. You need to at least expose yourself to this side of BJJ otherwise you are limiting your overall potential.

Technique is Alive

So I've been asked a few times why I don't do what most every other bjj blog does and post videos demonstrating technique. The simple answer is that by the time I finish a video, edit it, write an explanation, and post it online, I'll be doing the technique differently than what I demonstrated. BJJ remains stagnant when people are too stubborn to allow techniques to evolve. I believe that techniques are like living organisms, forever changing. The more you develop your game and understand when to use a technique the more ways you see to perform the technique and refine how you do it. There are very few if any techniques at all that I do the same way now as I did a year ago. If you are not doing things differently, then you are not evolving. If you hold onto every word that an instructor says and believe it to be written in stone, you inhibit your growth. So many schools that I have visited I have heard an instructor say "you must never do " when there are times when you can. I always tell my students about what works for me, I never try to use absolute words like "always" and "never" because there can be times that disprove the "always" or "never". Realize that your techniques are alive, the more attention you give to them the more you will cultivate them, refine them, and change them to make them more efficient. I'm not saying that a move will look different when you perform it, to somebody watching it might look like you didn't do anything differently, when in actuality, you found a new place to push off of, or a different angle of attack, something very subtle that makes vast improvements in the execution. Keep an open mind.