BJJ – The Difference between a World Champion and a Hobbyist

Today’s blog is going to talk about an effective way to track whether or not you are meeting your goals and desires for BJJ.  Have a think right now before reading more about what is your goal for BJJ and have a think about how much time you think you spend on it

Got that,  right now for some background information first on this blog post.

I watched the rolled up episode with Marcelo Garcia and he stated that if you do something you should do it 100% and not 80%.  The question was leading towards life balance and that if your goal is competition, then you need to commit 100%.  Marcelo was saying that he hates seeing people commit 80% because they are wasting time.  Marcelo has also made a ton of sacrifices to commit to 100%!

5:30 in Marcello talks about giving 100%. Are you wasting time?

Let me tell you about a a Robert Drysdale seminar I went to a few years back.  Someone asked the question how often they should train jiu jitsu.  Drysdale replied dead serious “No more than twice a day”, as if twice a day was completely normal for everyone.  In Robert’s mind twice a day is completely reasonable, and he has tried more than twice a day and for himself he didn’t really see any extra benefit in training more. Now that shows 100% commitment.

So back to your goals and the time you have spent training the last 6 months.  In my opinion if your goal is to compete then 5-7 sessions a week is not going to cut it.

Do you think t you will win you a World Championship at any belt level if you are training at that level?  How are you going to compete against the like of  Lloyd Irvin’s “Medal Chasers” who even as Blue belts are doing more sessions than that everyday.  These guys are 100% committed because they just train, eat and sleep Jiu-Jitsu. Lloyd Irvin is giving those guys a way of life which I think is awesome if you want that.

Do you want to compete against that?  Is Jiu-Jitsu a hobby or a way of life for you? I  have seen a lot of talk recently about “Statistics” in competition, yet out of those statistics what it doesn’t tell you is effort.  I’d like a statistic on Effective Training Time. 

Let’s do the Math and have an example of what Effective Training Time (ETT) is all about.  At it’s core it’s really about the total time you spend doing “useful” training.  Not sitting on the side recovering, or waiting in line for you next go. 

Effective Training Time (ETT in hours) = Weeks * SessionsPerWeek * EffectiveMinutesPerSession / MinutesPerHour

Person A losses to Person B in a competition and both have trained extensively for 6 months leading up to the comp.
Person A has trained 6 times a week with 1hr sessions.  Each sessions thought only has an effective training time  of 30 minutes because of warm up, cool downs, breaks, drinks, line ups for rolls and delays when teaching. 
= 26 * 6 * 30 / 60
Person A ETT = 78 Hours (80% committed)

Person B trains 6 times a week, does 2 sessions per day, each session is 1.5 hours long and has 30 minutes downtime.
ETT = 26 * 12 * 60 / 60
Person B ETT = 312 Hours (100% committed)

So Person B actually has 4 times as much effective training time as person A! He still has the same delays in class but has a slightly longer class and he has an extra lesson a day which adds up to a 4 fold increase in the Effective Training Time.

To me it’s clear that Person B is committed and training hard while Person A is kind of wasting his time and going through the motions 6 times a week!  78 Effective hours over a 6 months isn’t a lot.  I wish I could have a job were I’d only need to commit to 78 hours every 6 months. 

So work this out for yourself.  What’s your ETT for the last month and does your ETT match your goal?  How are you going to correct the imbalance?

My next blog entry will be for the hobbyist and committed BJJ practitioner alike. I’ll be breaking an awesome concept that I’ve recently learnt that will help you achieve your goals in BJJ and fix those imbalances.  This awesome scientific concept can be applied to other areas of your life as well. 

Dan

tl;dr;  Don’t give 80% to something, give 100% or less than 25%.

Fluidity as a Basic Concept

Continuing on my theme from the last couple of posts I wanted to talk more about fluidity. This is another area I’ve studying from all BJJ video’s I could find on Rickson Gracie.  What does fluidity mean in BJJ.  Watch any video’s of most top BJJ practitioners– past and present.  Then watch two white belts or two blue belts at your gym.  Invariable one will have lots of movement…the other very little and lots of stalling.

I’m going to argue that the big difference isn’t in the amount of technique a blue vs high level belt knows but the core difference is in how they roll and create opportunities. A part of that is the use of triggers.  Beginners learn techniques but aren’t wired yet to instinctively know the triggers and what to do.  A beginner is all intent and zero opportunity.

Using this principle I’ve totally gone against  Cross Face from side control.  I can’t stand it any more as it doesn’t create opportunity.  The position anchors the top person onto the bottom person.  Making it hard for either person to move or work.  It’s this type of position that restricts fluidity.  As a person on top what option have I left the bottom person.  None.  So what is he going to do, keep tight and defend.

Everyone quickly learns the lesson of elbows in and protecting the neck.  So you aren’t going to get what you want, unless you give the other person what they want.  The other person wants the opportunity to escape.  To this extent, use less pressure (pressure for pressures sake)  when on side control and mount.  Become more mobile and use your hips to deflect their arms and stop their escapes thus creating opportunities for yourself. 

For myself I’m putting into practise triggers.  Depending what the person on bottom is trying to do, I’m trying to find very simple answers to that.  The end result is many opportunities for submissions arise and now I’m getting many submissions every roll if I get on top.

So I’m happy with my progress in this area.  Each training session I’m becoming more fluid  and more dangerous  with my attacks.  To do this I’ve eased up on the pressure, relaxed and concentrate on breathing and moving in reaction to whatever the opponent gives me.

Here are some tips I’ve been using myself when on top attacking:

• Never Cross face (shoulder of justice) from side control, it locks you to your opponent.  Good for points, bad for everything else.
• Never use excessive pressure – it locks your opponent so they can’t move and therefore can’t create opportunities for you.
• Don’t get into static escape fights– you engage in arm battles instead of redirection with hips and movement to stop your opponent escaping.
• Don’t try to force a particular submission – only go for it once the setup opportunity has arisen.
• Switch hips to redirect pressure from escapes.
• Keep moving at a nice easy RELAXED pace.  Use a 3 second rule so you don’t stall.  Stalling is just another word for a loss of opportunity, trying moving and switching your hips when you feel stalled.

Mind Vs. Reality

I my mind when I think about how I want to so easily impose my game.  Be able to flow from one move to the next and essentially have my partner have no idea on how to keep up.  I can imagine myself effortless chaining armbars into sweeps and making it look easy.  Move like a butterfly, sting like a bee.

The reality is starkly different.

I’m often jerky and slow.  I don’t attack that well.  I’m often stuck on my back.  I get lazy and start to rest when I should be moving.  I can’t get arm bars at all, I’m always out of position.  I can’t get chokes,  it feels like they are always defending and so much stronger.  This can come from just having one or two bad rolls.

It’s funny, if I can’t impose any of my game plan on someone it can be quite deflating.  Admittedly I’m not going flat out any more, but still I feel that I should be able to flow and impose a game plan against people going hard.

I feel I have more technical knowledge than most.   This comes from knowing all the finer points that most people forget, and I see that they have forgotten in drilling.  However I’m struggling translating technical knowledge into ground advantage.

I feel my timing is off.  Windows of opportunity are passing me by and I’m just powerless to stop it.  This I imagine frustrates a lot of BJJ practitioners.  The problem is the other guy (or girl).  They are learning too, and I imagine in their own mind would also see themselves as rolling the way I envision I want to roll.

I want to be a butterfly,  yet I’m just a slimy slug atm.  I know what I want to do, but it’s so far away right now.  I guess that’s why I’m liking the going back to basics.  Re-assessing everything I know about BJJ.

Hopefully one day I’ll stop being such a slug.  For now I have to learn how to quicken my timing to take advantages of tactical errors.

Dan