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%.

When does Jiu-Jitsu get easier?

The short answer: it doesn’t for a VERY long time.  At least that’s my experience and the experience of those I talk too.

I’m asking this in a self-reflective way because my perception of how difficult it is for me and other people’s perception about how I’m rolling are quite different. I feel like I’m terrible, too slow, too late and yet other people say I’m rolling really good.  I think it’s encouragement but the hard thing about BJJ is it just doesn’t seem to get any easier.

You start off as a White and think that once you get your blue the problems you are having will be solved or at least easier.  The thing is…it doesn’t and you find out that even white’s cause problems to Purples from time to time.  Jiu-Jitsu is relative especially during the years until your black; you will always be training with people of better and equal skill.  Until you get past that hurdle that’s a very long time where Jiu-Jitsu doesn’t feel easy.

Once you can roll very relaxed and adaptive to the situation then I think Jiu-jitsu may become a bit easier. So enjoy rolling and leave your ego at the door – otherwise that’s doing to be one bruised ego after 10 years of jiu-jitsu training.

Dan

A New Beginning

So I officially changed schools over the weekend.  I cleared everything first with my old coach so that no bridges were burnt.  He understood that this is life.

I was very apprehensive and nervous driving to my first class.  I had committed myself to changing and everything would be new. I was definitely stepping outside my comfort zone.  The hardest part is the commute, but I think the longer class and tuition I’m receiving should offset that.

After all the formals I jumped on the mat before class and was greeted by one of the blues for a light roll.  A nice introduction; we didn’t try to go at it hard.  We just played a lot with give and take.  The class itself was excellent.  It was only the beginner Gracie self-defence but the instructor gave a lot of good details so both beginner and advanced students could take away something.

What else was a nice surprise was that there was another black belt in the class.  So come the free rolling part of the night I got to roll with a black belt – AWESOME!!! I love the feeling of being swept effortlessly – it just makes me think there is so much to learn in this art.  I made sure I didn’t go too hard with anyone, and just tap if I was caught instead of fighting stubbornly.  There isn’t as many intermediate belts as my old gym but I can feel that everyone really tries to get technique over strength.

So overall an awesome first class. Even though it was a beginner class I actually picked up quite a few details that would help going from side back to hooks in back control.  The other students were great, the gym was great, and best of all there is a massive drawing of Rickson hanging up on the main wall overlooking the mats – awesome!

Sensitivity and Balance

Ok I’ve been slack and haven’t posted in awhile.  Two things have played on my mind and that is motivation and acceptance for my existing gym.  Since starting privates I’ve noticed my attendance for my gym has been declining, and that my motivation for going there is also declining.  I’m just getting so much out of my privates that I feel like my old gym is just not progressing me in any way. I don’t feel accepted at the gym.  So I’m thinking of making the switch permanently to the Rickson (and Kron) Gracie affiliate school.

It’s a lot further away – 45mins to 2 hours depending on how bad traffic is – each way. Still I think overall the change will be for the better.  It’s a personal thing, sometimes you start BJJ at one school but you just don’t click there in the same way. I don’t think it’s bad to change schools as you can never know what another school is like when you first start BJJ.I got into this art because of Rickson Gracie, so really that’s where my heart is telling me to go.

On other topics I’ve been working a lot on sensitivity to movement and balance.  Interesting enough I just happened to come across a Rickson Gracie video of him doing a private lesson on a Swiss balls.  He demonstrating some great exercises that I think can directly apply to Jiu Jitsu. The three main exercises were:

1. Lie flat on the ball and try to keep balance without touching ground.
2. Put knees on ball and then stand up on the ball and do squats (that’s right…squats) without falling off.
3. Lie on back on ground and put a leg on the ball, elevate your hips off the ground and keep balance.  You can even practise going to your sides if you want.

All of these sound easy, but for me they work so many aspects of sensitivity, balance, muscle and timing.  I’m starting to incorporate these exercises into the Gynastica Natural exercises.  I think they compliment each other very nicely and will help my Jiu Jitsu.

Rickson Gracie demonstrating some balance sensitivity.

I can’t last 3 seconds in the first exercise without touching the ground.  The second exercise I finally got both of my feet onto the ball after a couple of days.  I can’t stand yet.  As for the last exercises: I don’t feel I have enough power or more correctly the power isn’t being directed correctly onto one leg.

Anyhow it’s a great video showing just how much body awareness he has…

Mat Stickiness

So most of April was a total write off for me.  I managed a grand total of 6 training session;  injuries and holidays are bad for Jiu-Jitsu!

One thing I’ve rarely paid is the mats I train on.  My gym has old worn out PVC rubber mats that have lost the ridges and gloss.  In other words you could never use them as a slippery slide. 

I’m musing whether or not one type of mat in particular stifles the learning of BJJ.  Other mats I’ve trained on are the opposite;  they are so slippery that you can slip and slide on them if you wear socks.

I wonder how would this effect the development of a person’s Jiu-Jitsu. Would having low friction mats enable the person to develop excellent hip movement from underneath.  Promote a more flowing game and fun rolls?  Would high friction mats promote more reversals than escapes,  and make it harder for the person underneath to move or escape?  My experience is this – on high friction mats it’s physically easier to wait for a timed roll or reversal than it is to escape by moving on the mat.  Would one mat promote an overall more well rounded game than the other?

Or are both fine and good to train on?

Take tennis as an example.  The surface of the court makes a massive difference.  A person who only ever trains on a hard surface courts usually really struggles when they play on a clay surface and vice versa.  They develop very different games, and if you’ve watched matches on both types of courts you would notice that they style of tennis even looks different.

From my observation of video’s released on Jiu-Jitsu it seems more places have low friction mats than they do high friction mats.   So I wonder, am I doing myself a disservice by training at a gym that has extremely high friction mats?

I don’t think I’ve ever seen any good conversation around this as applied to Jiu-Jitsu and grappling.

A Brazillian Jiu-Jitsu Rebirth

Last week was a fairly pivotal week for me BJJ wise.  I decided I needed to get a private lesson from someone not affiliated with my school, or even in the same federation (Will-Machado).  My reasoning was simple: I needed a different approach to my training and technique.

I discovered that there is a Rickson Gracie affiliated academy black belt an hour from my place.  Seriously, what are the chances! So I talked with my current instructor and told them I would like privates with this other person; they were fine with that.

The results were astounding.  I’ve read about people coming away from Rickson Gracie seminars completely in awe and how everything has changed.  I had exactly the same feeling.   What I loved about my private was he used the same terminology such as Connection, Energy etc that I heard and read that Rickson uses.  I left my private lesson completely shell-shocked and in awe.

It confirmed everything I thought and hoped; it gave me insight into how Rickson makes things seem so effortless.  I have to start again,  my basic movement has been completely changed:  Do you know how long it’s going to take to undo the muscle memory of 10000 incorrect hip escapes (shrimping for the people in America)?!

It’s the best money I’ve spent for BJJ: Better than any seminar I’ve taken, lesson or free roll.

I feel like I’ve got lost in the BJJ city and ended back where I started,  only this time I know where not to go!  Time to try again,  this time I’m driving in that BJJ city with GPS (Rickson Gracie black belt) directions.

Dan

Defensive Mindset for BJJ

One thing I’ve noticed is that big white belts can get extremely competitive in rolling with blue belts.  Especially if they are 4 stripes.  My theory is they want to test themselves against the blue; beat the blue and prove that they deserve a blue belt.

This is one of the main reasons I don’t roll with large strong white belts close to their Blue Belt.  They muscle moves instead of finesse them;  each roll feels like an ADCC match.  The end result is an unhappy roll with injuries.   I’ve incurred 2 injuries in the same number of weeks due to this; bruised ribs and a hyper extended elbow. All caused by overly “eager” white belts with a point to prove. 

If you are a big white belt – then please don’t act like every roll with a blue belt is life or death.  Relax and treat your training partner as a training partner and not an opponent!

Ok, end of rant.

So to combat this I’m following a plan to improve my defences;  the plan helps me have focus and conserves my energy.  I allow the white belt to attack, get good positions and I work on my survival and escapes.  I’ve changed the focus of my rolls from wanting to tap someone, to trying to be efficiently unbeatable for that roll. 

I was quite surprised to see John Will blog on this very topic recently.  He made a point that having a defensive mindset for rolling is a very empowering experience.  In fact a lot of high level black belts always repeat this exact thing.

• Keith Owen on tapping 10000 times to blackbelt
• Saulo Ribeiro jiu-Jitsu University,  The first two chapters are all about about survival and escapes.

Personally, I enjoy the defensive aspect – the more you do it the more you become relaxed and still feel like you are in control..  I don’t feel I’m struggling and gassing out at all.  In fact I can keep this up for 8+ rounds – which is a record for me!

Initially I thought my focus would be on Side Control for just a week or two.  I’ve realised however that most people in my gym prefer side control to any other attacking position which means I need to spend more time working escapes.  It also means that if I want to practice mount and back defence I specifically have to ask my opponent to start from those positions.

So my average roll atm looks like this: Survive, Survive, Survive, Escape, Survive, Escape, Pass, Reversed, Survive, Escape Pass, Pass, Submit (optional).

Much better than: Stall, Stall, Pass, Attack, Attack, Attack, Stall, Stall, Attack, Exhaustion.

Dan