Implementing your game in Jiu-Jitsu
Implementing your game in Jiu-Jitsu
Implementing your game in Jiu-Jitsu is a place where BJJ practitioners sometimes overthink. When you see an opening, you have to try it. The old BJJ philosophy comes into play here…win or learn. If you try and it works, you gain confidence to do it again. In addition, if it fails, you know you are doing something wrong and you can ask your instructor and correct it. As you get more adavnced, when you have dangerous submission holds, even the ones that don’t fully work will have an impact on your opponent. A big part of how your opponent behaves towards you in a match is how dangerous he/she perceives you to be. If your doesn’t see you as dangerous at all, they will do whatever they want with no fear of consequences. However, if you have sharp submissions they will recognize that if they ever let you go too far on a lock, the match is over. As a result, they will approach you differently in the match. If you lock on a tight submission hold on a opponent that takes him within a hair of them tapping but they just manage to slip out, I guarantee you the next time their approach will be in a cautious manner. It is important that you be able to carry a threat into a match that your opponent recognizes and respects. This will funnel their actions in other directions and allow you to control the direction of the upcoming action. In this way, the threat of submissions is almost as important in match outcomes as the their actual successful application. Here, our student Ariana puts the powerful Brian Procel under great pressure with a very strong leglock attack. It was very close, but not completed, but it had a significant impact on the rest of the session as it meant Ari could initiate all the subsequent leg attacks for the rest of the match and force Brian in other directions and possibly open up other submissions. Don’t be discouraged by submissions that almost worked but didn’t, they will still have an effect in your favor that you can exploit later in a match/fight.
