Chasing perfection in your Jiu-Jitsu technique

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Chasing perfection in your Jiu-Jitsu technique is a path to both heaven and hell. The closer you get, the better your performance. It can come at a heavy price however, the desire for perfection can paralyze action when athletes keep waiting for that perfect opportunity for the perfect technique that just never arrives, or hold back from trying a move for fear that it won’t be perfect. Make sure the chase for perfection plays a positive role in your development rather than a negative one. Relentlessly pursue ideal form in drilling and do your best to replicate that sense of perfection in sparring and competition, but temper this with the understanding that it doesn’t need to be perfect – just better than your opponents ability to defend it – so don’t hang back when the time comes – go into the technique with confidence!

The week before your Jiu-Jitsu competition

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The week before your Jiu-Jitsu competition

The week before your Jiu-Jitsu competition you have nothing but time. There is always a short time before the your next competition where your physical work is complete and now you have to wait to step up to the challenge. In that time, keep your message to yourself simple and clear. Don’t let complexity dull your direction now. Every match has a simple theme running through it so keep your mind on that theme. Victory in any given match up will come from adherence to one or two simple ideas that give you advantage over your opponent. For example, if you have a speed advantage over him, focus your thoughts on how speed can bring victory. See yourself as initiating action and moving away from threats with your speed. Picture your passing using methods where speed is a factor, such as toreando/bullfight passes. In bottom position, visualize yourself in open guards that allow speed of movement, rather than slower positions such as half guard or closed guard. When the action is close keep your thoughts simple and clear and the path to victory will be shorter and clearer!

Isolating a limb in Jiu-Jitsu

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Isolating a limb in Jiu-Jitsu

Isolating a limb in Jiu-Jitsu can be very beneficial to winning. Here’s my idea on your whole body versus their one limb: One of the essential principles of BJJ is to create temporary physical advantage by seeking to use their strength of your entire body against a single isolated limb of an opponent. The idea is simple but profound. An opponents whole body may well be stronger than your whole body – but one of his legs or one of his arms is certainly not stronger than your whole body. If you can create a temporary strength advantage over an important part of your opponent’s body – a knee, an elbow, a neck – then you can overcome an overall strength disadvantage by creating a temporary localized strength advantage in your favor and you can hold it long enough to end a match. This is one of the theoretical underpinnings of Jiu-Jitsu – make it the centerpiece of your approach to the game

Controlling your opponents movement in Jiu-Jitsu

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Controlling your opponents movement in Jiu-Jitsu

Controlling your opponents movement in Jiu-Jitsu is one of the most important aspects of your BJJ game. There are many forms of physical control in Jiu-Jitsu – positional control, balance control, grip control – the list is long; but the single most important form of physical control is control over an opponent’s movement. If you can achieve this, victory is just a matter of time. What you will find is that control over an opponent’s movement is really the sum of all the other forms of control added together. It is the final ideal of control that you must seek.

Committing to a move in Jiu-Jitsu

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Committing to a move in Jiu-Jitsu

Committing to a move In Jiu-Jitsu is essential to victory.: In BJJ, moves that almost worked don’t count. A move has to be taken from start to completion if it is to have an impact on the match. Timidity is thus not a virtue when performing moves against resistance. Even if you are using a move to set up another, there has to be sufficient commitment to its application to get a real reaction out of your opponent to set up the following move. Going into a move half heartedly actually makes you quite vulnerable to a counterattack since you have to sacrifice your defensive elements in order to enter into offense. If the opponent is not threatened by your move he can simply counter attack in the middle of it and easily score. So when it’s time to go – GO!! Enter the move with positive force and then you’ll have a much better chance of success. Don’t hang back and second guess yourself – now is the time to believe in the skills you’ve worked so hard on and go in with commitment

Off Balancing your opponent in BJJ

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Off Balancing your opponent in BJJ

Off Balancing your opponent in BJJ is one of the keys to good guard play. If your opponent is out of balance then being under their weight is no impediment to you. If you can interrupt their balance there is nothing they can do to you until their balance is recovered – and in that brief time there is a LOT you can do to them. Once you get a grip on your opponent, step one is to attack their balance – everything else you plan to do becomes easier when you start with this.

Jiu-Jitsu doesn’t have to be perfect, just on time

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Jiu-Jitsu doesn’t have to be perfect, just on time

Jiu-Jitsu doesn’t have to be perfect, just on time. that is a great quote from the book Jiu-Jitsu university by Saulo Ribeiro. Some moves come naturally…others…not so much: I’m sure you’ve had the pleasant experience of learning a new move and everything just felt smooth and natural from the start and within a short timeframe you were applying the move successfully in sparring against good people. I’m equally sure that you’ve had the unpleasant experience of learning a new move and feeling like it’s damn near impossible for you to even demonstrate it satisfactorily forget about employ it on a fully resisting opponent. Don’t get too discouraged by this. I’ve had plenty of moves that initially felt absolutely hopeless when I first learned them. My experience was that typically persistence brought the level of these difficult-to-learn moves up to a satisfactory level. They never felt like a favorite move but they were good enough to get reactions out of opponents and lead into my favorite moves – and that’s good enough to make the struggle to learn them worthwhile! Remember – a your execution of a given move doesn’t have to be perfect to be effective. It only has to be better than your opponents ability to defend it. An imperfect move often slips past an imperfect defense

Jiu-Jitsu starts with a plan

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Jiu-Jitsu starts with a plan

Jiu-Jitsu starts with a plan. Start with a plan: Every time you come toward your opponent from a neutral position there are myriad opportunities for both of you. One possible approach is to let your opponent initiate and react to that. Many athletes do very well with that approach. I generally prefer to see athletes take a more proactive approach, particularly in matches with a shorter time limit. Map your plan out BEFORE you make contact and you’ll have an immediate sense of direction that will put you in the drivers seat from the start. Of course you’ll still need to be able to adapt and improvise in response to rapidly changing circumstances since we never know exactly how an opponent will respond to our moves, but as a general rule it’s better to have an opponent of equal size and skill level reacting to you than rather than you to him, especially in matches of shorter duration

 

Martial Arts is not a pastime, it’s a way of life

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Martial Arts is not a pastime, it’s a way of life

My good friend said that Martial Arts is not a pastime, it’s a way of life. Thankfully, I’ve never had to say that Martial Arts is something I used to do. Admittedly, the only important endeavor in my life I ever gave up on was my marriage, and although I’ve made the best of that decision, there’s still a part of me deep inside that knows I was the one who gave in and stopped doing my best. I told myself I’m no longer in love with my wife. But the truth was that I no longer wanted to do the things necessary to stay in love with my wife. I think our martial arts practice is very similar. At the beginning of our journey, everything seems so new and exciting, and we put lots of effort into practice and gradually things seem mundane and less exciting so we stop trying as hard and, inevitably like my marriage, we tell ourselves we’re bored, or we have other things that get in the way. And like me, instead of reaffirming our commitment and efforts we quit never really understanding that the answer to staying in love with martial arts is to love the martial arts. To continue to work hard and reignite our passion every time we come to the dojo. For me and my marriage it’s too late, but for you and your journey to black belt and beyond, you always have a chance to stay in love with the martial arts. The answer always has been and always will be showing up to class, regardless of how you may feel and training with focus and diligence.

written by Renzo Gracie blackbelt Gene Dunn

Story of the boy with a bad temper

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Story of the boy with a bad temper

Story of the boy with a bad temper.
There once was a little boy who had a bad temper. His father gave him a bag of nails and told him that every time he lost his temper, he must hammer a nail into the back of the fence.
The first day the boy had driven 37 nails into the fence. Over the next few weeks, as he learned to control his anger, the number of nails hammered daily gradually dwindled down. He discovered it was easier to hold his temper than to drive those nails into the fence.
Finally the day came when the boy didn’t lose his temper at all. He told his father about it and the father suggested that the boy now pull out one nail for each day that he was able to hold his temper. The days passed and the young boy was finally able to tell his father that all the nails were gone.
The father took his son by the hand and led him to the fence. He said, “You have done well, my son, but look at the holes in the fence. The fence will never be the same. When you say things in anger, they leave a scar just like this one. You can put a knife in a man and draw it out. It won’t matter how many times you say I’m sorry, the wound is still there.”
The little boy then understood how powerful his words were. He looked up at his father and said “I hope you can forgive me father for the holes I put in you.”
“Of course I can,” said the father.
It’s not always anger, it is your actions in general. There are no “fresh starts” in life. There is no new beginning. Forgiveness comes easy for many people but the scars of the past, they never go away. Watch what you do today, because sometimes the price isn’t worth the reward.