Advice From A Champion

VIA www.Goodyearbjj.com

I was reading through the new issue of Gracie Magazine and found a short article where Roger Gracie explains how he became so much better at bjj than everyone else. For those of you who do not know who Roger Gracie is I’ll tell you a bit about him so you understand why you should listen to anything he has to say about training and progressing in bjj. He has 15 world championship medals with 10 of those medals being 1st place. He is also the only competitor to win the Absolute Black Belt division at the Worlds 3x. To top that off he won his division at the 2005 ADCC submission grappling tournament submitting all 8 of his opponents-a feat that had not been previously achieved. To top it off Roger won the 2009 Mundials (Brazilian for World Championships) super heavyweight and absolute divisions by submitting every one of his opponents from mount with a simple cross choke. Most of the top bjj competitors consider Roger to be one of the, if not the, best bjj competitor of all time.

Now that we have introductions out of the way we will dive back into the main point of this article:

The first thing Roger spoke about was the importance of defense and watching how your opponent uses his defense. If you watch any of Rogers matches you will see he can escape any position making him impossible to submit (Although Roger has a few losses in tournaments he has never been submitted in a BJJ competition). He also explains that whenever he competes or spars he pays particular attention to his opponents defense against his attacks. If his opponent effectively uses a move to stop his attacks repeatedly he takes note of that technique and will incorporate it into his own bjj game. This is a really interesting concept in bjj since most of us do not think in this way. Most of the time when a competitor finds their attack is not working they quickly decide that the move does not work at a high level of competition or completely focus on figuring out another attack. If you could instead focus on what your opponent was doing to block your attack you could start using it in your own game and become instantly better than you were. If all of us focused in this way we would learn a lot quicker and have a much better understanding of jiu jitsu. Roger also does this with his opponents attacks. Every time his opponent manages to break through his defense he tries to take note of the move his opponent did. He will then incorporate that attack into his game increasing his repertoire. This is also the exact opposite of how most of us train. In general when an opponent breaks through our defense we focus 100% on trying to figure out how to make our defense better rather than trying to learn the technique used to defeat our defense. I am by no means saying you should not try to increase your defense but I am saying you should try to learn the attack used against you while trying to increase your defense so you can kill two birds with one stone and learn quicker.

The second major point Roger made was about understanding technique. Many bjj practitioners learn the movements without questioning how they work or trying to gain a better understanding. It is very easy to collect tons of movements in your game, but know very little about each. Learning a technique by watching it is very useful and allows you to learn the gross motor movements, but it is the fine motor movements that can’t be seen by the naked eye that make the move truly work. The competitors that always submit people with the same submission are true examples of this. If you look at Roger’s victories in the 2009 Mundials, where he submitted every opponent with the same submission from mount, you have to wonder how every person could fall prey to the same attack. The reason he was able to put on that performance is he had such a deep understanding of the movement he could finish it no matter what defense his opponent used. He knew exactly how to position his hands, where to place his hips, and how to apply the pressure at all times. I truly feel this is the way to learn bjj rather than focusing on just the major mechanical movements. You need to look into every move and try to understand every little facet of that movement.

The last good point Roger made was that patience is the key to success in bjj. This is true on multiple levels. BJJ is a martial art that takes a long time to truly learn and master. If you do not have patience you will never make it to black belt. Patience is also very important in competition and sparring. If you get into a bad position and freak out you will almost always get submitted. It is important to stay calm and focus on what your opponent is doing. By staying calm you will be able to see the instant your opponent makes a mistake and launch your escape.

The next time you train try to keep the above advice in your mind and see if you start improving at a quicker rate than ever before. Good luck in your training.

(Source: goodyearbjj.com)

Jan

11

2011

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Becoming a Giant killer…

David vs Goliath. Overcoming in jiu-jitsu what seems impossible or just really hard to do. Beating the guys that weigh 230lbs and above, the extreme aboves! We have all probably seen one or several accounts of the the David vs Goliath match ups at local BJJ tournaments. And they’re always a spectacle.  Everyone wants to see David SLAY Goliath everytime. And why not? Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu was made for the smaller weaker people. I think this is partly why the Absolutes of tournaments are so compelling.

So what does this mean to me. Well if you have been following my blog you will remember  I competed

at the World Pro Trials in Florida this winter. While I won my division, I went to compete in the Absolute  won my first 2 matches and lost to a very guy big guy. I was overwhelmed by his sheer size, I remember being steam rolled, and I did not like that one bit. He literally grabbed me pushed me back, until I fell on my butt into half guard. Real quick, half guard is not a good place to be in with a man over 240 on top.

I came away from this tournament with a sour taste in my mouth. Not because I had lost, but because of how I lost, my desire to be great and become a World Champion not only in my division but in the Absolutes had made me absolutely crazy about beating the HUGE guy in the division.

Over the past few months I have been tweaking my game to beat these guys. And to do that I have been watching of course regular sized guys vs big guys. My favorites are

I get to see what works and what doesnt work. The trend that I see the most is that the little guys play a different game then what they would against a smaller opponent. Like you can see Tarsis do a drop seio nagi in the video but you never see him do that against anyone else. Not to say that the drop seio isnt one of the single greatest throws in judo, but Tarsis plays a little different. 

And I have noticed that about my self and my progreess vs big guys. I play different. Passing changes, Playing guard changes, being mounted is probably not good, getting side mount is different. The way you escape bad positions will significantly improve if you can escape big guys, why because everything you go there is pressure or a stomach overlapping your leg. Everything changes. I want to be the absolute champion everywhere I go. And in order to do that you gotta beat the big guys, have great technical ability, and be in tremendous shape. These are all things I am figuring out and as the new season of grappling approaches, I will be ready to take on Goliath with a good performance unlike the last time.And this is not to say that these big guys arent good, theyre just as good if not better, but they also have an attribute based advantage on us, sort of like the guy in your school who is flexible, had long legs, or is stupid strong and he is never in the gym and is always eating fast food like this kid Jamestown in our gym. These guys are a challenge for me! Ossssssss

Act as if it were impossible to fail. - Dorthy Broude

Jul

26

2010

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