Higher belts with holes in your game

[machomang]

Hey guys, I'm a blue belt working my way up the ranks. I'm at this point in my game where I feel like I'm polishing up a lot of my go to techniques. I'm also incorporating new things that I never thought I'd really use (i.e. leg lasso, kiss of the dragon.) Yet, there are still so many kinds of guards and even subs that I never go for like dlr or guillotines. My wrestling and takedowns are very basic.

My question is, as a higher belt, do you guys have glaring holes or techniques that you still haven't explored? Do you have a check list of things you need to learn? What are your thoughts on this?

 

[mataleaos]

As I hit brown belt, the biggest things I felt the urge to work on were things like closed guard and mount, for example. My mentality was, "Okay. I will likely be a black belt sooner than later. I can't be a black belt and have a shitty closed guard or a shitty mount." So for me it was mostly wanting to revisit some of the things that I considered very traditional basic stuff that I wanted to make sure was solid.

I think there is a ton of unexplored technique. I don't think there should be too many "glaring holes" at
brown or black belt, but I think there are always things you're good at but still need to improve, and things that you're great at that you can get even better at.

I still hit new levels with some of my best techniques.

But definitely there are unexplored paths. I'm not a black belt yet but I often hear at black belt that people "begin" their learning. I thought that was a corny or trite thing to say. But now I do believe it's probably true.

edit: Wrestling is something I got big into at brown belt. Again, it was out of embarrassment. I didn't want to be a black belt that couldn't take people to the ground. I'm still going down the wrestling rabbit hole and it's making big improvements in my game.

 

[lechien]

Hey guys, I'm a blue belt working my way up the ranks. I'm at this point in my game where I feel like I'm polishing up a lot of my go to techniques. I'm also incorporating new things that I never thought I'd really use (i.e. leg lasso, kiss of the dragon.) Yet, there are still so many kinds of guards and even subs that I never go for like dlr or guillotines. My wrestling and takedowns are very basic.

My question is, as a higher belt, do you guys have glaring holes or techniques that you still haven't explored? Do you have a check list of things you need to learn? What are your thoughts on this?

It does not matter .

It might later in if you decide to become a teacher but like many other teachers.....you can just admit to your students that you don't do specific techniques because you just don't like them as they don't fit in your game. No shame about that .

 

[Forceof1]

Dude- BJJ is endless. You can never be good at everything, every position. Which is what makes it awesome, for me. (I'm currently a brown belt).

When I first was exposed to BJJ in 1995- there was closed guard, mount and back. Knee on belly was for punching and maybe a spinning arm bar.

Seriously- I didn't know what to do about butterfly, half guard, etc until 2004. Let alone X guard, SLX, DLR, RDLR, etc.

I only really got into the spider guards, deep half guards around 2010.

Now in the last couple of years has been the leg lock revolution. I'm a freaking white belt when it comes to 411, 50/50, etc.

Now, I can play most every guard at a rudimentary level. Some I can play at a decent - high level. But to say I'm polishing them all up is laughable. I have some guards where pretty much all I do is direct to my better positions.

This is the joy of BJJ- you will never run out of stuff to learn and improve.

 

[EGDM]

Brown belt here. The list of technical areas for improvement is nearly infinite, especially as you start to delineate between narrower and narrower scenarios. Probably the biggest "glaring hole" is my leg lock game, which I essentially ignored entirely up until now due to IBJJF rules and my history of knee injuries. Now I have to develop at least a defensive understanding of that game if only for my own safety. Outside of that, there are guards or positions that I might only execute at a blue belt level but I can mostly deny or redirect when I want to so those deficiencies are functionally irrelevant. There's also a pretty hefty list of sequences that I will avoid or concede simply due to physical limitations and injury risk.

The closer I get to "black belt", the more I realize how much of a "one size fits none" label that is.

 

[jr jr]

Depends on how you define glaring???? Holes, yes, for sure.

I don't play rubber guard but i recognize it and can shut it down on lower level players. Against a specialist? Probably not. Does that indicate I cant stop it? No. I may be able to by falling back to the fundamentals of the game.

Build strong fundamentals and all the other stuff takes care of itself.

 

[Balto]

I think a distinction needs to be made between holes vs techniques/strategies you don't use.

A hole is something you are weak at that can be easily exploited by an opponent. If you never train leg locks so you are constantly getting tapped every time someone goes for your legs, that is a clear hole.

However, if you rarely use leg locks because you prefer a more old school top pressure BJJ style instead, that is not necessarily a hole. If you're able to still impose your game on leg lock specialists, it's not a hole at that point.

Holes start to disappear around purple belt. They should be mostly gone at brown belt I believe.

Techniques/strategies that you don't personally use are going to be there forever. There is just no way to be equally strong at everything possible. Luckily it is also completely unnecessary to be so.

 

[kpoz12]

Brown Belch here. My guard passing basically consists of spazzing and flailing around really hard until they either expose on arm for me to jump on, or start to sit/stand back up at which point I can spazz on to another Kimura attack.

My training motto now is WRASSLIN' 'N' PASSIN'.

 

[machomang]

Great insight. Thanks guys, makes me feel like the path I'm going down isn't entirely wrong.

 

[Poseidon9]

Dude, you're fine.

The further you go down your BJJ journey, your game will constantly evolve. What worked for you at white or blue might not ever be utilized at purple and brown, but you will revisit those old techniques at some point with a fresh set of eyes and far more advanced mechanical understanding than when you first used them, and it will come full circle.

The techniques or strategies that fall by the wayside will be compensated for in other ways. Either these alleged "holes" will be so glaring that they demand your immediate attention, or you will become so good at avoiding those traps that it will essentially be a non-issue.

 

[dimmyfinster]

I think a distinction needs to be made between holes vs techniques/strategies you don't use.

A hole is something you are weak at that can be easily exploited by an opponent. If you never train leg locks so you are constantly getting tapped every time someone goes for your legs, that is a clear hole.

However, if you rarely use leg locks because you prefer a more old school top pressure BJJ style instead, that is not necessarily a hole. If you're able to still impose your game on leg lock specialists, it's not a hole at that point.

Holes start to disappear around purple belt. They should be mostly gone at brown belt I believe.

Techniques/strategies that you don't personally use are going to be there forever. There is just no way to be equally strong at everything possible. Luckily it is also completely unnecessary to be so.

I have a lot of holes and I think having particular holes (or alternatively particular strengths) in your game actually helps you be successful rolling all the way to upper mid level.


Basically the strengths that you want to be lopsidedly good are guard and passing. Almost all rolls start with guard or passing and they can take up 80% of the roll time.


You don't always submit from side or mount or back, but that's ok because you reset to guard or passing. You don't escape so much but escapes are hard anyway, and that's what guard retention is for.

This might be controversial, but I don't even think it's wrong. Current sport bjj curriculum are like 15% passing 15% guard 15% escapes 15% side and so on. I think beginners would get better much faster with 75% guard and passing.

 

[rmongler]

Brown Belch here. My guard passing basically consists of spazzing and flailing around really hard until they either expose on arm for me to jump on, or start to sit/stand back up at which point I can spazz on to another Kimura attack. '

My training motto now is WRASSLIN' 'N' PASSIN'.

You can combine them; the leg weave is one of the best setups for the DWL, for instance.



And you can roll them into it from almost anywhere.

 

[Uchi Mata]

Hey guys, I'm a blue belt working my way up the ranks. I'm at this point in my game where I feel like I'm polishing up a lot of my go to techniques. I'm also incorporating new things that I never thought I'd really use (i.e. leg lasso, kiss of the dragon.) Yet, there are still so many kinds of guards and even subs that I never go for like dlr or guillotines. My wrestling and takedowns are very basic.

My question is, as a higher belt, do you guys have glaring holes or techniques that you still haven't explored? Do you have a check list of things you need to learn? What are your thoughts on this?

The holes are smaller, but they're still there. I don't really have any positions I don't understand to some degree, but I certainly don't play them all equally well. I can play pretty much anything against purple belts or below, I have far fewer positions I can play successfully against good brown and black belts.

Most of what I work on now is plugging those small holes and polishing up the main stuff so it works on everyone. For example, I spend a ton of time just working on finishing mechanics because I roll with quite a bit with pro MMA fighters and they will not tap unless you lock everything in perfectly. It's not really important to be equally good in all positions, it's having a way to get to what you're good at from anywhere as well as funnel the match into positions where you excel. Really the only place where I'm still developing new capabilities that I expect to be an important part of my game is the leg lock stuff. Everything else is close to a finished product, though certainly we can always improve and get sharper.

 

[smart.feller]

If you're worried about holes in your game, focus on the defense to those holes, and get so good at your game (whatever that may be) so that you can impose that on your opponent. There really are too many different types of game to play to be an expert at all of them. I believe that a working knowledge of the positions, with an emphasis on protecting yourself and drilling the hell out of escapes is key. When I started, I had a bad problem with giving up mount, but I purposely developed a strong mount escape game and worked on mid-roll transitions that allowed me to go from being mounted into open guard top straight into leg submission attacks...you'd be surprised how shocked people are when someone goes from trying to settle into mount to finding themselves tapping before they've even stopped their motion. Whenever I experience a new guard that I'm not familiar with, my go to attack is to apply as much downward pressure as possible to limit my opponents mobility...it's my opinion that in most entanglements, space will only benefit the aggressor.

 

[Balto]

I have a lot of holes and I think having particular holes (or alternatively particular strengths) in your game actually helps you be successful rolling all the way to upper mid level.


Basically the strengths that you want to be lopsidedly good are guard and passing. Almost all rolls start with guard or passing and they can take up 80% of the roll time.


You don't always submit from side or mount or back, but that's ok because you reset to guard or passing. You don't escape so much but escapes are hard anyway, and that's what guard retention is for.

This might be controversial, but I don't even think it's wrong. Current sport bjj curriculum are like 15% passing 15% guard 15% escapes 15% side and so on. I think beginners would get better much faster with 75% guard and passing.

You sound a lot like me. I agree with you about the focus on guard passing/guard playing. That is the majority of the BJJ matches right there, and it's what makes the biggest difference.

I'm a black belt, but my escape game is not much different than when I was a blue belt. That is to say that I can escape pretty quickly against low level guys, but against more experienced guys, I am pretty much stuck there.

I don't consider that a hole because I've developed my guard to a point where it doesn't matter much anymore. I can easily roll for an entire month without ever getting my guard passed. I train with a group of other black belts pretty regularly, and they all know me as having a frustrating guard so it holds up fine among my peers. There are definitely black belts out there that can smash through it, but those guys are just on a completely different level so it's not like escapes would work on them either. As long as my guard holds up well against my peers (other middle age black belts that are doing something other than full time training), I don't think I have any need for escapes.

If I start needing to improve my escapes, I will work on them. But it hasn't happened yet so I don't see any purpose. I'd rather improve my guard from the bottom, takedowns from the top, etc. I'd rather improve what gets me into a good position that I get to a lot rather than out of a bad one that I don't even end up in anymore.

I'm not worried about the classic Rorion scenario of "What would you do if you woke up in the middle of the night and a burglar was mounted on you?" I'm not worried because 1) I can already escape white belt/blue belt level mounts quickly as it is so that's probably enough for self-defense and 2) I put an alarm system in my house, try to maintain situational awareness, etc. Basically my self-defense strategy is to hopefully detect said hypothetical burglars BEFORE they manage to mount me completely. That way I could use other strategies to prevent being mounted by some burglar in the first place.

So the fact that my escapes are relatively weak for a black belt is an example of how there are things that I don't do much that I do not consider to be holes.

 

[tekkenfan]

alot of holes you have could depend on the gym you train at either the gym has a different mentality or not enough good guys

like alot of older school gyms dont play open guard or do leg locks