I lost my believe in bjj

[Dirty Holt]

The problem is that good standup grappling simply does not happen without complex and highly artificial rulesets that force the action.

Why is it highly artificial? Just like scoring on the ground with passes and sweeps, takedowns are a natural progression of positional dominance from neutral standing.

Engaging athletes from neutral is very easy and should be done like it is on the ground. It doesnt make stalling calls any more difficult or contrived than they already are compared to ground combat.

I agree with Lechien. It is sad to see adult blackbelts on my team get fucking tooled up on their feet by 13 year old wrestlers that I coach who I bring in to watch practice before private lessons.

 

[Uchi Mata]

Start training grappling for MMA. It provides a lot of incentive to learn good TDs/TD defense. Since I started thinking more about fighting and (down the line) training fighters I've pretty much lost interest in the BJJ competition scene.

You could make a pretty good case that the best jiu jitsu guy in the world is actually Demian Maia. Just sayin.

 

[trustdoesntrust]

IBJJF rules are the worst. Pulling guard is the much smarter play since there's no penalty for it, and you can sweep and be up two points (or an advantage for a "near-sweep"). A guy with good wrestling/judo gets no points if his opponent concedes the takedown, or if his opponent turtles off the takedown. Guys can stall on the feet, but the top player will be penalized if he stalls on the ground (and the ground player can creatively use his guard to stall). All this completely disincentivizes going for takedowns, which disincentivizes practicing takedowns. Even the best top players of this generation, like Lo, Lepri, Rodolfo, etc. commonly pull guard at the start of the match.

 

[trustdoesntrust]

The problem is that good standup grappling simply does not happen without complex and highly artificial rulesets that force the action.

I recall watching Saulo in the Mundials work standup. He has excellent judo, but looked like shit, super boring and defensive grappling, wanted to claw my eyes out from boredom. And you see this from many guys.

If we want better standup matches in BJJ comp, it will have to be by creating and using HIGHLY artificial rules. Many BJJ guys don't get this because it is antithetical to the BJJ ideal. But things like forcing takedown attempts, penalizing inactivity and false attempts, penalizing defensive moves/grips. And penalizing guard pulls, perhaps later in the match, perhaps earlier, so you are incentivized to attack early.

Of course that would look a lot more like judo, but if that's basically what you want to see--judo/wrestling portions of a match--it's inevitable.

I think you only need one rule:
+1 point to the other guy for pulling guard, unless you pull guard directly into a sweep (as soon as your pulled guard breaks without a sweep the penalty is assessed). Then just make the criteria for scoring a takedown less narrow (forcing a turtle = 2 points). Not only will you see better standup, but there will be more aggressive ground work since the guy on bottom will have to score to get back his points.

 

[fanboysareevil]

I think you only need one rule:
+1 point to the other guy for pulling guard, unless you pull guard directly into a sweep (as soon as your pulled guard breaks without a sweep the penalty is assessed). Then just make the criteria for scoring a takedown less narrow (forcing a turtle = 2 points). Not only will you see better standup, but there will be more aggressive ground work since the guy on bottom will have to score to get back his points.

The moment you implement this, BJJ comp at high levels turns into a TD contest.

 

[Zankou]

Why is it highly artificial? Just like scoring on the ground with passes and sweeps, takedowns are a natural progression of positional dominance from neutral standing.

Engaging athletes from neutral is very easy and should be done like it is on the ground. It doesnt make stalling calls any more difficult or contrived than they already are compared to ground combat.

I agree with Lechien. It is sad to see adult blackbelts on my team get fucking tooled up on their feet by 13 year old wrestlers that I coach who I bring in to watch practice before private lessons.

Artificial rules, because it requires an assload of special rules to force the action. Not because takedowns are artificial ... I agree they are a natural progression in a fighting sequence. The problem is that if you don't have a fairly sophisticated ruleset that actively forces the TD action into aggressive engagements then you get to watch people grip fight each other for 20 minutes straight, interrupted by periodic fake foot sweeps.

People have the idea that just being good at takedowns and then fighting on your feet is enough to generate great standup battles. It's not. Even very good takedown guys often look like shit in BJJ standup because BJJ standup rules make it beneficial to stall and grip fight like a motherfucker from defensive posture, trying to wait/force for a mistake to capitalize on, just as you would see in judo if the rules allowed that. Relatively weak players can easily sit there until a stronger opponent overextends/exhausts themself, counter, and get the points.

Stalling is almost never called on the ground in BJJ anyways. I wish it was, but you rarely see it. Partly this is because the nature of ground positioning is more slow and incremental, such that people accept that you might have two minutes of slowly working the same grinding positional attack, and that this has some bearing on a real fighting situations, as opposed to a 2 minute kumikata exercise.

 

[trustdoesntrust]

The moment you implement this, BJJ comp at high levels turns into a TD contest.

Then don't give 2 points for a sweep if you pulled guard to get there (unless the sweep was directly off the guard pull). If you're going to have BJJ matches start standing, then the guy who concedes the takedown should be penalized for it, not rewarded.

 

[BJJ_Rage]

Artificial rules, because it requires an assload of special rules to force the action. Not because takedowns are artificial ... I agree they are a natural progression in a fighting sequence. The problem is that if you don't have a fairly sophisticated ruleset that actively forces the TD action into aggressive engagements then you get to watch people grip fight each other for 20 minutes straight, interrupted by periodic fake foot sweeps.

People have the idea that just being good at takedowns and then fighting on your feet is enough to generate great standup battles. It's not. Even very good takedown guys often look like shit in BJJ standup because BJJ standup rules make it beneficial to stall and grip fight like a motherfucker from defensive posture, trying to wait/force for a mistake to capitalize on, just as you would see in judo if the rules allowed that. Relatively weak players can easily sit there until a stronger opponent overextends/exhausts themself, counter, and get the points.

Stalling is almost never called on the ground in BJJ anyways. I wish it was, but you rarely see it. Partly this is because the nature of ground positioning is more slow and incremental, such that people accept that you might have two minutes of slowly working the same grinding positional attack, and that this has some bearing on a real fighting situations, as opposed to a 2 minute kumikata exercise.

White the best wrestlers are no at adcc, adcc 2015 proved that if you want stand up battles, you have to have stalling calls, other ways it turns into the travesty last adcc was

 

[Uchi Mata]

Artificial rules, because it requires an assload of special rules to force the action. Not because takedowns are artificial ... I agree they are a natural progression in a fighting sequence. The problem is that if you don't have a fairly sophisticated ruleset that actively forces the TD action into aggressive engagements then you get to watch people grip fight each other for 20 minutes straight, interrupted by periodic fake foot sweeps.

People have the idea that just being good at takedowns and then fighting on your feet is enough to generate great standup battles. It's not. Even very good takedown guys often look like shit in BJJ standup because BJJ standup rules make it beneficial to stall and grip fight like a motherfucker from defensive posture, trying to wait/force for a mistake to capitalize on, just as you would see in judo if the rules allowed that. Relatively weak players can easily sit there until a stronger opponent overextends/exhausts themself, counter, and get the points.

Stalling is almost never called on the ground in BJJ anyways. I wish it was, but you rarely see it. Partly this is because the nature of ground positioning is more slow and incremental, such that people accept that you might have two minutes of slowly working the same grinding positional attack, and that this has some bearing on a real fighting situations, as opposed to a 2 minute kumikata exercise.

Artificial with respect to what though? The positional hierarchy that exists in BJJ is supposed to be connected to actual fighting, and in actual fighting getting or conceding the takedown is no small thing. Generally the TD is pursued with great urgency. As such, creating rules to replicate that urgency is less artificial in terms of connecting BJJ competition (and thus the way people train) to fighting. It's only artificial in reference to what people will do without strikes or negative points for sitting on their asses when they're expert ground fighters with limited or no standup ability. Which I would argue is a pretty artificial skill set to possess in reference to the 'martial' part of 'martial arts'.

 

[Zankou]

Maybe I wasn't clear: I simply meant artificial as in the product of artifice, of conscious and complex structuring to create a result, rather than (as usually seems to be pictured) some sort of attitudinal shift.

The amount of conscious calculation, experimentation, and deliberation that has gone into the current judo ruleset boggles the mind. It requires a relatively sophisticated apparatus of training refs to get it to work. And people still debate it furiously---plus the ruleset is borderline incomprehensible for many players because so complex. There seems to be an impression that BJJ comps can have great standup by somehow being 'more real' or 'training takedowns' or some nonsense. Shortcutting the type of sustained effort and compromises involved in the judo ruleset.

If people want real standup to form a more credible part of BJJ competition, then they need to embrace the reality of a complex, sophisticated ruleset that specifically governs takedowns. Shit needs to be *real*. And yet all I ever see are weak point proposals, or lame exhortations, which is like proposing that you conquer an enemy nation by 'attacking them hard, with bravery.'

Not only am I not criticizing the creation of a detailed new ruleset governing takedowns, I am affirmatively in favor of it. I think it would be great if somebody developed it for BJJ. What I'm criticizing is the lazy idea that this is some sort of moral/attitude/training problem, when in reality it can only be addressed by positive, detailed, intelligent work on developing new rulesets for competition. Understanding that choices and compromises are inherent in any ruleset.

 

[trustdoesntrust]

White the best wrestlers are no at adcc, adcc 2015 proved that if you want stand up battles, you have to have stalling calls, other ways it turns into the travesty last adcc was

It seemed like the biggest problem with the last ADCC was the extremely narrow criteria for scoring a takedown, far narrower than in amateur wrestling or judo. Guys were constantly turtling to avoid the TD points, often being fully taken down then forcing their way to turtle before the opponent could settle the position. I think it was the Keenan-Calasans match where Calasans hit a vicious osoto-gari that was not scored because Keenan scrambled back up after being thrown. That would have been an ippon in judo.

 

[BJJ_Rage]

It seemed like the biggest problem with the last ADCC was the extremely narrow criteria for scoring a takedown, far narrower than in amateur wrestling or judo. Guys were constantly turtling to avoid the TD points, often being fully taken down then forcing their way to turtle before the opponent could settle the position. I think it was the Keenan-Calasans match where Calasans hit a vicious osoto-gari that was not scored because Keenan scrambled back up after being thrown. That would have been an ippon in judo.

that also, then again, orlando sanchez literally won all of his matches but one without scoring a single point, hell he didnt even score a single td or close to one... it was really really hard to watch a bitch slapping contest for 10 minutes let alone 20...

 

[ijustwannasurf]

In my opinion, there's a big nurture element to this paradigm. What you emphasize to white belts really does matter- if you instill a respect for the takedown game at an early stage, they will carry that with them throughout their career regardless of the rulesets they compete under.
On the flip side, if you raise your young belts on tales of advantages and lapel work, their games will reflect that.

 

[lechien]

Train how you want it. Compete by their rule set.

That is the problem.
I don't like BJJ or Judo rules.

I would like to take parts of both styles.

No boring or total lack of Stan up and unlimited ground.

 

[berimBOWLoh]

its ok, BJJ doesnt believe in you, either.

 

[lechien]

The problem is that good standup grappling simply does not happen without complex and highly artificial rulesets that force the action.

I recall watching Saulo in the Mundials work standup. He has excellent judo, but looked like shit, super boring and defensive grappling, wanted to claw my eyes out from boredom. And you see this from many guys.

If we want better standup matches in BJJ comp, it will have to be by creating and using HIGHLY artificial rules. Many BJJ guys don't get this because it is antithetical to the BJJ ideal. But things like forcing takedown attempts, penalizing inactivity and false attempts, penalizing defensive moves/grips. And penalizing guard pulls, perhaps later in the match, perhaps earlier, so you are incentivized to attack early.

Of course that would look a lot more like judo, but if that's basically what you want to see--judo/wrestling portions of a match--it's inevitable.

I would not go as far as banning guard pull. At least someone is trying something.

I just completed the ibjjf referee course and they basically have nothing much about stalling in the tachi waza part.
Even if they have something about it, it is poorly implemented by the referree. I watched matches where nothing happens for more than 75% of the match until the referee starts penalising

 

[Zankou]

In my opinion, there's a big nurture element to this paradigm. What you emphasize to white belts really does matter- if you instill a respect for the takedown game at an early stage, they will carry that with them throughout their career regardless of the rulesets they compete under.
On the flip side, if you raise your young belts on tales of advantages and lapel work, their games will reflect that.

This is exactly what I don't believe in. Fundamentals start with making the rules matter relative to the desired results. Any time you are relying on extrinsic culture to teach what doesn't matter for competitions, you are taking the easy way out, and the results are meager.

People substitute exercises in wish fulfillment and vague exhortatory proclamations for detailed structural changes that deliver measurable results. "I want awesome standup exchanges and awesome ground exchanges" is meaningless verbiage unless you can define the specific conditions under which successful competitors will work to make that happen.

There are a lot of reasons for this, but as I say one of the biggest is that BJJ guys don't want to stomach the idea of creating a complicated ruleset that forces good standup exchanges. They just want it to like, happen somehow, because we collectively raise our consciousness. Like Communism or something, the revolution is going to come through the Hegelian logos working its way through history, in some vague sense that nobody really understands.

 

[Zankou]

I would not go as far as banning guard pull. At least someone is trying something.

I just completed the ibjjf referee course and they basically have nothing much about stalling in the tachi waza part.
Even if they have something about it, it is poorly implemented by the referree. I watched matches where nothing happens for more than 75% of the match until the referee starts penalising

Yeah it's heinous. That's why I say you need a real overhaul of the rules and of the reffing. Theoretically BJJ has stalling calls, but outside of ADCC pro (in the gi, not nogi) they are like the goddamn unicorn.

Compare it to the reffing you see even at the local judo kids tournaments here, and it's night and day. If you aren't genuinely attacking, you get lit up with shidos after 10-20 seconds. False attacks without a prospect of success don't count... you get penalized for those too.

Again, people don't realize how hard it is to legitimately force the action. There's just no mechanism or reffing culture in place in BJJ to do it.

 

[trustdoesntrust]

that also, then again, orlando sanchez literally won all of his matches but one without scoring a single point, hell he didnt even score a single td or close to one... it was really really hard to watch a bitch slapping contest for 10 minutes let alone 20...

Sanchez was punishing Vinny Maghales in turtle their whole match. I don't think he really wanted or needed to do anything else to win, but certainly one wonders why Vinny didn't just concede the two points and try to catch something from bottom. But yes, Orlando's final match against Jared Dopp was brutal to watch. Orlando may have gotten a couple of near takedowns, but I can't remember. Either way, the point is true: there is no grappling ruleset in the world with a TD scoring criteria anywhere close to as strict as ADCC. Even those African giant combat wrestling things end as soon as somebody's knee hits the ground.

 

[lechien]

Then change the competition rules. No one will improve at an aspect of competition that is completely optional.

That is the conclusion I came too.

Only if I won the lottery.
Quit my job and spend the next 10 year creating the perfect rules and implementing them.