Is it wrong to consistantly train your strengths during competition-based sparring?

[DaRuckus337]

It's wrong because he totally avoids the issue of his weaknesses. It's wrong in the context of training BJJ, it is wrong in so many aspects. There is a reason why BJJ Black Belts are well rounded in almost every single position there is. His closed mindset and sparring attitude will only limited his progression in the sport of BJJ.

If you got a chance to see the second part of my post, you'd see I agree with you on this. The point I am trying to make is a counter to all those who think a vast majority of your time on the mat should be spent working on weaknesses. I think focusing too much on weaker parts of your game causes your original strengths to atrophy, which can bite you in the ass if you plan on competing regularly. Certainly, everyone should always try to become as well rounded as possible, and unquestionably, the only way to do that is to put time into improving where you are weakest, but there is absolutely nothing wrong with spending a good portion of your live rolling working on those techniques and strategies that you rely on in live competitions. Part of training is training how you plan on competing - especially in the live roll - so a wrestler who often (not always) works an escape-and-scramble bottom game should not necessarily be labeled stubborn, an ego-case, or a wrestler who refuses to play bjj in bjj class.

 

[Col. Angus]

Allow me to introduce this thread by saying that I am a wrestler... not a spaz.

I am sick of Jius telling me to "relax" or "flow with the go."

This is not to say that I train with any form of ego or implement any kind of mallicious intent, but I do go hard. I shoot for doubles, I elevate people (laying them down gently of course), and I like to initiate scrambles. Positioning is my fortay.

Now when I'm sparring, I do like to push the action. You know, actually turn the situation into an athletic endevour. When I'm on bottom, I prefer to create frames, disengage from my opponent, and then implement my wrestling. And I go easier on newer people, just like anyone would in any sport.

I feel that in Wrestling, people train how they need to, and in Jiu-Jitsu, people train how they like.

Question of Thread: Is it wrong to be physically forceful in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu?

If you want to wrestle, join a wrestling club. If you want to do jiu-jitsu, go to jiu-jitsu class. How fucking complicated is that?

 

[Zankou]

Why does someone have to specialize on your type of bottom game? Why does someone have to devote all their time to "learn as much as possible about the bottom game?" What if they want to work on their top game, and ways of re-establishing it after a sweep or takedown? If a wrestler has spent 10 years honing a certain skillset they are comfortable and effective with, theres no reason for them to avoid using it. Certainly, developing a well-rounded game is important and some time playing guard would be advised, but there is nothing wrong with drilling your competition game on a regular basis if competition is what is important to you. If create-space-and-escape is your best type of bottom game, it is fine to train it. BJJ =/= guard play, and there is no reason training should only involve working on your weaknesses. Your strengths will not stay strengths if you don't continually hone them.

Now, it seems like the TS is a bit unwilling to work on anything but his strengths, and he seems dead-set on hard-roll wrestling all the time, but although this may be unwise because it will ultimately limit him (and irritate his training partners if he doesn't learn to communicate with them), there is nothing wrong with being a strong wrestler in a bjj class and using it to your advantage on a regular basis.

Depends on your interest. Lots of wrestlers come in and develop a strong competitive game relatively quickly, focused on their strengths. But achieving black belt level? There's no shortcuts. You can't just have a narrow tournament game and be unable to function outside of that narrow game at at a high level.

Guard is the heart and soul of BJJ, and I can't think of anybody at the top who doesn't have an ace guard. You want to be Marcelo, Roger, Jacare, Robson? Then be them.

I do think it's a good idea to develop an A game and work it on a regular basis. In competition, work your strengths. But it has to be matched with a willingness to develop your B, C, D, and F games on a regular basis. Otherwise you end up in the common scenario of that guy who has gigantic holes in his game, and can't fix them.

 

[Deloitte]

Depends on your interest. Lots of wrestlers come in and develop a strong competitive game relatively quickly, focused on their strengths. But achieving black belt level? There's no shortcuts. You can't just have a narrow tournament game and be unable to function outside of that narrow game at at a high level.

Guard is the heart and soul of BJJ, and I can't think of anybody at the top who doesn't have an ace guard. You want to be Marcelo, Roger, Jacare, Robson? Then be them.

I do think it's a good idea to develop an A game and work it on a regular basis. In competition, work your strengths. But it has to be matched with a willingness to develop your B, C, D, and F games on a regular basis. Otherwise you end up in the common scenario of that guy who has gigantic holes in his game, and can't fix them.

I agree learning conventional guards like open and closed are the heart of BJJ and are essential to learning the mechanics of the bottom game. From there feel free to expand your bottom game after learning the fundamentals.

 

[DaRuckus337]

I hear you Zankou. As a wrestler, I know my guard needs work. But I have been in the midsts of a 6-month guard passing project, and I feel like that's my number 1 priority right now. It's my priority because when it comes to bjj, I don't have a 'dominant' game of any kind yet. I want to be able to pass purple belts (I'm getting there now), brown belts (this does not happen often), and black belts (I don't know that I've ever done it without being allowed to). I want to feel both safe and dangerous on top, and I don't want to stop spending the majority of my time on it until I feel like it has become a place where I truly feel dominant and in control, no matter who the opponent is. Once I have developed this type of 'go-to game', I will feel more compelled to devote large amounts of training time to really developing a more versatile guard (as of now, I basically have nothing but a triangle and a few solid sweeps that work on anyone above new blue belts).

I guess, as you said, it comes down to what a person's goals are, but for me, I know I want to develop at least one aspect of my game that I have complete confidence in (ie. a real 'A' game) before I start devoting a large percentage of my time to weaker, less used aspects (my B, C, D games). Maybe I should try and develop everything together at the same pace and at the same time, but I fear that this will limit my ability to compete effectively, and will ultimately make me a bit of a mediocre jack-of-no-trades.

I guess the question I would pose is: Is it really worthwhile to spend lots of training time developing the weakest aspects of your game when the strongest aspects of your game have not even been sufficiently developed to compete with the better guys in the gym/tournaments you go to?

 

[Deloitte]

I hear you Zankou. As a wrestler, I know my guard needs work. But I have been in the midsts of a 6-month guard passing project, and I feel like that's my number 1 priority right now. It's my priority because when it comes to bjj, I don't have a 'dominant' game of any kind yet. I want to be able to pass purple belts (I'm getting there now), brown belts (this does not happen often), and black belts (I don't know that I've ever done it without being allowed to). I want to feel both safe and dangerous on top, and I don't want to stop spending the majority of my time on it until I feel like it has become a place where I truly feel dominant and in control, no matter who the opponent is. Once I have developed this type of 'go-to game', I will feel more compelled to devote large amounts of training time to really developing a more versatile guard (as of now, I basically have nothing but a triangle and a few solid sweeps that work on anyone above new blue belts).

I guess, as you said, it comes down to what a person's goals are, but for me, I know I want to develop at least one aspect of my game that I have complete confidence in (ie. a real 'A' game) before I start devoting a large percentage of my time to weaker, less used aspects (my B, C, D games). Maybe I should try and develop everything together at the same pace and at the same time, but I fear that this will limit my ability to compete effectively, and will ultimately make me a bit of a mediocre jack-of-no-trades.

I guess the question I would pose is: Is it really worthwhile to spend lots of training time developing the weakest aspects of your game when the strongest aspects of your game have not even been sufficiently developed to compete with the better guys in the gym/tournaments you go to?

Your situation is different, and is exactly how I trained. I spent my white belt days working 75% on guard passing since I came from a wrestling background. When I turned blue belt I focused 75% on open guard. However, the TS's situation is completely different and seems completely closed minded.

 

[TEYHAUSEN]

It's good for me when stronger, wrestler types really put a lot of force and power behind their moves against me because it teaches me how to react to that, since in most probability, it is how a situation would go with an angry attacker. So for me it's good and helps with the push-pull thought process of using momentum to my favor, say for a sweep. And I'll go out on a limb and say that in events like ADCC where it's not only jiu-jitsu guys, you could face this type of situation.

For you however, as the aggressor, I could point out two main disadvantages of always training this way;

1. You're relying on muscle, power or speed to get the dominant position or sub instead of using technique, leverage or timing. Hence, when you are put against someone as quick or as strong as you, you've got little technique to neutralize them or gain the dominant position and there is always someone bigger and stronger out there.(there are no weight classes in the real world. I'm not really sure what you're training for)

2. You will gas very quickly when put up against someone who's neutralizing your wrestling through technique. In a competition with rounds and time limits you might not notice it, but in a situation with no time limits or rounds and you're strength and speed deteriorate rapidly by the minute.

Hope this helps and I would agree with what another poster said about asking your partner how hard they want you to go. I'm curious as to what your teacher has said when you've brought this up. I would take their advice. Perhaps he wants his other students to learn how to neutralize wrestlers as yourself and develop solid takedown defense.

 

[armtriangle]

I guess the question I would pose is: Is it really worthwhile to spend lots of training time developing the weakest aspects of your game when the strongest aspects of your game have not even been sufficiently developed to compete with the better guys in the gym/tournaments you go to?

i tend to agree. wait till you run into a better wrestler though, you will be totally helpless, where as some of your bottom dwelling partners migh have answers fro him. You have to find what works for you though. i personally used to never ever work off bottom, i would just quarter, sit out and get back on top. but right now i am swallowing my pride and only working on bottom. ONLY.

the other problem with developing a dominant top game with almost no bottom game is that you will still get promoted (if you at a traditional gi place). then youll be wearing a purple belt and getting smoked by white belts and it will be difficult to check your ego and go back to the drawing board.

 

[Zankou]

You raise an interesting question DaRuckus. I'm not really sure there is a right answer. I think it's important to take one or two areas and focus on them for months at a time -- the only real way to improve in my book. My current projects consist of butterfly guard and escapes. Open guard is my A game, and escapes are my F game. So I focus on both ends of the spectrum.

But I think there are lots of ways you can do it, and everybody learns differently. For me, I make the fastest progress when I work on my weakest areas. And I find that BJJ is really interconnected, so that working on butterfly guard has *hugely* helped me in takedowns and half guard, for example.

So I hear what you're saying, and I'm interested in how other people approach it. My own thought is that you want to work an A game and your weakest game at the same time.

BJJ is weird because of how skillsets work. Sometimes one guy will develop some super-powered game and start trouncing others left and right. Other times that guy who has been working the same mundane game for three years will start catching people with it, and then suddenly nobody can stop him from succeeding. His basic skill set has become an unstoppable skill set.

 

[stlnl2]

My question is what happens to you guys so focused on top games who get put on your backs in side control, cant reverse, and cant scramble? Is your hip movement you have neglected all this time suddenly develop and you get clear?

Everyone should develop a strength, but training time is better spent on bad times and making it through them than good times and winning.

 

[DaRuckus337]

Your situation is different, and is exactly how I trained. I spent my white belt days working 75% on guard passing since I came from a wrestling background. When I turned blue belt I focused 75% on open guard. However, the TS's situation is completely different and seems completely closed minded.

When I was a white belt, I actually worked more consistently on diversifying my game. It's more like now that I've been a blue belt for a while that I've taken to heart the difference between passing the guards of blue belts and casual grapplers vs. passing the guards of 6-7 day a week competitive purple belts and brown belts. It's a different world, and it takes a fair amount of time and practice to catch up with their experience in bjj. Since I have been wrestling for a good 14 years, I know it will be my guard passing that will ultimately be most important to me because top position is something I always feel like I can establish. To me, it's clear that it is the 'A' game I should work on developing, and until I really feel like it's a genuine threat and a really deserves to be called an 'A' game, I really don't want to turn too much of my attention to other things. It's a tough situation, because I know there are aspects of my bjj that are staying pretty average while I devote so much of my time to just one part of grappling, but I really consider it important to have an absolute 'go-to' skill set from somewhere before you worry about developing a well-rounded repertoire of skills from everywhere.

 

[Zankou]

If you become good at open guard, you will get plenty of chance to work your guard passing, because you will be sweeping your opponents left and right!

You can't be a good open guard player without being a good guard passer.

Consider playing lots of butterfly guard, it's just like wrestling. A great guard for wrestlers. It's all underhooks, armdrags, whizzers, and knee taps.

 

[DaRuckus337]

^ I've been planning on it. Rick Migliarese teaches a lot of techniques from butterfly, so I see end up drilling it all the time. It definitely seems to suit wrestlers, because it's very balance and hand-fighting oriented. Also, it is a lot more fun than closed guard (or guard-passing for that matter), which in all honesty, is pretty important if you're going to spend a lot of time playing it.

 

[Deloitte]

Closed guard is actually boring as hell, open guard is very very fun

 

[Bosozoku]

Interesting discussion, but I think the heart of the problem is being missed:

The TS is probably poor at gauging the abilities of his opponents.

I have never asked a superior grappler to slow down or take it easy on me. Ever. I don't think any good grappler ever has...

I think you are probably physically dominating inferior grapplers. In which case: slow down, exert max control with minimum effort (is one way to improve if you work on your strengths: like Daruckus might), or try new things (if you want to work on your weakness: like Zankou suggest).

I have asked inferior grapplers to slow down, and I sense that they go hard for one of two reasons: A) they are nervous that I'm going to hurt them--usually new guys not used to rolling. Or B) they think they are going to use physicality to beat me, which is impossible if they are inferior grapplers. In case of A, I tell them to relax. In case of B, I show them they are not as good as they think. But if a very strong wrestler can neutralize my game, more power to him--it means my game needs work and he is better than me...

Also keep in mind wrestling is based on points and the pin. BJJ is an end game: you attempt to (in theory) disable your opponent. If your teacher is asking you to slow down, it might be for safety reasons: passing guard full speed is good, but can you suddenly hit pause when you drop for the arm bar? They might not trust you to do so...

So if the guy is better than you go for it. If he's worse, slow down. Learn however you want, but be aware that you're not going to injure someone when catching subs, and that you're not needlessly dominating guys whose BJJ is not at the level of your wrestling--they are there to learn as well...

 

[Cardio King]

I mean, if your making good transitions, getting in good positions, and overall outpointing, how can i sit here and tell you to relax when your doing what ur supposed to be doing?

This is what I'm trying to say.

I apologize if it may have came off strong, I didn't mean to sound like some brute who is simply trying to grind opponents out and hurt my training partners. We all have excellent communication with one another, and I never have (and hopefully never will) hurt anyone that I've trained with.

I should have made the thread question "Is it wrong to consistantly push for attaining top position, if it mean forfeiting conventional bottom-submission attempts?"

I am a blue belt in BJJ and am very comfortable in my guard, but I'm much more confident in my takedowns, passing and top subs.

Thank you all for this excellent input, though!:icon_chee

 

[Cardio King]

Once I have developed this type of 'go-to game', I will feel more compelled to devote large amounts of training time to really developing a more versatile guard.

This is exactly what I was trying to ask. I wish I worded my original post better.

 

[Mirada]

It's a different kind of training. Positioning is your forte? Why are you working on your forte? Do you really need to work so much on your double legs? Aren't they already pretty good?

bingo

 

[Jimmy Cerra]

I hear you Zankou. As a wrestler, I know my guard needs work. But I have been in the midsts of a 6-month guard passing project, and I feel like that's my number 1 priority right now. It's my priority because when it comes to bjj, I don't have a 'dominant' game of any kind yet. I want to be able to pass purple belts (I'm getting there now), brown belts (this does not happen often), and black belts (I don't know that I've ever done it without being allowed to). I want to feel both safe and dangerous on top, and I don't want to stop spending the majority of my time on it until I feel like it has become a place where I truly feel dominant and in control, no matter who the opponent is. Once I have developed this type of 'go-to game', I will feel more compelled to devote large amounts of training time to really developing a more versatile guard (as of now, I basically have nothing but a triangle and a few solid sweeps that work on anyone above new blue belts).

I guess, as you said, it comes down to what a person's goals are, but for me, I know I want to develop at least one aspect of my game that I have complete confidence in (ie. a real 'A' game) before I start devoting a large percentage of my time to weaker, less used aspects (my B, C, D games). Maybe I should try and develop everything together at the same pace and at the same time, but I fear that this will limit my ability to compete effectively, and will ultimately make me a bit of a mediocre jack-of-no-trades.

I guess the question I would pose is: Is it really worthwhile to spend lots of training time developing the weakest aspects of your game when the strongest aspects of your game have not even been sufficiently developed to compete with the better guys in the gym/tournaments you go to?

I do try to work on my weaknesses a lot, but because that forces me to get better at my strengths. A good clinch and a good wrestling base should give you a better bottom game, because they rely on the same principles. For some, their "a-game" is more a matter of comfort rather than skill. They might be skilled enough to use the guard well, but they might hesitate and make decisisons based more on getting into a more familier position than more control over the opponent. Furthermore, working on the worse areas of my game help me learn to counter those who use that as their a-game, because I can elarn to anticipate their responses better if I know what they want to try.

I believe Matt Thornton once said that blue belts fall in love with techniques, purple belts fall in love with games. I think that's an apt description. The guys at the next level seem to be good at everything. Another guy on the grappling forum once asked if high-level players think 2-3 moves ahead of the lower-level guys. His instructor's response was that they don't think too many moves ahead, they just do the right move. Instead of jacks of all trades, they feel like masters of all trades and just do the same thing. I'm sure they don't see it that way, but that's how it feels to me when I roll with them.

Are you going to be at Balance HQ at the Friday 7 PM class? If my flight is on time, I'll be there.

 

[DaRuckus337]

I'll be there tomorrow either at 12:00 or at 7:00, depending on my schedule.