Jiu Jitsu's unwritten rule of not using strength must change.

[Jack Handy jr]

ADCC is not a BJJ tournament, it's a submission wrestling tournament that places a premium on TDs, so the guys who focus on that rule set like Popovitch, Galvao, Yuri Simoes, etc. tend to have pretty good standup by BJJ standards.

Side note, I think it's interesting that many people think of old school BJJ as being very low effort and opportunistic, because when I see old footage of, say, RIckson training with Rolls, 'low effort' and 'passive' are not adjectives that come to mind:

Bro I wish that was my day to day existence just training submission grappling.

I don't regret my career choices (maybe a lil) I just feel so comfortable on the mats. I've got to find more time to train somehow. For those that get to teach wrestling, or BJJ as their day job you are blessed.

OS!

 

[TehGwarch]

I'm going to say this... again.. if me and you wrestled I'm willing to literally lay down money that I would be the relaxed and not getting tired and you would be.. and like me and Uchi Mata just said.. the wrestlers are stillwhite or blue belts in bjj I wouldn't expect them to be smooth yet. And if you have a problem with physical drilling or want to train for longevity that's fine. But the yoga master Rixon's body is fucked up and do is any other wis old master.. it's a fucking combat sport. Over spiritualizing it or talkingabout "true jiu-jitsu forgets the original purpose. And like I said, all your examples of smooth rolls are higher blet's beating up lower belts/skill level. I hope to god they are smooth

Arbitrary speculation...I don't wrestle so I would never wrestle you, I don't wrestle because I think it's stupid. I don't mean to be nasty but I disrespect it. I would stick my leg out and smirk, maybe even let you grab it to start. I have a million counters to that. After a while, people don't want to grab my leg.

My strategy is always to lazily block you from doing what you were trying to do until you got frustrated and over extended yourself, then you'd pull guard or go for a ride. I can survive constant takedown attempts for minutes at a time without getting tired so good luck.

I was able to develop this skill because I train standup constantly at a slow pace and start by giving my opponent the leg working out all the possible counters. Now it is very hard to get me that way.

One thing I've noticed about wrestlers is they get frustrated easily...so I exploit that. The second thing is they suck at learning Judo because it is an entirely different mentality. In the gi, they are never a problem.

Rickson's student Pedro Sauer disagrees with you about rolling hard all the time. Neither of them approve of IBJJF.

You can be relaxed whether you are winning or losing, becoming more aggressive against a more skilled opponent just make you lose harder and get injured. This is why dummies get hurt practicing standup. Go easy with more skilled partner, accept the throw and you won't hit the ground in weird ways. The same thing happens to a lesser extent on the ground, it's no mystery to me why certain people end up needing a surgery, they don't want to accept a loss even to more skilled opponent so they force the issue. Bad move.

Judo and BJJ tournaments were never supposed to be the goal, only a means. Now, people see winning medals as everything but most of these people will never do anything meaningful in tournaments anyway, they get crippled and quit or train only to game the current rule sets. The art is lost.

Neither Kano nor Helio would approve. Funny thing no one wants to talk about, Kano's self defense kata is half Aikido. That's for another time. lol

 

[jack36767]

Arbitrary speculation...I don't wrestle so I would never wrestle you, I don't wrestle because I think it's stupid. I don't mean to be nasty but I disrespect it. I would stick my leg out and smirk, maybe even let you grab it to start. I have a million counters to that. After a while, people don't want to grab my leg.

My strategy is always to lazily block you from doing what you were trying to do until you got frustrated and over extended yourself, then you'd pull guard or go for a ride. I can survive constant takedown attempts for minutes at a time without getting tired so good luck.

I was able to develop this skill because I train standup constantly at a slow pace and start by giving my opponent the leg working out all the possible counters. Now it is very hard to get me that way.

One thing I've noticed about wrestlers is they get frustrated easily...so I exploit that. The second thing is they suck at learning Judo because it is an entirely different mentality. In the gi, they are never a problem.

Rickson's student Pedro Sauer disagrees with you about rolling hard all the time. Neither of them approve of IBJJF.

You can be relaxed whether you are winning or losing, becoming more aggressive against a more skilled opponent just make you lose harder and get injured. This is why dummies get hurt practicing standup. Go easy with more skilled partner, accept the throw and you won't hit the ground in weird ways. The same thing happens to a lesser extent on the ground, it's no mystery to me why certain people end up needing a surgery, they don't want to accept a loss even to more skilled opponent so they force the issue. Bad move.

Judo and BJJ tournaments were never supposed to be the goal, only a means. Now, people see winning medals as everything but most of these people will never do anything meaningful in tournaments anyway, they get crippled and quit or train only to game the current rule sets. The art is lost.

Neither Kano nor Helio would approve. Funny thing no one wants to talk about, Kano's self defense kata is half Aikido. That's for another time. lol

Yes because you know some mythical counter I've never seen or countered and you've stopped such elite studs at wrestling.. lol. You're either trolling or naive

You can find wrestling as stupid as you want, I guarantee that if you wrestled a high level wrestler or me on the feet, you would get tired and we would be the relaxed one's. Yeah i would give you an edge in the gi because I haven't done judo. And you can fight harder without getting injured.

And Rixon always looked like he was fighting very very very hard to me in his vale tudo matches and gang fights.

 

[Aethyr]

I'll second the capabilities of high level wrestlers. They have blackbelt level knowledge of takedowns. The details of just a double leg, setups, and proper finish blew my mind. The way that most BJJ schools teach a double leg is whitebelt level in comparison.

It's hard to see the sheer repertoire of technique during D1 matches, but if you watch two wrestlers warm up with each other, you can really see it - its like flow rolling but with takedowns and you see tons of different combinations of setups and defenses at a slower, more relaxed pace.

 

[SummerStriker]

Arbitrary speculation...I don't wrestle so I would never wrestle you, I don't wrestle because I think it's stupid. I don't mean to be nasty but I disrespect it. I would stick my leg out and smirk, maybe even let you grab it to start. I have a million counters to that. After a while, people don't want to grab my leg.

My strategy is always to lazily block you from doing what you were trying to do until you got frustrated and over extended yourself, then you'd pull guard or go for a ride. I can survive constant takedown attempts for minutes at a time without getting tired so good luck.

***

Judo and BJJ tournaments were never supposed to be the goal, only a means. Now, people see winning medals as everything but most of these people will never do anything meaningful in tournaments anyway, they get crippled and quit or train only to game the current rule sets. The art is lost.

Neither Kano nor Helio would approve. Funny thing no one wants to talk about, Kano's self defense kata is half Aikido. That's for another time. lol

I agree with you to a point, and I have some of the same feelings. I'm pretty good at Silat style takedowns and I've used the foot sweeps on two different collegiate wrestlers, both by stiff-arming them until they over committed. Being larger than either of them, I could take that liberty.

But imagine a fight with a ton of chaos - some real world, life and death shit. A riot, or a live shooter or a flash mob or a war - something nasty. Do you want to be the guy, like me, who is going to stiff-arm people until they get tired and do a foot sweep, or do you want to be the dude that blast doubles the asshole into the wall before he can hurt anyone?

I have done an awful lot of MMA sparring and clinch sparring - takedowns with strikes. I've done just a ton of it. A lot of the stuff I think I'm good at is an artifact of the reduced intensity and the whole set of moves I do when people go at me 100% is a whole lot more basic, conventional and rough - all the specialness I think I have goes out the window at 100%.

So I don't know. I have mixed feelings on the whole thing. The guy I took judo from taught it mostly no-gi and mostly the way I see wrestlers train, very hard and fast and aggressive, with simple set-ups and attacks rather than a lot of counters. He talks a lot of shit to me about stiff-arming and looking for a counter instead of winning. /door slams "You are all dead. That was a gun shot. Everyone still screwing around is dead."

In sparring, you have the luxury of baiting people, taking advantage of trained responses, taking the time to gas opponents, but that's not necessarily the best tactic for many environments where martial arts are important, rather than cute.

I have a friend who wrestled for 4 years in high school and gave up all martial arts 8 years ago to be a fire fighter and lift weights. I would take him over almost ANY of the non-professional fighters /martial artists I train with in a real fight because I know what he is like and I trust him to immediately rek someone, rather than farting around, looking for an angle.

 

[fanboysareevil]

Farting around looking for an angle is what separates people with skills from meatheads who know a move or two. The people you train with are garbage if you would take someone who doesn't train over them.

 

[SummerStriker]

Farting around looking for an angle is what separates people with skills from meatheads who know a move or two. The people you train with are garbage if you would take someone who doesn't train over them.

Your hubris is inspiring.

 

[Jack Handy jr]

Yes because you know some mythical counter I've never seen or countered and you've stopped such elite studs at wrestling.. lol. You're either trolling or naive

You can find wrestling as stupid as you want, I guarantee that if you wrestled a high level wrestler or me on the feet, you would get tired and we would be the relaxed one's. Yeah i would give you an edge in the gi because I haven't done judo. And you can fight harder without getting injured.

And Rixon always looked like he was fighting very very very hard to me in his vale tudo matches and gang fights.

AHH YES "I'M A BADASS IN THE GI"

The thing about the GI and non sport specific distinctions is that once its off GI based Grapplers ability seems to drop off TREMENDOUSLY. we see it in MMA (rousey and Karo aside) I can wrestle with out reliance on GI grips and I have recently adjusted my wrestling/NOGI game to deal with dudes wearing GI's. I'm rolling in a GI with guys grabbing every part of it for dear life including my white belt lol and I'm still subbing them without grabbing their GI's once.

....just wanted to get that off my chest.

 

[crazyjames1233]

That phrase doesnt matter. Everyone will use strength and learns to use it. Its just about learning to use it efficiently and effectively. What needs to change imo is adding more focus on takedowns and increasing intensity in sparring, at least for non-casuals.

 

[Jack Handy jr]

I agree with you to a point, and I have some of the same feelings. I'm pretty good at Silat style takedowns and I've used the foot sweeps on two different collegiate wrestlers, both by stiff-arming them until they over committed. Being larger than either of them, I could take that liberty.

But imagine a fight with a ton of chaos - some real world, life and death shit. A riot, or a live shooter or a flash mob or a war - something nasty. Do you want to be the guy, like me, who is going to stiff-arm people until they get tired and do a foot sweep, or do you want to be the dude that blast doubles the asshole into the wall before he can hurt anyone?

I have done an awful lot of MMA sparring and clinch sparring - takedowns with strikes. I've done just a ton of it. A lot of the stuff I think I'm good at is an artifact of the reduced intensity and the whole set of moves I do when people go at me 100% is a whole lot more basic, conventional and rough - all the specialness I think I have goes out the window at 100%.

So I don't know. I have mixed feelings on the whole thing. The guy I took judo from taught it mostly no-gi and mostly the way I see wrestlers train, very hard and fast and aggressive, with simple set-ups and attacks rather than a lot of counters. He talks a lot of shit to me about stiff-arming and looking for a counter instead of winning. /door slams "You are all dead. That was a gun shot. Everyone still screwing around is dead."

In sparring, you have the luxury of baiting people, taking advantage of trained responses, taking the time to gas opponents, but that's not necessarily the best tactic for many environments where martial arts are important, rather than cute.

I have a friend who wrestled for 4 years in high school and gave up all martial arts 8 years ago to be a fire fighter and lift weights. I would take him over almost ANY of the non-professional fighters /martial artists I train with in a real fight because I know what he is like and I trust him to immediately rek someone, rather than farting around, looking for an angle.

Outstanding post bro.

Completely agree but what you're opening up is the real world vs the sport realm of martial arts Specifically BJJ I'm embarrassed to admit that this one guy I use to roll with had such flexibility in his inverted guard that if memory serves I never passed it.

Dude would literally be fellatioing himself and I still had the damdest time passing that guard. Now in the real world the thought of seeing a dude that was 6'4 on the ground in a nightclub or parking lot doing that would be shockingly dismaying, yet chuckle inducing.

We are all Bruce Lee homers on this site.

It was Master Lee that said a dude with five years of boxing and wrestling could beat a life long martial artist. And don't get me wrong like you I have dabbled in just about everything from throwing ninja stars and twirling chuks, to judo,hapkido,karate you name it. I've yet to try capoeira or savate but it's never too late lol. Though you're besmirching of batroc in the winter soldier doesn't give me great confidence in French martial arts tbh.

In all seriousness your wrestler firefighter friend reminded me of this lil Filipino dude I use to bounce with way back. I clearly remember most guys being intimidated by our bouncer team of which I was the smallest dude at 6'3 270. But little did they know the baddest muthaphucka on the squad was this lil swole as fuck, 5'1 Filipino dude, with two lazy eyes, multiple earrings,two front teeth missing, and a shaved head.

Man this dude was a visual combo of Pantro from the thunder cats with the air of Chris Benoit anyway. When ever shit got real hairy this mofo would start dropping fools like a pro wrestling work then start dragging mother fuckers out the doors by their feet who he'd just knocked out all while smoking a cigarette.

I said all that to say the dude trained but his base was wrestling and I guess contract killer on the side or some shit. he never really said much to me after I told him I was trying to become a cop. anyway you're right a lot of technique and not trying to use power or strength will get your ass kicked by some little dude that has no aprehensions on using said tools.

 

[terribill]

all the best sport bjj competitors stregth train aside from maybe MARCELO. I think thats GJJ's SPOKEN rule. Not these monsters competing and mundials. Roger said it himself inlike, '99

 

[TehGwarch]

I agree with you to a point, and I have some of the same feelings. I'm pretty good at Silat style takedowns and I've used the foot sweeps on two different collegiate wrestlers, both by stiff-arming them until they over committed. Being larger than either of them, I could take that liberty.

But imagine a fight with a ton of chaos - some real world, life and death shit. A riot, or a live shooter or a flash mob or a war - something nasty. Do you want to be the guy, like me, who is going to stiff-arm people until they get tired and do a foot sweep, or do you want to be the dude that blast doubles the asshole into the wall before he can hurt anyone?

I have done an awful lot of MMA sparring and clinch sparring - takedowns with strikes. I've done just a ton of it. A lot of the stuff I think I'm good at is an artifact of the reduced intensity and the whole set of moves I do when people go at me 100% is a whole lot more basic, conventional and rough - all the specialness I think I have goes out the window at 100%.

So I don't know. I have mixed feelings on the whole thing. The guy I took judo from taught it mostly no-gi and mostly the way I see wrestlers train, very hard and fast and aggressive, with simple set-ups and attacks rather than a lot of counters. He talks a lot of shit to me about stiff-arming and looking for a counter instead of winning. /door slams "You are all dead. That was a gun shot. Everyone still screwing around is dead."

In sparring, you have the luxury of baiting people, taking advantage of trained responses, taking the time to gas opponents, but that's not necessarily the best tactic for many environments where martial arts are important, rather than cute.

I have a friend who wrestled for 4 years in high school and gave up all martial arts 8 years ago to be a fire fighter and lift weights. I would take him over almost ANY of the non-professional fighters /martial artists I train with in a real fight because I know what he is like and I trust him to immediately rek someone, rather than farting around, looking for an angle.

Well it's been a while, honestly the stupid got too much but this is a decent post.

To your hypothetical scenario, yes I would rush in and take the throw immediately if it's there. There's something to be said for brutal intensity but it's not really good training to treat your partner like a fucking terrorist. lol

He charges in with punches, I stop him with a kick and respond with my own flurry of punches and possibly finish with an osoto gari if it presents itself. Otherwise I can hit him some more.

Against an obvious grappler, punch or kick him in the face, stuff any takedowns and punish him some more.. It's not really a contradiction to avoid takedowns, I don't need to throw him when beating him then throwing him is much easier.

The only time I would clinch or grapple in a real fight is if I was forced into that position or if I naturally found myself in an ideal position to execute a throw.

Even in a real fight I respond to what my opponent gives me. If my opponent is already attacking at the outset I'll counter. If not, I attack quickly before he can defend. I can use both of these concepts in sparring. I like to blast in and out of range, use footwork, change timing to catch my opponent off guard, etc. Basically just have fun. haha

But doing some grappling on a mat with other grapplers, it doesn't matter if I take 2 minutes to get a throw by frustrating my opponent. It's good training, a way to build a skill set over time but only a means to an end.

Like when these guys talk about "survival" because they didn't get submitted but they spent the entire round in a position where they would get beat to death. Yes you "survived" in the gym but nowhere else - and yet, it does build a measurable skill.

It has some far flung relevance to combat but you have to be able to separate training methods from the real thing.

The truth is most of us training for years are going to come out on top in a "real" fight regardless unless the odds are really bad. I think your odds go up considerably if you aren't already a fucking gimp from training like a wack job. lol

 

[Was at Pride GP 2000]

I believe there is some room for context in this conversation.

You mention high level jiu jitsu players are on PEDs. You realize jiu jitsu didn't start because of tournaments. It was developed for self defense so a guy/girl who has less strength then their attacker can defend themselves and get away with out being harmed. If you are a super strong guy and some weakling attacks you the. Guess what you dont need jiu jitsu.

In a Gi jiu jitsu class you are going to hear to not use strength cause it's a reminder to put your self in positions where you are not the forceful person. So you can practice. Someone is stronger than you. I promise you that. If you don't practice for that your nervous system will be shocked if that ever comes to real life.

Most guys that don't know how or take offense to being told to use less strength just need to be humbled still. You still think jiu jitsu is between you and your opponent.

Jiu jitsu is between your ears. It's a personal journey with some obstacles and pressure of others to make the journey worth while.

 

[TehGwarch]

I'll second the capabilities of high level wrestlers. They have blackbelt level knowledge of takedowns. The details of just a double leg, setups, and proper finish blew my mind. The way that most BJJ schools teach a double leg is whitebelt level in comparison.

It's hard to see the sheer repertoire of technique during D1 matches, but if you watch two wrestlers warm up with each other, you can really see it - its like flow rolling but with takedowns and you see tons of different combinations of setups and defenses at a slower, more relaxed pace.

We've already established that anything short of D1 is a joke. Also, I've pledged to stay the fuck out of California, where the real wrestlers reside.

 

[TehGwarch]

I believe there is some room for context in this conversation.

You mention high level jiu jitsu players are on PEDs. You realize jiu jitsu didn't start because of tournaments. It was developed for self defense so a guy/girl who has less strength then their attacker can defend themselves and get away with out being harmed. If you are a super strong guy and some weakling attacks you the. Guess what you dont need jiu jitsu.

In a Gi jiu jitsu class you are going to hear to not use strength cause it's a reminder to put your self in positions where you are not the forceful person. So you can practice. Someone is stronger than you. I promise you that. If you don't practice for that your nervous system will be shocked if that ever comes to real life.

Most guys that don't know how or take offense to being told to use less strength just need to be humbled still. You still think jiu jitsu is between you and your opponent.

Jiu jitsu is between your ears. It's a personal journey with some obstacles and pressure of others to make the journey worth while.

Yes, we don't say that because we're intimidated by strong people.

I know people getting injured over and over training like lunatics and they're like addicts. Not me I won't tap let me power out of this arm bar....snap, instead of admitting you fucked up and restarting.

Why do I keep injuring my shoulder? Because your rotator cuff can't keep up with your desire for world domination from a poor point of leverage. lol

I've also seen more than one person blow out knee on their first few months spazzing like a 'tard before they know how to move properly.

Kind of hard to stop a terrorist when you couldn't survive six months in a padded room without crippling yourself.

 

[jack36767]

We've already established that anything short of D1 is a joke. Also, I've pledged to stay the fuck out of California, where the real wrestlers reside.

Never go to the rust belt Either