Revealed at Last: What Makes People Like Rickson and Marcelo Garcia good at BJJ?

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Chump

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Opinion

Above, BJJ black belt John Frankl reveals the secrets about what makes Rickson Gracie, Marcelo Garcia, BJ Penn, and Marco Barbosa good at BJJ.

Hint: It isn't how many secret techniques they know.
 
I wish he'd elaborate and give examples of movement. I guess he means shifting and adjusting based on the differences in body weight distribution between you and your opponent, right?
 
More importantly...who would win a three sided jiu jitsu death match in zero gravity between Rickson, Marcelo and Roger? That's what I want to know.
 
King Creatine said:
I wish he'd elaborate and give examples of movement. I guess he means shifting and adjusting based on the differences in body weight distribution between you and your opponent, right?
Click to expand...

If you can bridge and hip out, you know several escapes from several positions.
If you can switch your hips and pendulum your legs from guard, you can sweep and finish in quite a few ways.

I believe thats what he's talking about- breaking things down to the root and training body movements that will improve your game across the board.

EDIT- Robson Moura will tell him the same thing. Tyrone Glover is also a big proponent of this training method.
 
Interesting how he contrasts Rickson, BJ, Marcelo, and Marco versus Leo, Terere, Cobrinha, and Jacare. The former being guys who beat you with better positioning, pressure and efficency of movement, and the latter being guys who beat you with superhuman "speed and acrobatics."
 
You know what i think makes those guys the best in BJJ? Quite simply their mind. It is all in the mind, of course you need good technique and to know moves and positions fluidly but A LOT of guys know that.

But only a few are world champs. The reason is their mind, they dont get pysched out, to me it is 100% mental.

But hey what do i know?
 
ProdigyOfZen said:
You know what i think makes those guys the best in BJJ? Quite simply their mind. It is all in the mind, of course you need good technique and to know moves and positions fluidly but A LOT of guys know that.

But only a few are world champs. The reason is their mind, they dont get pysched out, to me it is 100% mental.

But hey what do i know?
Click to expand...

Make no mistake all of them are/where at the top of their game physically too. They have the athletic ability to beat all of our asses however they want. Wrestling, grappling, BJJ, kickboxing, patty cake...you name it.
 
I just spent an afternoon with Master Luiz Palhares and his opinion is that:

It's not how many techniques you know, but how many you can put together and how fast you can do them correctly.
 
The evolution of a fighter is pretty straightforward. First you learn technique, then you learn strategy, then you train your mind through meditation to be able to use technique and strategy to your fullest potential.

Rickson was all about meditation. Cultivating this mental state while fighting is THE highest level of training. Beyond technique, beyond strategy. Your mind controls every, so once you master technique and strategy, time to master your mind!

Many people will say I am full of shit and that meditation is some eastern religious baloney, but when you hear it straight from Rickson's mouth I bet you might change your mind.

Problem is, meditation is no different than any other training. Your first bjj class you sucked balls, and it took years to become proficient. Same thing with meditation. The reason you don't see many fighters reaching this level is because it takes so much commitment and its hard to believe in it unless you know first-hand the benefits, which you will never know because it is something entirely intangible.
 
ProdigyOfZen said:
You know what i think makes those guys the best in BJJ? Quite simply their mind. It is all in the mind, of course you need good technique and to know moves and positions fluidly but A LOT of guys know that.

But only a few are world champs. The reason is their mind, they dont get pysched out, to me it is 100% mental.

But hey what do i know?
Click to expand...

Sort of. It is about their minds, but it is not mental in the sense of being a conscious thought process. It is about trained muscle memory. Conscious thought is much too slow and one-track. Hence Saulo, "If you think, you are late, if you are late, you use strength, if you use strength, you get tired, if you get tired, you die"
 
Has anyone seen the Marco Barbosa video? I am a big concept > technique guy and this sounds right up my alley. Budovideos has them in stock, but it's "Portugese subtitled in Japanese".

Vid worth it? Available with english?
 
This is something that Luiz Claudio always said.

It's about teaching your body Jiu Jitsu movements. He has some crazy warm up exercises and drills just for teaching BJJ movement.
 
Some people are naturally gifted.

If you look at Marcelo, he cleaned the mats at his school in exchange for free training. He rolled 4 times per day. He put in SERIOUS mat time.

Does that mean if someone else trains that much they'll be as good as Marcelo Garcia?

Probably not.

I'm sure there are several teenagers in Brazil who train practically around the clock. Those teenagers WILL grow up to be amazing players (on mat time alone), and possibly even World Champions.

But will they be as good as Marcelo? Or Roger? Or Braulio?

Maybe. Possibly. Probably not though.

There are probably guys in the NBA right now who practiced more than Magic or Jordan through college.

And right now they're averaging 12 ppg.

When God-given talent meets a crazy work ethic, you get a legend. Mat time alone will make you great, but there are different levels to 'great'. Doing this special drill, or learning this magical technique isn't what makes Roger 'Roger'.
 
Chump said:
Opinion

Above, BJJ black belt John Frankl reveals the secrets about what makes Rickson Gracie, Marcelo Garcia, BJ Penn, and Marco Barbosa good at BJJ.

Hint: It isn't how many secret techniques they know.
Click to expand...

Nice first post!!
 
I was thinking BJJ is half technique and half experience.

There are so many positions and scrambles for which you can't learn a specific technique because their are just so many variables. I think to be great you just need to have had enough experience to realise what to do, BUT the key is instinctively remembering what to do by feel even though you could never even begin to explain that to another person.

EDIT: I am not counting the physical attribute to this, consider that a given.
 
For one they're totally in the moment when grappling.They don't have to think about where they're going next. If you watch, they never force their opponent into a bad position,the opponent puts themselves in bad position. If the guy goes one way,they don't try to stop the guy from going that way.They either follow and let the guy dig himself into a deeper hole or take the path of least resistance and catch him on the other side. Also, they're not just good at the basics they've mastered the basics. I think a lot of guys say,"well I've got this position down pretty good or good enough, I think I'll start working on something else." What happens is they get pretty good at a lot of things but are not a master of any. I remember BJ saying something like "I only have 5 solid (mastered) moves,and if you can defend those 5 moves you can beat me.But you bet I'm gonna shove those 5 moves down your throat over and over again." When I first got my blue I thought man I gotta learn some new stuff and add to my game.Big mistake. I was trying to accumulate more techniques, which in turn made me have to think all the time when sparring and I got tapped more. When I stopped and started going back to the basics and concentrating on that,my game improved dramatically. Anyway,food for thought.
 
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