Why do BJJ and Judo teaches lie about strength?

Burning Hammer

Burning Hammer

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Today I was hearing how the Olympic guys all use technique, that they hardly use their strength or speed advantage it's all technique. Even if you're at worlds for BJJ they use technique before physical skills. I just want this blatant lie to end. The people who believe it probably aren't athletes. Speed and power are obviously good WITH technique but everyone at those levels has good technique. Not only that, they will use those advantages to get into position to apply proper technique. It's ridiculous we feign ignorance to students like this still.
 
Haven't you ever pulled bottom side mount and rolled a larger, stronger guy to kesa on his first day, really easy? They squash you and just kind of roll over. Then they mermaid their legs and can't get up.

The statement is true-ish if you are thinking of it as a self defense art with competition as a side project to develop ability. Sure, gross differences in strength are still hard to overcome in a fight, but you can really work over a guy twice your strength if he's untrained.
 
You sell martial arts with this tag line. Competitive people don't really care about that, they would do their SnC aside from their sports/martial arts training.
 
Problem is people being literalists. Technique > strength if you can only have one or the other advantage over your opponent...of course, one or the other isn't the way things work in the real world.

For students as well, it's really easy for them to hear what they want. A nuanced discussion of how strength is a good thing gets distorted into an excuse not to get techniques right. Even as things are, as a larger guy I'm always dismayed how many times smaller training partners will say something like "Man, if I had that guillotine on a guy more my size, I would have ripped his head off! You ogre, you!" It's hard to explain sometimes that I didn't have to flex a muscle to defend that sloppy shit, and that they wouldn't be able to get it on 10 year old if he knew what he was doing. Not because strength doesn't matter, but the problem wasn't their strength.
 
Strength can make up a technique disadvantage, technique can make up a strength disadvantage within reason and just like everything balance and moderation is key.
 
Not sure, maybe a passed down statement from each teacher to their student?
I do agree there needs to be a balance. Tech overcomes strength when the opponent lacks skillwork and the strength is somewhat similar, and vice versa.

Like I mentioned in another thread, I believe its at the early stages that technique overcomes strength, which is what reinforces practitioner's opinion on the "strength doesn't matter" bs
eg. new guy shows up to BJJ practice 4-5 days a week. After a month, the tech is able to overcome someone with a slight to moderate strength/size advantage.

Strength however, does takes time to develop. Its not like you start on a 5x5 program and noticeable results will come. At least 4 months in will significant and practical results come, and even then its not enough to curl your way out of an armbar.
However, at the mid to late stage, strength will catch up and overcome, and the technique has to be worlds apart to extend the gap. I would say about 1-2 years is when strength becomes usable. Both parties train well, but one guy's technique and skill work is about 60-70% of another teammate, but his strength is world's apart, he'll be dominating.
Also, strength is a neutralizer. When both are grappling trying to overpower another, the weaker one will gas out. Both are matching each other, and the weaker one will exert everything or near everything to match the stronger guy, while the stronger one will exert a decent amount (or minimal if the strength gap is too much) to match/overcome.

All in all, I think in the short term, technique will dominate strength, but after awhile, strength will build up, and pass tech. unless the skill gap is worlds apart.

I would look at it as 2 guys at work (both making $40k yearly). 1 guy just works overtime regularly, so he'll be pulling in $50k at the end of the year, which is more than the other guy, just putting his 40 hours in. But after raking in decent exp 5+ years. The 2nd guy is qualified for a higher paying job, and switches to another company for $80-100k
 
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I blame The Karate Kid. That movie perpetuated this myth of mystical training allowing the weaker, less athletic guy to beat up the athletic guy who trains hard all the time, and it's utter BS. Daniel-san would have gotten his ass kicked in that tournament in real life. He had never sparred! He got his black belt in like 4 months! But the popularity of that movie and others like it in the 80s led gym owners to market along those lines. You may think that I'm being silly blaming a movie for it, but if you look at martial arts stuff prior to the 80s it was pretty hardcore, even arts we now think of as not that serious like TKD and Karate. But once people figured out that they could sell 'disiprine' and 'character' rather than hard sparring and get more students they started doing so en masse. And thus the martial-arts-delusional-complex was born.
 
every single MA is supposed to be desing for the weaker to beat the stronger, everyone, and theres got to be around over 1000 different MArts styles.

While talking about bjj, yes when you are a noob and have no idea what you are doing, a very skill player is going to tool your ass without much effort, as soon as skills are pair, yes strenght matters, a lot.
 
This is a meaningless strawman argument. Technique beats strength, but everyone knows strength + technique beats technique only. Come on OP, everyone who knows anything about grappling or pretty much any combat sport knows this, why pretend otherwise.
 
Let us all not forget the line "Strength is a technique."

Oh, and cardio. Let's not all pretend that cardio doesn't matter either.
 
I think it's a product of people misunderstanding their sense is broken English, combined with pure fantasy.

I don't doubt that most people were told "use technique, not strength" when learning their chosen ma, in the same way that baseball players are shown how to correctly swing a bat before hitting the weights. 'Form first, then feel free to muscle it' is decent advice all around. The problem with fighting is that people feel the need to mythologize everything, which starts a game of telephone that garbles decent advice into utter horseshit.


Also, I agree with the point above on the karate kid. People forget how influential that movie is, at least within thd martial arts community
 
Some teachers are not very good at explaining things. I had one judo teacher that would tell me not to use strength, but what he meant was relax and let the small girl play the game instead of immediately pinning her to the ground. I would have understood much better if he told me to be less aggressive the first time.

Sometimes the student is already in pretty good shape and would benefit more from drilling than weight lifting.

That being said, I agree that the Karate Kid had a big influence on martial arts. Daniel does do physical training like paint a house, but audiences probably overlook that scene, and the movie treats it as character building rather than strength building.
 
Another myth is that the strong guys get humbled in their first few months and quit, while the skinny wimps tough it out and develop proper technique.
NO, the strong dudes tough it out for less time and develop proper technique, and more of them stick around. The skinny wimps are the ones who usually quit after a bit.
(by skinny wimp, I mean unathletic and weak, NOT the guy who wrestled at 105 in high school or the small/athletic soccer player type)
 
Burning Hammer said:
Today I was hearing how the Olympic guys all use technique, that they hardly use their strength or speed advantage it's all technique. Even if you're at worlds for BJJ they use technique before physical skills. I just want this blatant lie to end. The people who believe it probably aren't athletes. Speed and power are obviously good WITH technique but everyone at those levels has good technique. Not only that, they will use those advantages to get into position to apply proper technique. It's ridiculous we feign ignorance to students like this still.
Click to expand...
The myth is that good technique requires little effort.

The truth is that the definition of good technique means applying all of your effort in the most efficient way possible. Sometimes this can feel effortless, but usually not.
 
It's the deal breaker in most cases.. most but not all... the bigger stronger guys where I train will usually catch me more times than not... There will always be exceptions in some cases like Marcelo Garcia
 
tenniswhiz said:
Another myth is that the strong guys get humbled in their first few months and quit, while the skinny wimps tough it out and develop proper technique.
NO, the strong dudes tough it out for less time and develop proper technique, and more of them stick around. The skinny wimps are the ones who usually quit after a bit.
(by skinny wimp, I mean unathletic and weak, NOT the guy who wrestled at 105 in high school or the small/athletic soccer player type)
Click to expand...

More times than not, this is what usually happens...
 
I think it's meant for a match between someone who doesn't train vs. a trained individual. If someone has a lot of technique, they should be able to over a random strong person but if they both train then that strength will matter because they'll know how to use it.
 
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