Searching for Perfect Technique

There are factors in fighting that are under your control, and factors that are not. Some of these factors are a big deal. Factors such as: weight, size, age, speed, flexibility, toughness, knowledge, and aggression. These are not the only factors that can determine the outcome of a fight, or match or even a sparring round. In competition they try to minimize these factors as much as possible, they control for age, weight, experience level.

Do competitions control for these factors because they are not that big of a deal? No way, these things make a huge difference. I went to a BJJ gym with a good friend of mine. My friend and I were in the area because the gym was hosting a Seminar that we were both super excited to see. The gym owner and my friend had become friends through the internet and his business. So the gym owner, knowing we were going to be in town, invited some guys to the gym for an invite only open mat. Most of the people at this open mat were brown and black belts, there were a couple of purple belts and one blue belt. The blue belt was a young man in his 20s and he was huge. I am 5’11” and around 240-250 lbs, which means I'm a pretty big guy, but I felt small compared to this guy. This young blue belt wasn’t beating up everyone in the room, but he was giving everyone trouble, and he was beating the purple belts and some of the Brown Belts. His size and youth was putting him at a level that was on par with some very experienced grapplers.

Rener Gracie (owner and head instructor at the Gracie Academy) has a heuristic that he calls the "Boyd Belts" concept. It's not an official belt ranking system—it's a teaching tool he uses to help students understand how age, weight, and athleticism affect sparring. The basic idea is: Every 20 pounds (9 kg) of weight difference = approximately one belt level. Every 10 years of age difference = approximately one belt level. I like the simplicity of Rener’s model and how it illustrates that these things make a huge difference.

So obviously the thing to do is get big, flexible, fast and be in your 20s right? There are definitely things that you can do, to get strong and be healthy. You should absolutely strive to get good cardiovascular health and get strong, but there is only so much you can do to improve these things, and your body has limits. Absolutely work on your mobility, and speed. These are really good for fights, martial practice, but also will just improve your life.

There are other things that you have a great deal of control over, that can greatly increase your chances of winning or at least surviving. The things that I think that can make a huge difference in Jiu Jitsu are finding comfort with discomfort and skills.

Finding comfort in discomfort, or grit, or determination, or whatever you want to call it is a skill that you can develop. People come to this in different ways, but it is also I think a universally applicable skill. What I mean is that it is useful in so much of our lives. I am a hunter (admittedly not that great of one), and most of my success has come from being out with guys that are good, or being in remote areas, or being up unreasonably early or staying out late. Things that are difficult. And doing things that are difficult on a regular basis will increase this skill if you have the right attitude. Working on this skill and doing difficult things can also give you useful perspective on the regular activities of life

Skill mastery is the thing that I think most people can do that will make the biggest difference. The trouble is that it takes a long time and it takes consistency. Don’t get me wrong, some people are naturals, but everyone can get good. Most people won't though. Because most people won’t, if you do you can get ahead. The trouble is skill mastery follows skill acquisition.

When learning new skills, it is very useful to have a teacher that is good at teaching with a great understanding of the skill. In Jiu Jitsu I think it looks like this: Demonstration, followed by drilling (repetitious practice). I think a good way to drill is to start slow and focus on the details and practice until you can do the skill very smoothly, then increase speed. It is very helpful to have feedback from a partner that can help you correct any errors.

Skill development is next, which should include live training. Which means trying the skill on- resisting opponents. It can be helpful at this stage to use situational sparring. Such as if you are learning an armlock from guard just get some rounds where you try to submit people from you guard, and if the pass you guard you reset or switch. It’s helpful to have good training partners and or a good coach. If you can identify errors and correct them early it will help shorten this process.

Skill mastery is the last step in this process. For me I think the best way to do this is to start with a goal, and restrict my own practice until I can achieve those goals. Keep practicing until you know how to do it, when it will and won’t work, and paths in and out of the technique.

When I was a Blue Belt I realized that I wasn’t good at armbars from my guard. So I would just go to guard and try, and try and try. At first this was terrible. Then I got some feedback from some great coaches, and from people that were better than me after my sparring rounds. I started to be able to get it sometimes, then I started realizing why I could get it sometimes. At some point I started having a guard that was dangerous. This for me, was skill development. I did this practice with a few other skills I thought I should be better at, and at some point as I improved until I started seeing connections.

As you develop skills, and develop connections you will start to understand how they work. I’m going to call this concepts. Concepts is a word that doesn’t fully describe what I’m talking about, hopefully it will begin to illustrate what I’m talking about. As you start to understand concepts this will lead you to mastery. When a Black Belt in Jiu Jitsu teaches a move, they are not holding back details of what they do to get this to work. If they are a good teacher, all of the details are there, but depending on where you are in your journey will determine what you get out of the lesson. I have watched Master Pedro Sauer teach moves in a room full of all of the ranks, and Black Belts across the room are having light bulb moments, while white belts are looking like they already know.

Here is some more things to think about:

2 Peter 1:5–8
"For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, mutual affection; and to mutual affection, love."

1 Timothy 4:7–8
"Train yourself to be godly. For physical training is of some value, but godliness has value for all things..."

Colossians 3:23–24
"Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters.".

James 1:2–4
"...let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything."

Proverbs 1:5 — "Let the wise listen and add to their learning."

Proverbs 9:9 — "Instruct the wise and they will be wiser still."

Proverbs 15:31 — "Whoever heeds life-giving correction will be at home among the wise."

~ Jungle Cat