Chuva Brazilian Jiu Jitsu

Did you know that you will never have all the answers? That would be impossible if you think about it. So then perhaps we should mellow out and give ourselves grace. The answers we need will come to us when we are ready and not before. That is admittedly frustrating, especially in our society now. We all want things fast and as soon as we can. Google has spoiled our ability to be patient for information. Jiu Jitsu is antithetical to this though, I have yet to find a way to download grappling with immediate efficiency. It comes when it comes and that is both beautiful and miserable. Have fun, because otherwise you’re just getting beaten up.

You don’t need all of the information to move forward. Thinking you do prevents so many interesting things. Most of the time I still don’t know where I’m going in life, I have a general idea, but all I can do is plan to the best of my ability with the information I have. Sometimes you just have to do the thing. It has to be okay to fail. It has to be okay to try. Analysis paralysis shouldn’t factor into your life anymore, just do the thing. There are very few consequences that are as large as we believe them to be, I trust you have enough common sense to not intentionally put yourself in a life-or-death situation.

Many of our submissions rely on taking the narrowest part of our limbs and using that to apply pressure eliciting a tap. The key to that sentence is the “narrowest”. I think it was Travis Newaza who brought up the 2x4 metaphor. If your arm is a 2x4, you want to place as much pressure into as little area as possible. Therefore, we use the 2 side rather than the 4 side. This applies to ankle locks, guillotines, rear naked chokes, arm crunches, and it even applies to gi chokes. Even when I’m choking with the gi, my goal is to make as little surface area as possible to create a blade rather than a club. These are small details, refine these things and the likelihood of submission will improve.

We sort of touched recently on choosing your pain. You can choose the pain of working out/ doing something physical, or you can choose the pain of a sedentary lifestyle. In the immediate sitting on the couch or staying in bed always seems like the best option and the only way that changes is if the mental pain of letting yourself or someone else down overtakes the pleasure of staying where you are. If you can make the mental switch from it’s going to suck if I go to it’s going to suck if I stay in any aspect of your life, that’s a very powerful thing. If you need motivation for anything difficult try to associate the alternative with being a cause of greater strife.

The best defense is a good offense. I don’t want to be behind if I can at all avoid it. We have talked about making people uncomfortable before. This is that no matter the position, I am always attacking, always threatening, always moving towards my advantage. Ideally, I am not regressing, that’s how people rack up 30 points to your zero. It is actually far less cardio taxing to attack than to be under attack. If I can put pressure on my opponent and they have to be under duress constantly, that’s good. Go after people, that’s how we do things.

At a base level you know both what you have to do and what your opposition has to do. Let’s use being the guard player as an example. Percentage wise they will pass, or they will leg lock you. Now you know what they’re doing. So, what are you doing? Most likely you are trying to sweep or submit. Now you know what you have to be aware of, all you need to do is put yourself in the best position to impose your will. It doesn’t really matter what that is as long as you keep them in front of your legs. This is not a mindless activity; you have all the tools to be prepared for class. Make it simple and do the things you need to do.

Have a goal that’s unreasonable, it’s good for you. Believe that you are capable of more. The best times of my life I was using up my days entirely, from 6am-10pm I was on a mission. Unfortunately, I got complacent, that’s not to say that I don’t use my days, but they’re not as fulfilling if my time and energy are not expressly dedicated. Expect more of yourself, show up to class, work out, do projects, create things, gain knowledge, and contribute to your wellbeing and the wellbeing of others. Expect more, we all know we can.

Bad positions are not resting positions. If you are not at least neutral with your opponent, you should be active. Too often I see people who are casual about being in bad positions, if I do not have my legs in front of them and I’m in an inferior position, that is bad. I need to remedy that. There’s a reason Craig Jones has a power bottom instructional. The person on the bottom position has to do all of the work. This is not to say that you should wear yourself out with inefficient movements, just that you need to always be doing something to rectify the situation you’ve found yourself in. One of our grappling constants, the opposition should always be uncomfortable. Do that.