Understanding the concepts of jiu jitsu may, in the long run, be more

important than simply learning a multitude of techniques. I’m not saying learning

techniques is not important, but understanding the concepts will allow you to still

be doing jiu jitsu in the scrambles and chaos of a fight where setting up and

hitting specific techniques can be difficult.

Here are three concepts that I believe are easy to explain, easy to

understand, and easy to apply to your grappling. You have probably already been

introduced to some of these ideas but with different terminology. I’ve given them

labels and used verbiage that I think make them easy to explain and understand.

LEGOS: If you have two small rectangular Legos there’s a dozen ways you

can try to press them together that will result in zero connectivity. Even when the

right surfaces of the Lego pieces are facing each other, if they are not properly

aligned, there will be no connection. But if get they positioned and aligned

correctly they will snap together…. where one goes, the other goes…whatever

direction one turns, the other will follow. This is the kind of connectivity you are

looking for when you are, for example, using hooks to control your training

partner. I like to use x-guard as an illustration. Typically, you will have your top leg

with the knee sticking out behind your opponent and your foot in front of his

thigh, while your bottom leg is in the opposite position with your foot behind

their lower leg. If your feet and toes are curled with your toes up to “make a

hook” and your top foot is planted firmly in the pocket of your hip and groin while

your bottom foot is planted firmly in the crook behind your opponent’s knee you

should have pretty good connection. With these two points of contact you will

now have the ability to control and manipulate your opponent. How will this help

you now? The most obvious answer is that you can control and/or manipulate

your opponent’s posture, base, and balance. Additionally, it will help you to

control the timing and tempo of the match and maintain the distance of your

choosing. Bruce Lee once said, “All other things being equal, the fighter that

controls timing, tempo, and distance will win the fight”. The Lego theory, or

connectivity, will help you do that.

The Push/Pull concept: The underlying principle here is leverage. The pushing and

pulling (or more accurately and simply stated – applying force at two points in the

opposite direction) is how the leverage is generated. Most joint lock submissions

rely on the effective use of leverage as does moving your opponent. When you’re

standing and you pull on your opponent’s right arm while pushing on his left

shoulder you are using leverage to turn him, off balance him, and move him

where you want him to go. How will this help you now? Mechanically speaking,

using a lever makes work easier. In other words, it’s efficient. As a training

session, match, or fight proceeds the more efficient athlete will have more gas in

the tank to finish.

Compass quadrants: Imagine you are lying on your back on the mats—your head

represents north and your feet represent south with your arms to the east and

west. Between these points you have a NE, SE, SW, and NW quadrant. All you

have to do to sweep your opponent is to element a post in one of these

quadrants and then dump your opponent into it. How will this help you now? The

percentage of sweeps you finish will go up and the effort it takes to finish them

will decrease. Maybe most importantly though, you will start to see (and hit)

sweeps in transitions. During a scramble you may notice overly committed in one

direction with most of his weight on the post in that direction: Delete that post

and dump your opponent in that direction…..SWEEP!!!

In conclusion: Learning one technique from one position will improve your

game today…. as long as you can get to that one position, but grasping a concept

can improve your game today no matter what positions you find yourself in.

Train Hard. Train Smart. Get Better.

Joe Thomas

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