Not a Sprint

New people in Jiu-Jitsu are funny, and all the same.

They get their early lessons to gain some basic skills, and then eventually join the advanced group. This is where free-rolling happens.

There is a Billy Joel song called Goodnight Saigon, where a soldier describes rookies entering their first combat with the words, “We came in spastic, like tameless horses.” All new rollers in Jiu-Jitsu do the same thing. They are hyper, and terrified, and unpredictable. None of these characteristics do them any good at all. They gallop around in a panic, incredibly tense, and grabbing everything in sight.

Let's look at two guys from last night.

The first is a kickboxing guy with some experience of grappling as it is done by mma guys. He was trying a few tricks he knew, and with a lot of power. At one point he was on top of me, but I had him in half-guard. He was pushing hard to get an arm triangle going, which can't work from inside of the half-guard. For fun, I let him out, and he cranked his muscle tension up to about 100% to complete the submission. I countered, and let him yank away to no effect at all. There we were, all tangled up, with him exerting every ounce of force he could produce, and with me quietly holding out effectively using no exertion whatsoever; leverage totally on my side of the encounter.

Then there's Tawha. She's half my size, and gives me fits when we roll. She is always totally relaxed, and never tries to power through anything. Although I am more experienced, she knows enough principals and technique to be dangerous.

This is one of the beauties of non-sport Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu over other grappling arts. In a real fight there are no time limits or weight categories or points.

Let's say you are the strongest guy at your mma school, and are able to beat your buddies using force, and then you end up facing somebody bigger, and a heck of a lot stronger than you are. What have you got? You'll be like the biggest, baddest kindergarten kid facing the biggest, baddest kid in grade seven.

Competition rules also screw people up. You'd think that Collegiate wrestlers would be the top of the grappling food chain, what with their intensive training programs. The truth is, they are not. They train for years with the expectation of time limits, and size categories. One of the truths that is the most deeply engrained in their DNA is to never, ever be on their back, or to even let their back touch the mat for a second. Flip a wrestler on their back, and they will explode to get off. Fake an attempt to flip them on their back, and they will do anything to stop you.

In non-sport grappling, you need to know how to fight on your back. Do it for a while, and you won't care much if you are on top of your opponent, or underneath. It doesn't matter even a tiny bit if it seems like your opponent is dominating and defeating you. What matters is the technique that ends everything in your favour.

Burning energy is a big part of this, or rather not burning it. Most people fight like they are running a sprint. It shouldn't be that way, but that seems to be human nature. I've beaten people without really doing anything at all. They attack with maximum effort, and defend the same way. Their muscles are tense, and they go, go, go. This burns a lot of energy, and the muscle tension actually restricts their breathing, making things a great deal worse for them. It isn't unusual for this type of effort to cut oxygen intake by half.

So they are sprinting, while their Jiu-Jitsu opponent is not. The Jiu-Jitsu guy is mostly defending, and doing just enough to keep the other person's level of exertion up. The occasional choke threat is great for this, or even a random grab.

How long can you sprint? Not very long, I'll bet. Let's say it's a minute before you notice that you're about to exhaust yourself and you'd better stop before you poop out altogether. The problem is that you can't just stop like you can with running. The other guy isn't about to stop just because you want to. Let's say you are blown, and try and gear down to 50% to try and rest while still fighting. A great idea, except you are already tired. Your body is unable to behave the same at 50% as it would if you were still fresh. You will be quite inefficient, and clumsy, and slow, and weak, and more prone to increased fatigue.

That's when the fresh guy will make his move. You will be to slow, and weak and clumsy to stop him.

This is what I mean when I've beaten people without submitting them. They've gone like it's a sprint until totally exhausted, and have actually quit rather than try and continue. Their faces are normally either bright red at this point, or sometimes very pale. It varies.

It sounds easy to do, but like most unnatural learned skills, it isn't.

Consider swimming lessons. Tell a non-swimmer that they need to relax in order to swim well, then throw them into deep water. They will find relaxation to be totally impossible.

It takes practice to master.