Personality and YOUR BJJ Game

Does your personality shape your BJJ game? I believe it does, and several things that I have been reading and questions by my students have compelled me to write this post.

Several students have asked me about them having problems because they have preferences for certain positions and techniques, but are having difficulty setting up and even attempting other techniques and submissions.

Furthermore, there is an interview by Ryan Hall, master of the upside down guard, who has won multiple medals with his triangles, who suddenly believes in giving up the guard completely!

Ryan Hall Interview Part I

Ryan Hall Interview Part II

Lastly, I was hearing an interview with Renzo, who got offended when one of his students went to train at Rorion's gym and was turned down because they claimed that Renzo didn't teach the real Jiu Jitsu

Renzo Interview (audio interview)

He was also a bit pissed that Relson claimed Roger Gracie, although trained in Gracie Barra is the only one from there who practices pure Gracie Jiu Jitsu, because he only uses the conservative moves like Helio did, and none of the fancy new stuff.

Personality and your game

I watched this TED video on Youtube months ago, on personality and why some people will be conservative politically, and others liberal:

Though not directly relevant, the gist is that all of us are not born with a blank state. Some of us are more conservative, and others are more risk taking

This will be noticeable in your BJJ game as well, which was my answer to my students.

The risk takers are the ones whose main game is their open guard, and have a preference for armbars, triangles and oma platas.

On the other hand, the conservative BJJ players are the ones who prefer to be on top at all times, is very conservative positionally and would rather go for submissions that do not give up position like chokes, figure fours (americanas and kimuras) and ever wristlocks. Even if they do go for armbars, it would be when everything is fully secured, no room to escape. If they do have to go to their guard, it will be a closed guard, snug and tight.

This is especially noticeable at white belt and blue belt level. As this is the point where everyone starts building their game from scratch, and whatever they are comfortable with based on their personality, will become their A game.

As most BJJers hit purple belt, this is where they either round out their game or become extremely focused on their A game, and hide their weaknesses.

But when two purple belt or higher grapple with someone of equal level as them, their A game comes out again.

Ryan Hall's Change of Heart

This is how I interpret Ryan Hall's BJJ midlife crisis as well.

Firstly, I do agree with him that top game is best if both players are equal. However, I am not certain if it is the best for HIM

He is obviously a superior player, with a high risk taking style. But by changing his game may not be suitable for him, as he might not have the attributes for it, but more importantly, he may not have the personality for it.

He might end up a mediocre black belt who specialises on a top game that doesn't suit his personality.

On the other hand, it might very well be that like most of us, we were liberal politically as a uni student, but grew more conservative as years go by, and this really is the style that would suit him after all.

Who knows, but he is a top notch competitor, and I for one am curious to see his transformation, for better or worse.

What about the World Class BJJers then?

Yes there are BJJers who are world class, but apparently have no preference. They can do it all, like Rickson, Rigan, Jean Jacques, Roger, Marcelo Garcia etc. How do you explain that? On the other hand there are other world class BJJers who only specialize and play a limited and "safe" game, the ones that fight like Helio ie Rorion, Royce etc.

First and foremost, most of us are not Gracies. We havent' been training since we were kids, and will probably only have one game all the way to black belt. These guys have been doing BJJ since before they could walk.

Thus we only live ONE lifetime doing BJJ, while these guys have lived several lifetimes worth of BJJ by now. They have built their game, broke it down and reinvented it many times over, while we are still working on our first game.

But how come some of these legends are so versatile but yet remain world class in all games and positions, while others only specialize in a very limited way? I believe this can be explained by looking back at the history of the different gyms and their philosophies

History and Style of the Gyms

I believe that the original game that was thought by Helio and his brothers is the exact way Royce and Rorion fights. The style is very safe, very conservative. It is said that Helio doesn't have all the fancy guards, only a closed guard!

Then Carlson came along and started emphasizing on strength and endurance on top of technique. His gym split from Helio's and he went out on his own developing his own champions. His philosophy of Jiu Jitsu continues today through his students in the Brazilian Top Team and American Top Team.

Then came Rolls Gracie. He was the first that went cross training with wrestlers, samboists, judokas etc. He was the first to introduce the triangle to BJJ and the first to start playing with the open guard. His influence cannot be understated.

The people who were thought by him and influenced by him include Rickson, the Machados, Carlos Gracie Jr, Jacare (founder of Alliance), Mauricio Gomez (father of Roger Gracie) etc.

When he died, his school was continued by Carlos Gracie Jr and Gracie Barra was born.

Thus Roll's influence and philosophy of Jiu Jitsu can be seen by their variedness of their students

From Gracie Barra, you have all 5 Machado Brothers, Renzo, Ralph, Pe De Pano, Roleta, Nino Schembri, Ricardo Almeida, Braulio Estima and Roger Gracie

From Alliance you have Fabio Gurgel, Cobrinha , Leo Vieira and Marcelo Garcia

From Rickson you get his own guys and Royler's guys through Gracie Humaita.

Of course these are all great champions, many of them are so varied and they are known by certain aspects of their game.

But there are some, like Rickson, Rigan, Jean Jacques, Renzo, Roger etc who seem to transcend games based on personality. This is again, because they have experienced many lifetimes of Jiu Jitsu. They no longer have a conservative game, nor a risk taking game. Its all the same to them.

But for the rest of us mere mortals, we make do with the best we can that hopefully fits our personality type.

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This article was written in 2009. Since I am moving my blog to this one, I thought it best to move some articles that I still agree with as I continue evolving. 

Motivation in BJJ

What keeps you going in BJJ? This question applies to both how you keep yourself motivated instant by instant on the mat, and also long term, how and why do you keep doing BJJ in the long run?

On the mats, when you roll, how do you keep going? Some people use anger to motivate themselves, some get an adranaline rush while grappling from both aggression or fear.  Some thrive on the competition, love making their partner cry uncle, others on the mental and physical challenges that BJJ presents you with. 

The reason this is important is because this will effect the long term longivity of this art to the individual. For many of us who are not full time martial artists, who have jobs and intend to or already have families, our motivations change over time. 

If you rely on aggression, on anger, on competition, on needing to prove yourself the alpha dog on the mats, these fires WILL dim when you get married, when you have children, when you face other family or personal changes that require more of your attention.

If you are seriously injured, this will determine whether or not you will return to the mats after your injury, or decide its not worth it. When you get older, and you don't heal as fast, whether or not you are willing to day after day roll with younger, fitter, stronger and possibly more technical guys who are gunning for your tap.

Whatever your answer is, will determine how you train, why you train, whether or not you'll invest in any particular training or direction, and ultimately whether you will continue training the rest of your life. 

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This article was written in 2009. Since I am moving my blog to this one, I thought it best to move some articles that I still agree with as I continue evolving. 

BJJ and Injuries

Injuries are part and parcel of doing Brazilian Jiu Jitsu simply because of all the dynamic sparring we do, and the realistic damage the submissions we do can cause.

In BJJ, I would divide the injuries to minor and major injuries. The minor injuries like sore fingers from mat burn, gripping too hard, bruises all over your body or even cauliflower ears are common. They are minor and in some cases easily preventable (for example by wearing earguards and mouthguards and other protective gear, or learning how to grip). 

I will focus more on the major injuries that will require time off the mats, or even surgery. Major injuries are the main reason serious BJJ exponents never last to black belt, or won't be practicing BJJ till their old age. 

Unless you partner someone malicious and out to hurt you, nearly all major injuries are by and large mostly caused by accident. However that is not to say that most of these cannot be prevented, and seriously most of it is down to the instructor, and the culture of the gym set by the instructor

The most obvious and common way is that the instructors must teach and enforce the principle that you should take care of your training partner while grappling, and that you should respect the tap. Respecting the tap means letting go of the submission the moment your partner taps, not letting go when you think your partner should tap or only when they feel pain.

Another common way to avoid injuries in the gym by the instructor is by banning certain moves that are too dangerous to be used in active sparring. Sure, they should teach you those moves, to recognise them and learn how to apply and defend against them. But there are some submissions that does not give you enough time to tap, or causes injury before pain is felt. Moves like heel hooks and neck cranks IMO cannot be used in a dynamic spar without eventually causing a serious injury. 

However, in recent times, more and more injuries are caused by the very nature of the training. In this, I mean the gyms who are overly competitive, train conditioning for hours, and roll till they puke. It is not wrong to train hard, and it is not wrong to be competitive. However, it becomes a problem when the training and mindset is overboard and there starts to be too many injuries. I have met so many people in person and on the net who have had to retire because they broke their necks, have to fuse their spines or their knees too damaged to continue training. 

Let me add a caveat, that choice of gym depends on your motivation and ambition. If you are intending to be a full time professional MMA fighter, or full time world champion BJJ competitor, perhaps these gyms are better suited to take you towards your ambitions faster (that is not to say the other more gentler gyms wouldn't). Be aware too that many a professional MMA fighter and BJJ competitor get seriously injured too. 

From Bas Rutten's interview at mmafanhouse:

You’re actually younger than Randy Couture. Is there any chance that you could fight again?
No, there’s not. My knees are a mess. I have no cartilage in both my kneecaps. Zero. Bone on bone. It’s really bad. There’s nothing they can do, except surgeries, until that stem cell stuff. People think a knee replacement, but you can’t do a knee replacement. You can have the best surgeons on the planet, which I already went to, and they say, “Bas, it’s a really bad problem.” …

I can’t do any ground work anymore. If I bike, I have to have a bike with a high seat. I can’t run at all. If I jog half a mile, I can’t walk for five days. It’s so bad sometimes when I walk down my driveway I walk backwards.

Do you think that 10, 20, 30 years from now, we’re going to see a lot of former MMA fighters with serious, long-term injuries?
No. Everybody is training smarter. I have so much explosive power that what happened with me is my training scraped my kneecaps up. People like Randy Couture are training smarter. If you train smart, you’re OK. I was a maniac. I went balls-out every training.

On the other hand, if you are a doing BJJ on a part time basis, meaning you have a full time job, and intend not to be injured so that you can go to work, and you intend to practice BJJ your whole life, then perhaps you may need to reconsider your intensity of training. 

Many of these gyms are run by champion BJJers and market themselves as hardcore gyms. The instructors think that such training made them champions, it should work for their students too. However, many of these BJJ champions became champions in their 20s. Oft times, now that they are instructors in their own gyms, their students by and large are not kids in their 20s. If their students are 30 and above, and their training is too intense, look out for the injury rates there. 

Furthermore, I put it out there that generally, most champions are champions not purely because of hard work alone, they are genetically gifted too. For example, the average Brazilian Top Team champion is strong as hell, and while it is no doubt they produce many champions, the same type of training will cripple the average person.

Hardcore and balls to the wall training have their place. For example if you are training for a competition, you should increase the intensity of the sparring and training to peak for the competition. But you cannot train like that year in and year out and throughout your BJJ career. And even if you do train for competitions, principles such as respecting the tap and protecting your partner should still be followed. 

How do you identify such gyms that will cause you injury? Well, first and foremost how do you feel training there? Do you feel as if every practice spar is a fight to the death? Is the instructor and are the students constantly injured? Do they allow moves like heel hook and neck cranks during regular sparring?

The Machado's have a saying, that you "Play Jiu Jitsu, not fight Jiu Jitsu". Jiu Jitsu should be about having fun. BJJ should be fun. You should feel no bother about tapping than if you conceded a point in a game in a sport, or you lose playing a video game.

Lastly, here are some well respected Black Belts, on the same topic:

Pedro Sauer

Keith Owen

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This article was written in 2009. Since I am moving my blog to this one, I thought it best to move some articles that I still agree with as I continue evolving. 

My Thoughts on BJJ Training

One of my students and my assistant, Rizan asked me last night on my thoughts on teaching BJJ and why I teach the way I teach, and seeing that I haven't blogged for a long time, perhaps its a good time to actually share my thoughts on why I teach the way I teach

First and foremost, my instructor John Will always from day 1 knew I was coming back to Malaysia, and was going to teach. That is why I was always taught so many different variations, so many combinations, so many options. Well, to be honest, I was also the irritating student asking way too many questions, but being the great guy he is, he answered all of them, rather than giving the typical "don't get there" answers.

Competition Training

Before I go on, I would like to express the fact that I KNOW how generally competition gyms are run, how they train. The fact that I don't teach that way, just means that I do not agree with it.

The usual style for most competition gyms would be an intensive workout, anywhere between 1/2 to an hour, then perhaps one or two techniques and lastly 15 mins to half an hour of rolling time.

Now, thats all good and well, if you have the time and resources to train every day, maybe even more than one class a day. However, learning merely 1 or 2 moves a class, and taking only 1-3 classes a week, you will take ages to build up sufficient moves to develop a game. To me, seeing that the constraints are time (I don't believe many students train BJJ full time in Malaysia) this is not be best use of training time.

Heavy workouts are great, if you are still a teenager. Otherwise IMO you are wasting your student's time and money doing situps and pushups and all kinds of stretches. To me, I am being thought to teach BJJ, not fitness, not conditioning nor am I anyone's "life coach".

BJJ to me has always been honest. No bullshit about moves being too deadly. You lose, you tap. Doesn't matter if its to a day 1 white belt.

Similarly BJJ instruction should not be as inefficient in instruction like traditional martial arts. One should not be squatting in the horse stance for several years before your instructor is willing to teach you the "good stuff"

Intense Warmups

I know there are many BJJ students who accept and think that intense warmups are an essential part of BJJ. Many even like it and loves boasting on how tough their warmups are. There are some who somehow need a drill sergeant to yell at them, and they'll be happy.

However, by and large these are not smart people. Many years from now, if you ask them what they learned, somehow all they will be able to tell you about is their intense workouts. Thats what they remember from learning BJJ, and thats a shame

Ultimately BJJ is a mental art just as much as it is physical. It is insane to believe that when you are exhausted after a intense workout that your mind will be able to absorb techniques better. Every single research on learning has shown that you learn best when you are fresh, not when you are exhausted. BJJ is no exception

Another question to ask yourself is this:

If your training is geared towards physical attributes like strength, endurance and explosiveness, will you quit when you eventually lose your strength, endurance and explosiveness?

IMO BJJ is something you should be able to do your whole life, like Helio up to 90+ even. If you too believe thus, then the physical aspect of BJJ should not be the main focus of your training.

Training like a madman for competition is all well and good if you are in your 20s and still want to prove you are the baddest man around.

However, training like a teenager past 30, and you'll end up injured for life. Elite athletes in all sports retire on average at 35. It is unrealistic to think that you can "train like a champion" past 30+ and not get injured, sometimes severely

When the BJJ legends that we all follow and try to emulate suddenly say that they now do not believe in rolling hard, but rather just drill, you know something is wrong.

Besides that, a simple google search will show you, not only BJJ, but intense physical activity that goes seems to go together with BJJ training like crossfit, kettlebells etc, they all have a disproportionately high injury rate, even among their "certified" instructors.

My personal evolution

Anyway, back to my student's question. To be honest, my instruction style has changed throughout the years, and the changes seem to reflect my change in belt color. My students throughout the years may recognize this progression, and perhaps understand where I was at what stage they were training with me.

As a white belt, I was accumulating techniques. I read bloody everything I could get my hands on. I learned from as many sources as I could find, and studied my training partners and mentors, the way they made techniques work for them

When I got my blue belt, and when I started teaching after coming back to Malaysia, I went from just accumulating techniques to working on combinations. The way I taught was similar. One position, maybe 6-10 techniques a night. Or one move, say a submission like an armbar, but from every conceivable position. I thought in groups of techniques.

As a purple belt, I started working on flow drills. How moves flow together, movement drills, movement between positions, limiting yourself in grapples so that you moved differently etc.

As a brown belt, I looked for the universality of position and moves. I thought and taught in universal concepts that apply by and large in all positions. So even though you have never learnt a particular escape, or move, by knowing universally what the goal is and where you want to be, with the understanding of these concepts you can create your own solutions to your problems.

So ultimately, how do I teach my class?

My Current Class Structure and Methods

My classes are one and a half hours long and I still do generally follow the traditional warmup-technique-rolling structure of roughly half an hour each.

However, instead of warmups, my first half hour are normally filled with movement drills, flow drills. I can be anything from basic to complex combination training, everything from takedowns to submissions, submissions flow from in different positions, to currently we are doing MMA takedowns to submissions.

The whole purpose is rather than mastering pushups and situps, it is better to program into muscle memory moves you would actually use in BJJ. I used to teach animal walks etc in this first half hour, but like pushups and situps, you are never going to gorilla walk in a live roll, thus no point in programming those into muscle memory.

Ok I have to admit, this is pretty tiring training.

Then I move on to the instruction part of the class. Here I do have a mix of all my previous ways of thinking about BJJ, as I have students of different levels.

Sometimes I teach groups of techniques. Sometimes I do other flow and movement drills, sometimes I teach universal concepts and how to apply them. It all depends on the plan for those months I am teaching, as well as the students who turn up to class

Teaching purely concepts will help the more advanced students, as the newer students may not have the technique base, nor understand the context of this instruction. On the other hand, sometimes the concepts are so universal and so simple that beginners get a jump start in their BJJ understanding

Teaching techniques is good as well, and although it is good for the beginners as they build their technique base, the advance guys get to revise and refine what they have learnt before, or even classes they might have missed

Lastly, the rolling. I do try to mix this up a bit to ensure the rolling is not always a fight.

Sometimes it is a good thing to be able to go hard and competitive, as long as no one gets hurt. But doing this all the time will cause injuries in the long term, and seriously, one shouldn't start feeling you have mortal enemies in your own gym.

We do slow rolls, time controlled turn rolls, handicap roles. The purpose of all of these is to get my students comfortable on the ground, experiment, get in bad positions, try different submissions etc. There should be a atmosphere of fun, that this is the part the student is looking forward to the most. And so far, I believe it is.

The goal ultimately is threefold.

The movement drills etc is primarily to program muscle memory. These are drills that eventually the student should be able to do with their eyes closed, automatically.

The instruction part is to appeal to the mental faculties of the student. From learning techniques or group of techniques, to understanding overall concepts in BJJ especially in terms of leverage, space and even basic anatomy

The last part, the rolling, personally is not only a training of physical strength, endurance, explosiveness as well as finding out what works for you in a real time resisting spar with your opponent.

To me it is just as important to view it as a training of emotion.

Rolling with bigger,stronger and better opponents gives you courage. Being crushed and smothered teaches you to overcome your fear. Controlling and dominating an opponent in a controlled manner teaches you to be calm.

Ultimately, BJJ is something that you should want to be able to do the rest of your life. Hopefully by these methods, you will get there with the required physical skills, wealth of knowledge and without injuries.

To conclude, the objective in BJJ is to be at all times as technical and efficient as possible. So too should our BJJ training be as technical and efficient as possible.

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This article was written in 2009. Since I am moving my blog to this one, I thought it best to move some articles that I still agree with as I continue evolving. 

Tap or I Snap!!!!

Tapping is an important part of learning BJJ. Even the best black belts have tapped a thousand times on their journey to become the best. Tapping keeps you from getting injured, and keeps you honest, knowing that you have been cought.

In a BJJ class scenerio, it is never the objective to intentionally injure your training partners. However, there are some people who will never tap, and will hold out hoping that you will let go. What do you do? Let go? Or snap/put them to sleep?

In my early days of teaching, I more or less kept quiet on the subject, and it seemed that my students started letting their opponents go even when the submission is tight, they never applied it.

However, the last few years I have let it be known clearly that I believe the other opinion is correct. If your opponent does not tap, you put them to sleep/snap

This is not to say that you intentionally go out to hurt your opponent. But when you get your submission, apply it slowly, but with clear intention that you will continue to sink your submission in deeper and deeper until something snaps, or your opponent goes to sleep.

Learning to tap has to be learnt at your own home gym. Its no use being known as the tough guy in your gym because you don't tap, and end up seriously injured when visiting other gyms. Going to sleep, or a tweaked elbow for a week or two is not a big price to pay for such an essential lesson to be learnt.

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This article was written in 2009. Since I am moving my blog to this one, I thought it best to move some articles that I still agree with as I continue evolving. 

Don't Worship the Move, Learn the Flow

Coming from an traditional martial arts background, there is a tendency for martial artists to "worship" moves.

This is even more prevalent for Asians, and this can be seen my the numerous kung fu movies in the market. In many of the movies, there is always the hero or bad guy spying on the master, learning his secret Buddha Palm that the students are not taught. And this move is used by the hero at the end to save the day, or the bad guy uses it to destroy the master, whereby the hero has to find an even more powerful move.

In the martial arts circle, many practitioners too fall into this trap. It is all too easy to start labelling this move and that move is attributed to this or that martial art, and giving more importance or less importance to that move based on the art its attributed to.

Unknown Comic Book

History's Greatest Disciple Kenichi

While labeling a move, attributing it to a martial art is not wrong per se, names are useful after all for communication and describing the move without demonstrating it. However, it becomes a mental barrier when your move that your instructor taught you is the only way to execute it, and you think that move is the be all and end all.

I remember a story from either my instructor John Will, or another BJJ Black Belt instructor (my age is catching up with me), on when he was teaching a BJJ seminar hosted by a JKD school. The students told him that they knew all about armbars, so he asked them to demonstrate. One by one they demonstrated an armbar, but at the end of the move all of them strangely used one hand and pointed a finger to the roof. He couldn't quite figure out why all these JKD guys were doing that until one of them showed him a picture of how Bruce Lee does it.


Its a funny story, but it goes to show how worshipping a move made by someone you revere basically makes the move less effective than it should be.

Specialization is not the problem. I have had fellow training partners who were experts in a particular choke, experts in armbars, experts in escaping and a particular sweep etc. The problem is the people who try to emulate this, thinking that thats the way to go.

Truth be told, there is no magic move that can finish off all your opponents. For every technique there is an counter, and a counter to the counter, and so on and so forth. So even if you have can do a technique textbook perfect, if your opponent knows you are going to execute that move, and knows the counter, there is a good likelyhood he will escape.

There are also those with freakish abilities. I've encountered a student who is nearly immune to chokes, at least 3 students whose shoulders can rotate more than 90 degrees for kimuras and americanas, a student whose ligaments are flexible enough to hold out in a fully extended armbar and kneebar.

What I have discovered as I go up the belt ranks, and watching better grapplers grapple and grappling them, is that their flow is different. No doubt blackbelts have each their own ways to making certain techniques work for them that don't work for us. But more importantly, it is their flow, their timing and their "in between" moves and positions that make them better. 

Unfortunately, those are the things that are hardest to teach, and learn. So most instructors cannot teach this, and most students will have to learn it the hard way. 

So the next time you watch or grapple someone better than you, don't just look at the techniques performed, but look for the flow, the timing, the "in between" moves and positions. For example, analyse why some black belts can do "BJJ No Nos" in bad positions and yet stay safe from submissions, small moves that they do in between positions, so that their opponent cannot recover. Study combinations that work for certain people, and why certain black belts escape a certain way, and not the normal way you were thought.

So remember the old saying: "Its not the size of the boat, but the motion of the ocean".... oh wait, thats for something else......

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This article was written in 2009. Since I am moving my blog to this one, I thought it best to move some articles that I still agree with as I continue evolving. 

Fight a Boxer, Box a Fighter

I am a firm believer of variety of techniques

I have attended classes and seminars by high level BJJers. Many of them will tell you the same thing, that they only teach and believe in the basics, because its what works for them. Unfortunately, most of these guys, being high performance athletes can do their moves to anyone, because they are typically big strong guys.

There are no basics that work for everyone. One thing I have realized teaching in Malaysia, is that the students here come in all shapes and sizes. My lightest student weighed in at 40kgs and my heaviest 120+kg.

There will be moves that work for the lighter one that won't work for the heavier one and definitely vice versa.

There is an old saying "Fight a Boxer, Box a Fighter". This exact phrase is used by John Will and Gene Lebell as their basis of their success in their individual autobiographies. This is the reason how they climbed to the top in their fields (John in Silat, Gene in Judo).

What it means, is that you use techniques that your opponent is unaware of, not good at or unprepared for. You don't go head to head with a particular technique, strategy or game if your opponent is better than you at it.

Every technique, there is a counter. So if you do basics only, the counter will quite easily counter it. Furthermore, different instructors have different ideas what the basics mean. Even a simple technique, say armbar from mount, 10 black belts will give you 10 different emphasis on the same move. So most instructors will say learn the basics, but more often than not, they are all talking about different sets of techniques.

To me the beauty of BJJ is the variety of moves. I try to teach as many games as possible, and the techniques that make up those games, although perhaps physically or attribute wise, I am not able to play those games at a good level.

Roleta's Helicopter Sweep

Thus I have students who play rubber guard as their primary guard, and one particular blue belt plays a mean upside down guard with triangles and oma platas as traps. My purple belt plays a mean Z and De La Riva guard, and another blue belt plays primarily half guard.

The De La Riva Guard

Does that mean that these guards (or othe techniques) are useless and we should only learn "the basics"? Eddie Bravo, Ricardo De La Riva, Gordo and many others would take offense with that.

Eddie Bravo's Rubber Guard

In a class I typically teach my students perhaps 4-8 techniques for a particular position. That is not to say I expect them to remember all of them. In fact I expect them to remember only those that fit in to their game.

This is my montessori way of teaching BJJ. You pick and choose what you want to learn, and how fast you want to learn is up to you.

Two of my students messing around with the twister

BJJ first and foremost requires intelligence. As instructors, I believe our place is to show you the way, give you the tools, but it is up to you which path you take, and the level and direction of your growth. We help you develop your game, answer your questions the best we can. But at the end, there is no "best" game that everyone leans. There is a best game for you, that only you can develop.

There's always the flying rubber guard!

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This article was written in 2009. Since I am moving my blog to this one, I thought it best to move some articles that I still agree with as I continue evolving. 

Culture of your gym

Being a part time instructor myself, I gear my class towards the typical part time student, ie non professional martial artist. That is not to say that my students are substandard. They may not be as intense as those from "fighting gyms", but many belt ranks from overseas who visit can attest that my students do deserve their ranks.

Also, being from the Machado lineage, my attitude is not so much one of challenging everyone else in the world and I don't hold back when I teach my students. There are no hidden techniques (except the wushi finger hold, that I teach only to my son).


Not a Fighter Gym


My gym is not a fighter gym. That is not to say we don't have the appropriate skills, but just that I don't subscribe to the whole philosophy.

The typical gym of that sort normally feature boot camp style intense workouts, high emphasis on techniques that require strength and/or athleticism, and fight till you puke rolling sessions. The techniques thought also only reflect what works for the teacher to the exclusion of all other techniques.

However, the problem with such gyms is that those who get good are only those with the same attributes as the instructor, everyone else becomes cannon fodder. These gyms also have high injury rates and the boot camp style workouts are designed to separate the wheat from the chaff (ie make people drop out)

Unfortunately many instructors take this as the template to follow, as this is typically the way top successful competition gyms train. But if you think about it, they are successful because there are no more weak links, the non performing students have dropped out leaving only the champions.

First and foremost, I would like to state that I do not disagree that the above mentioned methods work. They do work very well indeed for gyms who regularly compete and the certain type of students who thrive in such gyms. They do produce champions that way. However, these gyms are typically intimidating and perhaps not suitable for most but the most hardcore.

My instructor John Will once told me that the secret to a successful gym is to identify the bruisers in the gym, and get rid of them, as they make other students drop out. This disruptive influence is typically the alpha male student, who injures others regularly and who most other students do not want to roll with.

Unfortunately, if you market yourself as a fighter gym, your typical student attracted will be of this bruiser variety. A whole gym of them, you have lots of injuries, ego problems and a hostile atmosphere for training.

It is possible, and I have met many top fighters who are nice guys, and not necessarily be of the bruiser variety. They are the nicest people I have met, not what you imagine to be top MMA fighters or BJJ champions. So the fighter culture is unnecessary and ultimately harmful.

Thus the style and culture that I strive to achieve is a fun, relaxed gym culture, and is accessible to the average person, not merely the super athletes.

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This article was written in 2009. Since I am moving my blog to this one, I thought it best to move some articles that I still agree with as I continue evolving.