Man, I really miss Jiu-Jitsu. I haven't trained in quite a while - in September 2018 I left my LA life behind to attend UC Davis for my Ph.D in math. I always told myself I would go back to Jiu-Jitsu eventually, but I couldn't really find a school that I liked, or one that was affordable. I trained with someone at school for a little bit, but that didn't last very long. So essentially, I haven't really trained since September 2018. We're almost at 3 years of no training.
Yet my body seems to remember everything like it was yesterday - and I've been becoming really unhealthy physically, so I really want to get back to training and feeling good physically again. I've been watching some videos here and there and it's really making me miss Jiu-Jitsu. So when I go back to Davis in a few days, I think I'm going to start training - at least, after I'm done moving.
So Rener and Ryron released this thing on their "32 Principles" of Jiu-Jitsu recently - which I thought was kind of funny because I've always believed that this is the way martial arts should be taught, and it's finally nice to see them catching along. I've also been watching a lot of Priit Mikhelson and Chris Paines, and this really validates a lot of the concerns I had about how Jiu-Jitsu was taught. I never got caught in that trap because I always took my own education into my own hands, but yeah...
Ever since I read "The Book of Martial Power," as well as Marc MacYoung/Rory Miller's books, the general consensus was that learning an abundance of techniques wasn't useful - unless there's progressive resistance. I'm really good at Twister-style attacks because I drilled them on Chris with progressive resistance until I was good enough, and then was able to apply it on everyone.
For other things, like sweeps, I troubleshooted the mechanics of it myself, and then adjusted to really make it work. I'm still at the phase where now I know why I can't get a sweep, but still trying to change things to make it work.
Priit is changing how I look at escapes and defense - he's right. A lot of those positions are mechanically advantageous for one side. So it's stupid to try to expect that I would get out of it. The gist is that an escape goes from really bad position to out in one move - but often it's not like that. So there's like a super safe posture that he tries to escape from, and then a lot of it is prevention, as well as fighting for that posture.
I really like this idea - a lot of this defense stuff is great, and much more manageable. Priit's methodology is very in line with how I personally learn, and how I feel people learn. So when I go back to train, this will be what I focus on mainly.
What Chris Paines did is incredible as well - he took everything in Jiu-Jitsu and just simplified it to a few things - don't let them get the space between your elbows and knees/behind your knees. That's literally it. Everything else is that. That makes it so easy to work with. Or like chokes = preventing you from turning. Well, they need the space between your elbows/knees to do that. So you should have a defensive posture that protects that - just like you do in boxing.
In terms of principles, this has always been what has helped my game the most. I used to go into a roll session with a specific thing or concept that I would work on - for instance, using my weight in passing, or focusing on full body motion, focusing on bone structure, focusing on good angles, focusing on applying force at the end of the lever, on not going for things where they're not primed for it, etc. I think I should make a list and really focus on each one of them.
I will do this at some point - right now I need to work.
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