Success Secrets & Tips: Choosing Your Brazilian Jiu Jitsu Techniques

I'm reading a fantastic book called Comedy Writing Secrets (best £10 I’ve ever spent!).

It's an awesome book for anyone who enjoys comedy in all its forms. In it, the author talks about the MAP theory of how to write:


It makes perfect sense. Jokes that could kill an audience of OAPs (excuse the pun) will probably bomb with college students and vice versa. And it hit me how this applies to all performance, not just comedy, writing or even just art.

This is perfectly applicable to BJJ / Grappling.

MAP: We (Performers) often try to force techniques (Material) on partners (Audience) and get so frustrated when they don’t work (but it worked yesterday on so and so!). The material suited the performer, but not the audience (or at least was not done within the right context).

MAP: Sometimes we see a technique being done effortlessly on person A by person B. Then we try to perform it on the same victim (I mean partner) and it doesn’t work or feels very awkward. That’s because although the material suits the audience, it doesn’t suit the performer’s style or attributes. (Just because Eddie Bravo pulls off the Rubber Guard
so smoothly doesn’t mean that Roger Gracie or Marcelo Garcia should switch to it!).

MAP: Finally, we may have an excellent guard pass or submission that has always worked against a particular partner (or style of BJJ player) when wearing a gi but we just can’t pull it off when grappling without a gi. In this case, the performer and the audience are the same, but the technique is no longer suitable.

Keep this in mind, as it will save you a lot of frustration. If you are trying to work this closed guard sweep with someone and all they are doing is hugging your hips and stalling, don’t give up on yourself or the sweep…just acknowledge that the audience wants something different and…reach inside his lapel and choke him!
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PS. The MAP theory can easily be applied to other fields too such as instructors choosing material for a special course (e.g. rape-prevention) or group of students (Children, military..etc.)
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