BJJ / Grappling tips: Stop Wasting Time in Jiujitsu!

Do you want to stop wasting time while training jiujitsu? Spring Clean your life!

An old saying goes: You don’t measure water with a sieve! In other words, in order to know how much time you will need to get something done, you have to manage where your time is disappearing.

We grow attached to clutter. It’s a simple as that. Garfield the cat says in one his cartoons: Food a funny thing, because the moment you are full it turns from temptation to garbage. The same goes for objects. The moment we attach a value to them, we practically hand them an unquestioned invite to clutter our lives (and steal our valuable time).

An excellent example is the £2.99 I paid for one of the best Judo books ever published: The Secrets of Judo: Text for Instructors and Students: Test for Instructors and Students. It's where I learnt all my top game pressure principles. I got it at the local used-book store. Whoever owned prior to me had not attached any further value to it and was happy to part with it (or perhaps they loved it but it was time for it to make its journey to me!)

Here is something that I recommend you do at least once and preferable 2ce a year. I call it the Spiritual Spring Clean:

• Take a hard look at everything you own (and I mean everything!)
• Within 2 seconds place it in one of the following three piles:

1. Keep for a specific (near-future: upcoming 6-months) purpose
2. Give to someone specific
3. Throw away in the bin

(PS. These piles are listed in increasing order of size!)

Uncluttering your life will have a trickle down effect on your mental state and help you re-focus your training.

Remember the Pareto rule? 20% of what you own will provide 80% you need (and 80% of your issues are born out of 20% of your activities!)

While you chew on that, watch professor Ryan Young's analysis of what's fundamental in jiujitsu and what's advanced. This may help you "spring clean" your arsenal of jiujitsu techniques.

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ZHOO ZHITSU IS FOR EVERYONE!

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Local Karateka gets a taste of the skill of a Royce Gracie Jiujitsu Blue Belt

I've visited Royce Gracie Lancashire, aka Força Combat Academy a couple of times, taught there and trained with their head instructor my good friend Ross a bunch of times. Over this time, I've come to know and really like the team there so when Ross told there had been a "situation" with one of the Jiujitsu students, John, I had to do a piece! The altercation was of a friendlier nature than good ol' Gracie challenges, but there was still some foul play and dirty tricks. Read below to see for yourself how Royce Gracie Jiujitsu did. 

Does Brazilian Jiu Jitsu work in real life self defence?

Hi John. How long have you practiced jiu jitsu?

I've trained Royce Gracie Jiu Jitsu for two years at Força Combat Academy. I received my blue belt from Royce Gracie a few weeks back.  

Cool. I believe you've recently been involved in an incident. Tell us in your own words what happened.

I went for a workout at the gym (ed. note: this is a separate leisure centre and not Força) and on the way out noticed a small number of guys getting changed into Gis, one was a purple belt and one was a two stripe brown belt along with a couple of guys with them who must have been starting. Interested to see what martial art they were doing I decided to watch them for a while with my brother, who also trains Gracie Jiujitsu. I asked the Brown belt what martial art it was and he told me it was Shotokan Karate, he then explained that they would do some body conditioning (which turned out to be him battering the other students with different strikes), some techniques (calling them everything when they got it wrong, such an inspirational instructor...) and then some "ground fighting". To which I said "can I watch?". I watched for a while all of their different techniques and then came the ground-fighting. 

BJJ / Grappling Tips: Efficiency vs Effectiveness

Helio Gracie is quoted to have said: “Jiu Jitsu is personal efficiency to protect the weaker, which anyone can do. It is the force of leverage against brute force”.

We throw these words around sometimes, whether at the gym, on the BJJ / grappling mat or even in the office. But what do they really mean and are they interchangeable?

Efficiency is using less energy to provide the same level of energy service.
Effectiveness means the capability of producing an effect.

In other words, you’re effective if you get the job done but you are only efficient if you do it with less energy.

In BJJ / Grappling, being effective means you escape bad positions, dominate people and tap them with submissions. Being efficient means you don't expend too much energy while doing so*.

The goal in BJJ/Grappling is to, ultimately, be both. But it’s not going to be easy and it’s not going to come overnight!

So where do we start? I believe that the goal initially is to work on your effectiveness, but keeping efficiency in mind. You come to the gym to learn grappling techniques that work (effective). The goal is then to try to do them with less and less energy (efficiency). Once you pass that blue belt stage, I feel it's most beneficial to stop hunting more techniques and focus instead on efficiency with the techniques you already have. Investigate the different ways people with a variety of body shapes and builds perform the same technique and it will add richness and depth to your understanding of these techniques and your efficiency with them.

While most people know that and aim to do it, some confuse the two.