Today’s class (read: ass whooping) brought to mind something Dave Camarillo said about what distinguished John Danaher’s approach to jiujitsu. He paraphrased John as saying that he wasn’t teaching and coaching to develop great sport jiujitsu competitors. Rather, his goal was to create complete grapplers.
However, to be more precise, it wasn’t necessarily the class itself that brought this to mind. It was Joe, a blue belt who tapped me at least seven times during our 10 minute round. Each time I tapped, it was to a wrist lock. A wrist lock applied with his hands. With his hips. With his head. (Yes, his head.) A couple of times I saw it coming and was helpless to stop it given the position I allowed myself to be put in. But, the majority of the time, I didn’t even see it coming.
How often do you drill wrist locks in your school? How often do you use them in sparring or think of a holistic strategy for applying them in different positions? I’d bet good money that Joe has invested time in each. Pair that with a grappler who isn’t thinking about a wrist lock, and the stage is set for a wrist lock clinic!
The point of this post isn’t to advocate learning the wrist lock. It’s rather a reminder to keep in mind how vast the universe of grappling actually is. It’s incumbent on us to learn it all, or face the dangers of tapping – not because we were out-techniqued – but rather because we never saw the attack coming at all. After all, isn’t that why the tough guys of UFC 1 were all vulnerable to Gracie Jiujitsu?
With that said, I did want to include a video of a Mundials match in the black belt division that was decided by a standing wrist lock, often taught as part of the self defense curriculum. (If you can point me to it in the comments, I’d really appreciate it.) But, since I can’t seem to find it right now, in the meantime, check out this wristlock from the bottom closed guard, as demonstrated by Megaton Dias.
Oh – and thanks Joe.
of course, it had to be Jacare!!
Christian, another great point as always, it’s very important to have a comprehensive foundation of knowledge.
Question, how do you supplement your school’s teaching to ensure that kind of coverage?
@Christian – that looked painful!!! Who says that the self defense curriculum doesn’t work??? ; )
@Osman – I think we are each ultimately responsible for our own learning. For example, Dave Camarillo’s assertions around wrestling made me regret not taking more advantage of the wrestling classes at Ronin.
In general, schools, especially with the prevalence of MMA, are taking a more holistic approach I believe. However, this comes with a downside: How do you ensure very high level instruction in all the arts? That is tough to do. Simply put, I don’t believe there is a big enough labor market of superior teachers quite yet to make every BJJ academy in America great in all forms and phases of grappling.
So then, it’s up to us to seek that out. Thankfully, the culture of BJJ in America is slowly moving towards one that is accepting of cross training. It’s not easy or cheap to seek out multiple schools, so one’s best bet is to seek out an open environment with a comprehensive curriculum from the outset. Then from there, it’s about taking advantage of the knowledge out there to fill gaps: judo or wrestling clubs, seminars, books and instructional videos, etc. Of course, one needs to do so prudently since the increased channels of knowledge have meant a large pipeline of mediocre information. That’s more dangerous than no information at all, in many cases.