Today I would like to talk about the importance of the foundation in Jiu Jitsu. Jiu Jitsu is evolving everyday as a sport and there are a lot of practitioners creating new techniques and lots of new names. This is great, evolution is natural and just as technology evolves Jiu Jitsu has to evolve too.
However, what I have noticed in recent times is a concerning mix of both technological evolution and Jiu Jitsu evolution. With increased Internet access and improving internet tools, students have access to a lot of these new techniques most notably on Youtube. Exposure to a large number of new or advanced techniques can lead to students skipping the all important stage of building a strong foundation of their own. For example before they know how to do a simple control or even posture up properly in guard they already focussing on really complex techniques such as fly armbars, X-guard and 50/50 because it looks cool.
” Don’t try to walk before you can crawl”.
The problem I see with this is that students can end up being overloaded with information. They may indeed end up being familiar with lots of positions, but it is very important that we pay close attention to the word familiar. There is a big difference between being familiar with and actually knowing a technique. I have seen a lot of people on the mat, and they think they know a lot of positions but when the times comes to execute the techniques in a combat situation they can’t perform them and the reason for the failure to execute is that they haven’t practised enough times. Why haven’t they practised enough times, possibly because they have spent their time becoming familiar with many techniques at the expense of building a strong foundation with basic techniques, that would then support the mastery of the most complex techniques.
“Don’t build your house in the sand”
I always like to point out a great champion as an example and if you watch “Roger Gracie” you will see that he will often control and submit his opponents with the most basics techniques. If you ask him how he does it he will tell you that foundation is one of his greatest weapons in combat.
Here are just a few tips for you to build an effective Jiu Jitsu game.
- Make sure you have a lot of details about a technique and not a lot of techniques with out details.
- Practices makes perfect, so repeat as many times you can, it is important to not only have a brain memory, but also a muscle memory. These to memories need to work together to achieve success.
- Be aware of bad habits (as soon as you find them out) as these can really compromise your Jiu Jitsu game on the long term.
Thanks
Daniel Lima
