In last Monday’s technique breakdown Leverage is the Ultimate Giant Slayer, I referenced a tenant of efficient grappling that I wanted to both clarify and expand upon for today’s strategic concept focus. I listed it as “Don’t do any of the work for them!”, and it is a concept that I preach regularly to my students. First, to clarify, this is pertaining to a concept that should be applied in full when focused primarily on overcoming an opponent. This is not necessarily one we apply fully during all points of training. There are a number of training situations where we simply are not going “all-out” with our partners: learning the steps of a brand new technique, working with a lower ranking student, working with a notably smaller partner, flow rolling, etc.
In these situations, you have to gauge which aspects of your game you apply at 100% (your defensive frames for example) and which aspects you deliver closer to 50% or somewhere in between (maybe speed, number of submission attempts, strength, pressure, etc). That being said, I am a firm believer in the adage “you fight how you train, so train how you fight”; therefore, I also believe there is a balance that needs to be reached and not ignored. It will be very hard to move into “life-or-death” mode (self defense, real fight situation), or competition mode (no more “Mr. Nice Partner”), if you never or rarely train that way. With those “disclaimers” out of the way (no, I do not recommend running a school or team with the “Cobra Kai” mentality as its core value system), let’s further delve into when showing “no mercy” is part of the training at hand.
Misery, Desperation & Mistakes
I am a huge fan of dance, a huge fan of music, a huge fan of art, and a huge fan of martial arts. I am a huge fan when some or all of these come together. I have taken turns between playing berimbau and learning Capoeira on a beach in Florianopolis, Brazil. A wonderful time. I have watched martial arts demonstrations that boggle the mind in terms of choreography, athleticism, flexibility, timing, and artistry. However, first and foremost when it comes to martial arts, I am a huge fan of the fight. Whether it is knowing what to do in a dangerous situation or testing technique through sport competition, a combative martial artist must also be able to separate the beauty of martial arts, from the ugliness of applying the technique in the fight. A beautifully performed spinning hook kick can have devastatingly ugly results to the opponent it was delivered upon. A beautifully performed shoulder roll ending in a perfectly applied heel hook, might feel quite ugly to the knee on the receiving end. More than likely, in a fight, moments of beauty are fleeting (for either participant), while the ugly truth of the fight is ongoing. It is in this vein, that I tell my teammates and students, “Don’t do the work for them! We’re fighting, not dancing! There is no reason to make it easy or pleasant. Make your opponent miserable. Make them feel desperate. They will make more mistakes.”
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The whole concept of “not doing the work for them” is based upon eliciting mistakes from our opponents by and while draining their energy. An opponent is more likely to make a mistake when they are tired, when they are threatened, and when they feel so uncomfortable that they are desperate to change the situation at all costs! This is when those costs become doing something they would not normally do: give up their back; stretch an arm out that would usually remain protected; forget escape, transition, or setup steps due to haste or confusion; display sloppy technique with holes, space, and openings. This is what makes it a tenant of efficient grappling. Not only are you taking work that must be done (such as supporting body weight) and transferring as much of that work to your opponent, but you are also making submissions, positional advances, and setups that much easier to accomplish. Not only are you forcing your opponent to use more energy, buy you use less energy to find and create new paths to victory.
This highlight video of BJJ legend Ricardo Arona shows how consistently making his opponents carry the load and do the lion’s share of the work allowed him to secure three ADCC world titles with an undefeated record and without a single point being scored against him.
What, When, Where, & How?
What work are we talking about? Let’s focus on our opponent’s objectives. No matter where we are in the match, our opponent will put effort into maintaining mobility, breathing, attacking, and defending. What we want to do is maximize the amount of effort required for those tasks. Anything less and we are doing some of their work for them. If we give them space, we didn’t make them fight for it. If we distribute our body weight poorly, it’s like we offered to carry their bags. If we allow them to breathe easily, they can find rest positions to refuel their muscles. They should fight for that air and we should make their breathing as labored as possible whenever possible.
Decreased oxygen flow will create muscle fatigue even when a submission due to complete oxygen cutoff isn’t likely. Ideally, a strong defense combined with maintaining some level of a constant threat will make our opponent work hard and unsuccessfully at any attacks, while frequently and repeatedly needing to address ours. The easiest example of the type of mobility work we are transferring to our opponent is the support of body weight. If they are moving, make them carry the load. If you are in position and completely suppressing their mobility, make sure the pressure is crushing. Driving into your opponent with “live toes” from Cross Body, or properly positioning Knee-On-Belly are good examples. When trying to put an opponent into a state of desperation-inducing misery, it goes beyond just making sure they take the majority of the weight distribution; it also takes into consideration how that weight distribution is delivered (with a shoulder, hips, knee, hand, chest, or in a grip) and where (a targeted muscle group, core body structure, or maybe a limb). Other examples of work that you can pass on, create or increase for your opponent include addressing grips, addressing pain and discomfort, maintaining balance, and forcing reactive scrambling.
A common misconception is that pressure can only be applied from top position, but using gravity to our advantage can happen from the bottom too. A strong, high guard with lapel grips can seriously compromise an opponent’s ability to complete a stand-up pass while overworking back and neck muscles. In the guard, breaking posture and consistently forcing opponents to use muscle in an attempt to regain it is a great way to drain energy as well. Having strong, but efficient, grips allows you to hang from your opponents with considerably less effort than they will need to carry your weight. If they stand up, don’t break a guard or let go of a back take. Make them squat or deadlift you.
During the stand up portion of a match, grips and collar ties, snap-downs and drags are all excellent ways to keep your opponent using large muscle groups for resistance and waste energy on balancing. From the bottom, Leg Lassos, De La Riva hooks, X-Guard, Spider Guards, Deep Half, and Sit-up Guards are just a few examples of balance disrupters that will require tangential energy from your opponent (energy spent maintaining balance and base instead of being able to drive that energy directly into you).
From top or bottom, a deep cross-lapel grip is often an excellent way to both keep a constant threat factor (halfway to a choke), while simultaneously causing some breathing interference. From top positions (Half Guard, Side Control, Mount, North-South, Knee-On-Belly) there should always be breathing pressure. It may come from shoulder pressure, cross face, a forearm across the throat, stacking compression, chest pressure, or a knee on their belly. Weight should not just be on an opponent, but either driving down into an opponent (Knee-On-Belly directly over the solar plexus, while driving off of your posting foot, while pressing your shin down into the gut), pinpointing a targeted pain point (posting on your opponent’s shoulder joint capsule), or isolating a limb (such a sitting all of your own weight back onto the bicep of an opponent’s trapped arm). In the scramble, be faster and be on the attack. Yes, scrambling is tiring in itself, but reactive scrambling and trying to catch up is more tiring for your opponent. You want controlled chaos in the scramble.
It’s not all mean spirited
When training, it is important to keep in mind what your goals are. If BJJ is only a hobby for you as a different, interesting, and fun way to work out and stay in shape, then do as you do. If your intentions are to be able to apply BJJ in a potentially dangerous situation against an adversary that is attacking or willing to hurt, or to compete or spar at a combative level, then I highly recommend treating your training as such with regularity. Still this does not mean we are always aggressively hurting our partners (no one wants to be “that guy”), but it also doesn’t mean we should give things up to them.
This is especially true when evenly matched with a training partner and what we would give up are the same core objectives that the art we are studying is teaching us to attain: protection, leverage, position, control. As a matter of fact, often it is the case that by not giving up these specific objectives, we can more easily offer our partner training without an overuse of muscle and brute strength.
At the risk of some #nochill internet feedback, I’ll share a link to a recent match I had. I know it’s not perfect–I miss a lot of opportunities and have plenty of room for improvement. Hey, I’m just a blue belt who’s been asked to share my journey; I’m no Ricardo Arona (or anything close). However, I do think that this match displays my intent to make my opponent do majority of the work from a variety of the positions discussed here. From guard I am using lapel grips and leg control to attack posture and base, deep cross collar grips to threaten chokes. During the stand-up I am attempting to out-grip my opponent and repeatedly pressure or snap his head down, causing him to overuse the large neck and back muscles. When I take the top position, I use a pressure pass to move into mount and then flatten him out to smother and secure position. This causes a bit of a desperate, fully extended arm push-off escape, which leaves his neck unprotected for the set up and the finish. Be kind and hope you enjoy!
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Image credit: http://www.open.edu/openlearn/sites/www.open.edu.openlearn/files/ole_images/hercules-minotaur-statue_inline1.jpg
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