TonyHubris's blog
It's not all flower sweeps and flying armbars...
Thu May 27, 2010 11:30 am
"flow with the go" -Rickson Gracie, Choke
There are two situations in BJJ where you have to hustle and the gentle art gets a little bit scrappy.
The first one is taking the back. Unless you're gonna go X-guard and come out of the back door, taking the back involves hustle. Arm drag, or exploiting a bad/late whizzer involves a little scrambling. When that little window of opportunity comes up you have to go-go-go!
The second one is grip fighting. If someone has your back you have to FIGHT for grips. This is a time where you're not going to have a one size fits all gameplan. Grip fighting is a game within a game.
Is someone sprawled out on top of you grabbing lapels? Grip fight! You can't let them establish solid grips, lest you be submitted! I noticed with all of the blackbelts I've ever rolled with, regardless of how effortless their game seemed - there are certain things they'll NEVER let you do (unless they're working on that specific part of their game) and one of them is establish threatening grips. When you see two high level BB's rolling, pay attention to the emphasis they put on hand placement and the subsequent attempts to remove a grip.
Every so often I'll notice a flaw in someones game that I'll repeatedly exploit - usually a training partner. I always try to find the nicest and tactfull way to tell them how I'm exploiting this flaw, and what they can change - maybe even getting a second opinion from the teacher; I always appreciate it when someone has a helpful critique.
Recently I was rolling with a fellow blue, and he kept letting me get him in a bow and arrow. It wasn't like I was doing a flashy fast bow and arrow, I'd take the back, fake a couple other subs, get grips and bow and arrow choke. It seemed like he was trying too hard to "flow with the go" like maybe he was trying to execute his moves effortlessly and smooth with perfect technique - I matched his pace from the beginning, of course. But even when he stepped it up - I was still doing the same things. I told him about my theory on the pretty Jiu-Jitsu and the times when you have to fight. To this day I haven't been able to get any gi chokes on him, which in turn makes me better - cause now I have to step up my cleverness, which evidently, is near impossible. Kidding 
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