Originally Posted by
Aiseop
Thinking of it as a philosophy is an excellent way of putting it, Brandon. Thank you.
To the original question: I still think that it'd be pretty hard to "suck at takedowns" and be a black belt. Compared to other black belts? Perhaps you can suck. But to the general population, no freaking way. But you wouldn't say that a top-player black belt "sucks at guard" just because their guard isn't up to par to other black belts.
Slick Rick wrote:
I think though, that specializing in 10P specific techniques give us a leg up on the competition, because we know our game and we're dissecting theirs, while they know their game but aren't giving reps to ours.
From my experience with my gym, ATT, and overall ATT schools, Liborio and the coaches welcome any and all effective jiu-jitsu. (ATT's history is as a Carlson Gracie offshoot and if you remember, Carlson did not get along too well with the Gracie's in style or philosophy. So there's no "this is real jiu-jitsu" thinking at ATT because Liborio heard that aimed at him and his instructor Carlson.) The problem with ATT (or east coast area) is lack of qualified 10th P folks to teach us, but there are those, like me, who certainly come here and are hungry for the next MTS episode.