rolling lightly

Been watching lots of videos of the masters practicing. It's all like 40% strength at 60-75% speed. Then at that level they practice technique for hours and hours. It's more like a dance than a wrestling match. This was kind of an epiphany for me.

None of the coaches taught me that in class, and I only see the fundamentals classes where it's 12 fresh whitebelts fumbling through basic movements and crashing into each other. It's either that or tons of video of really high level guys competing where they are going really hard.

I strained my acl the other day just because both myself and my partner were doing something extremely basic but at 80%. I didn't even realize at the time we were doing anything wrong.

I think my training is going to go a lot better for me now.

What are your goals in training? When I started, there was a wrestler dude who had a 4stripe white belt whom I partnered with on occasion. I noticed that he went really hard in sparring and clearly had the intention of showing that he would not and could not be tapped. Eventually, he fizzled out due to injury and we hadn't seen him around the academy. 2 YEARS LATER, (about a few days ago) he came back to sign up again, and things were a little awkward cuz there are a number of people including myself that had surpassed him since he had taken all that time off. My goal from day one (and still is my goal) is to stay consistent. Train in a manner that allows you to train 7 times a week, multiple times a day, even if you aren't looking to go that route. But there's nothing to prove. Just by training and starting this journey that 99.9% of the world will never undertake proves everything about a person, imo. Stay consistent and learn the movements. Victory and defeat should be a natural process reflective of your time spent on the mat and your knowledge; not your aggression, intensity, or ego.

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Originally Posted by Arman Fathi

What are your goals in training?

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Learn technique, improve technique, master technique. Avoid injury.

Some people also include competition in their list of goals. I don't have much interest in that. I've competed extensively in TKD including the national level. I loved it and I love competition, but I have little drive to do it myself at this point. I'm 42 years old, I'm a whitebelt in JJ. Competition is not something I'm focued on.

That said, when I am more advanced and really know what I'm doing on the mat, I'm going to want to be able to turn the volume up with my partner. I want to be able to go hard, but I want to be safe about it.

It was that way in TKD. You don't want whitebelts kicking each other in the head at 100%. You teach control and technique from day 1 and for a long time you limit how hard guys are going with each other. Slowly over time you teach them to turn up the volume and go a little harder, a little harder, a little harder.

That's what makes a really good TKD instructor. When you spar with the guy he's going just hard enough to push you, but not enough to hurt you, and not enough to overwhelm you. He trains you by slowly turning up the volume on you over years. Eventually when you are a blackbelt, he's coming at you really hard. If you fuck up you're going to get cracked. But even then he's not going to KO you during class.

But TKD is also an extreme example. It can be quite dangerous. Even when you're training for competition and using headgear and a ton of foot and leg padding, you don't go 100% very much.

I weigh 135 pounds. If you put on the heaviest headgear you have, and I put on a wrap-around food pad, and then I wheel kick you in the temple, or in the jaw... I dont care how big you are you are getting cracked... you have to be safe, so you practice control basically all the time.

You can go hard just with technique and people will be safe. Competition should be a way you want to test yourself if you have the desire. The beautiful thing about jiu jitsu is that there are a million other reasons that the art is great. Consistency is the key. That, along with never being the guy that walks in after a ton of time off to see that I had been surpassed by a ton of people, drive me personally. But also fitness, friends, and too many things to list are all great reasons:)

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Originally Posted by Arman Fathi

You can go hard just with technique and people will be safe. )

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Yes but technique is learned over time. A whitebelt has zero technique, and therefore by your own statement cannot go hard and be safe.

Personally i feel like competing as a whitebelt is a bad idea. Just last weekend we had a guy go with the team to Houston to compete and come back with a hyperextended elbow from an armbar. Now his training is going to be fucked for months and I doubt her learned much from the experience. He learned "dont leave your arm sticking out there", but he would have learned that from a loss just as well as from an injury.

Instead he competed with a guy who didn't know the difference. You can lock up the arm enough to control it, threaten damage, and force the tap. Or you can crank it and break the guys arm before he is fully aware what's about to happen.

Not only is the guy doing the armbar too new to know when to stop, the guy getting armbarred is not experienced enough to know how early to tap.

The guy was a whitebelt, and I consider that to be a pointless and unnecessary injury. But he wants to compete and no one at my school is going to say shit to him about it.

You're going to train for years and years and years, there is plenty of time to compete after you know what you're doing. Why be in a hurry to prove that in your complete lack of knowledge skill and experience in JJ you can beat another guy who is equally clueless. That's pointless.

The guy is literally not allowed to roll yet at our school, unless he comes to the competition classes. Pushing him out there onto the competition mat is, to me, irresponsible.

I mean maybe when you're a very advanced whitebelt, think you're getting close to promoted.. maybe then. At my school that's actually a green belt though.

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Originally Posted by Craig Murray

Yes but technique is learned over time. A whitebelt has zero technique, and therefore by your own statement cannot go hard and be safe.

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A good conversation so far!

IMHO, a whitebelt does not necessarily have zero technique.

Perhaps we can say that with increasing experience comes increased safety and trustworthiness. But yet, I see so many high level students focusing on flow more and less on going hard. Maybe they know something.

Anyway, I suspect that the less technique you have, the less reason you have to go hard (except to train his cardio): you're going to have to stop and think eventually. You're eventually going to have to work on things you're not good at. If you're not good at it, do you really want to do it hard and fast?

I like rolling light when I have techniques I want to try out or when I want to work on my weak side. I like rolling at about 70% when I want to turn individual techniques into little chains and see how they work in earnest. I like rolling hard when I'm preparing for tournament.

Full disclosure: My first tournament was this past weekend and my first roll in that tournament was a shock. Felt like the dude wanted to kill me. So a little more hard rolling with big dudes would have helped.

Anyway, all in all, I think I agree with Craig.

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Originally Posted by Joshua Jarboe

IMHO, a whitebelt does not necessarily have zero technique.

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Definitely agree with this.
Personally I prefer to roll light. I learn better that way and I'm more likely to try new things then.

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Originally Posted by Rhys

Definitely agree with this.
Personally I prefer to roll light. I learn better that way and I'm more likely to try new things then.

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What do you learn when a blue belt or purple belt annihilates you at high speed? I sometimes don't even have time to understand how I was dismantled! lol :)

But when a higher belt is rolling slow and lets you figure out how much trouble you're in before he takes advantage of superior grips, your compromised base, whatever...you have moments of clarity, yes?

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Originally Posted by Craig Murray

Personally i feel like competing as a whitebelt is a bad idea. Just last weekend we had a guy go with the team to Houston to compete and come back with a hyperextended elbow from an armbar. Now his training is going to be fucked for months and I doubt her learned much from the experience. He learned "dont leave your arm sticking out there", but he would have learned that from a loss just as well as from an injury.

Instead he competed with a guy who didn't know the difference. You can lock up the arm enough to control it, threaten damage, and force the tap. Or you can crank it and break the guys arm before he is fully aware what's about to happen.

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Competing as a white belt isn't a bad idea. Jumping into competition after a short amount of time spent is 1-3 MONTHS. I know dudes who've been training 6 months as a white belt, and they give blue belts a rough go in competition. You should always try and challenge yourself, whether it's in the gym or in a competition.

Roll how ever you want, but I think you should be putting out 80%-100% when rolling or drilling a few times a week IMO. Mix it up, But if you only roll light, when you get into a comp scenario you're going to be in for a rude awakening.

**Also don't leave your health in the hands of your opponent, when I enter competitions I am forced with a choice Break your arm, or not (and maybe lose because I was being nice) and Let my arm break or tap.

For me, it's on you to tap in competition, if you don't you're going to be hurt for a bit. If I'm caught, I'm 95% of the time going to tap, I have shit to do at the office on monday morning and can't afford to get seriously injured.

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Originally Posted by Joshua Jarboe

What do you learn when a blue belt or purple belt annihilates you at high speed? I sometimes don't even have time to understand how I was dismantled! lol :)

But when a higher belt is rolling slow and lets you figure out how much trouble you're in before he takes advantage of superior grips, your compromised base, whatever...you have moments of clarity, yes?

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Nothing, being dismantled by blue belts and purple belts, etc. comes down to confidence in your body movements, and in the technique.

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Originally Posted by John Mejia

I think you should be putting out 80%-100% when rolling or drilling a few times a week IMO.

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Wow, 100% multiple times a week? That seems like a lot to me, but I'm a newbie in JJ so I don't have nearly the experience you do. You're the highest ranked guy to comment in this thread so far.

But that would never fly in TKD. If you tried it, your team would have zero competitors cause everyone would be recovering from broken jaws, broken orbitals, and concussions. I know JJ is "the gentle art", but JJ forums, including this one, are literally filled with threads about injuries. Generally not head trauma, but knees, neck, and spine complaints are rampant.

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Also don't leave your health in the hands of your opponent, when I enter competitions I am forced with a choice Break your arm, or not (and maybe lose because I was being nice) and Let my arm break or tap.

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Personally I would rather lose than break a guys arm. I guess my question is, isn't there some grey area in there? I mean if you really wanted to break a guys arm in competition, seems like you could get that done. There must be a middle ground between "being nice" as you put it, and trying with 100% intention to wreck the guy's elbow.

Even Eddie in his recent match with Royler was not going 100% on that vaporizer at first, and even asked Royler if he wanted to stop. Only when Royler wanted to be all tough-guy did Eddie appear to crank down on that as hard as he could. So if the masters are trying to "be nice" to each other in an internationally recognized event with so much reputation on the line, it seems like Joe Blow Whitebelt competing in a local tournament doesn't need to be busting his competition up.

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Originally Posted by Joshua Jarboe

Full disclosure: My first tournament was this past weekend and my first roll in that tournament was a shock. Felt like the dude wanted to kill me. So a little more hard rolling with big dudes would have helped.

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Even though I don't compete much, I've started to get used to guys with a brutal pace by going w/ MMA fighters in the gym. I've found that with very little exception, they are looking to grind your face off, break your arm/choke you out, and SMASH. Not that it's ever ill-intended or we're not friendly before/after, but I would never have the balls to say to a guy that fights MMA for a living that 'hey, that's not cool how you grinded my face like that.' For example, I had a chance to roll with Jake Shields a few days before his last WSOF fight where he won by rear naked choked. He did the same choke to me in sparring, except maybe a little bit more of a face grind with his wrist. Do you REALLY think I was gonna tell this dude that it wasn't cool? A black belt that's fought extensively in the UFC? So I guess it's all relative...but I get excited for a sparring session like that. Not every day or even every week, but once in a while if you go with a much higher level guy that literally makes a living whooping ass, it's not a bad idea to use those as the pivotal moments in your journey for developing toughness. I don't think I've walked away from a sparring session where I felt I had gotten more tough than those 6 minutes right there. Again, probably not every day, but it's good to experience that once in awhile. If the dude fights MMA, I'm all for it but just remind myself that shit might get a little more real than I'm used to, and it's all good. Just another $0.02 of mine

I think that in order to have the right mindset for a comp then you have to roll hard. But you can always agree this with whoever you're rolling with.

Personally I mix it up. If I have a comp coming up, I will try and find other people of a similar level, who are also competing and we will roll hard. However if I am at a regular session then I will tailor how I roll based on my opponent and/or what I want to achieve (work on a specific sweep/sub/pass).

When you get more experience, try rolling lightly/using a lot less strength with the less experienced guys. When you're starting out you're not really smooth enough to take advantage of your training partners mistakes with pure technique. We all start out a little clumsy and making mistakes all over the place. You'll learn not to muscle everything through time on the mat. Until then, I think you should be competitive with the other guys. And about the white belt thing, most guys who train purely no gi outside of the 10th planet systems are still "white belts" so its not always an indicator of skill level

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Originally Posted by hespectnogi

And about the white belt thing, most guys who train purely no gi outside of the 10th planet systems are still "white belts" so its not always an indicator of skill level

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+1

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Originally Posted by Craig Murray

Wow, 100% multiple times a week? That seems like a lot to me, but I'm a newbie in JJ so I don't have nearly the experience you do. You're the highest ranked guy to comment in this thread so far.

But that would never fly in TKD. If you tried it, your team would have zero competitors cause everyone would be recovering from broken jaws, broken orbitals, and concussions. I know JJ is "the gentle art", but JJ forums, including this one, are literally filled with threads about injuries. Generally not head trauma, but knees, neck, and spine complaints are rampant.



Personally I would rather lose than break a guys arm. I guess my question is, isn't there some grey area in there? I mean if you really wanted to break a guys arm in competition, seems like you could get that done. There must be a middle ground between "being nice" as you put it, and trying with 100% intention to wreck the guy's elbow.

Even Eddie in his recent match with Royler was not going 100% on that vaporizer at first, and even asked Royler if he wanted to stop. Only when Royler wanted to be all tough-guy did Eddie appear to crank down on that as hard as he could. So if the masters are trying to "be nice" to each other in an internationally recognized event with so much reputation on the line, it seems like Joe Blow Whitebelt competing in a local tournament doesn't need to be busting his competition up.

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I absolutely hate hurting people, In the gym I'm the first person to apologize for submitting them, even when I know I was super gentile. The first words out of my mouth are "are you ok". So I don't want you thinking I'm some crazed juiced out submission cranking fiend lol.

I've always looked at life this way and when I played (Fought/enforcer type) hockey. It's either you or me, that kill or be killed mindset keeps you safe in a way that it's hard to explain. Essentially it's self preservation.

I think at the point your at now, which is you do jiu jitsu because it's awesome, You do jiu jitsu because its a good work out, and because its challenging. However once you've crossed over into the competition side of things where you want to be at the top of the podium, you want to be the best in the world, you have to flip a switch.

Going hard in the gym 100% could be, 100% technique, 100% Strength, 100% pressure, 100% speed, 100% offense, 100% defense, 100% passing. I think I should have clarified that better. :) Don't rip, pull and crank submissions 100% in the gym (That's how people get fucked up.) But pressure, speed, technique when live rolling should always try to be as close to 80-100%. Jiu jitsu unlike any striking art is ended by tapping out. You can't live spar muay thai 5 days a week at 100%, or your fight life will be cut abruptly short.

The first year of jiu jitsu is just learning how to survive. Once you've figured out how to survive submissions like (Triangle chokes, Omoplatas, Arm bars, Kimuras, Americana's, Guillotines, Arm Triangles) you'll know your threshold.

Jiu Jitsu although translated to the gentile art is far from it. I think there's tons of beauty and grace in it which could be associated with being gentile, however every time I've rolled with someone it's been far from it. LOL

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Originally Posted by John Mejia

Going hard in the gym 100% could be, 100% technique, 100% Strength, 100% pressure, 100% speed, 100% offense, 100% defense, 100% passing. I think I should have clarified that better. :) Don't rip, pull and crank submissions 100% in the gym (That's how people get fucked up.) But pressure, speed, technique when live rolling should always try to be as close to 80-100%. Jiu jitsu unlike any striking art is ended by tapping out. You can't live spar muay thai 5 days a week at 100%, or your fight life will be cut abruptly short.

The first year of jiu jitsu is just learning how to survive. Once you've figured out how to survive submissions like (Triangle chokes, Omoplatas, Arm bars, Kimuras, Americana's, Guillotines, Arm Triangles) you'll know your threshold.

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That's the most spot on attitude I've ever heard/read about what 100% rolling/sparring means. 100% speed + 100%passing sounds like a great game to play without hurting someone to me. You could mix up what your focal points are during live rolls. Thank you for dropping the knowledge and great insight John.

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Originally Posted by John Mejia

once you've crossed over into the competition side of things where you want to be at the top of the podium, you want to be the best in the world, you have to flip a switch.

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Yeah, I understand. I competed extensively in TKD. I qualified for and competed at the national level 6 years in a row. I never got gold at nationals, but I tried like hell. I've never knocked anyone unconscious, but I've tried with everything I had. I understand the mind-set that's required to even survive at that level. If you are not going for blood, you're in serious trouble. I've seen firsthand broken jaws, guys heads split wide open, broken ribs, the list goes on.

In TKD I was within a couple years of a 3rd Dan when I stopped training. At that point I was frustrated by the lack of head punches and limitations of the art and started training karate (there was no MMA or even BJJ in those days). I briefly experimented with kick boxing but quickly realized I hated getting punched in the face. In TKD if you are careful you can avoid head kicks for the most part. Getting cracked full-force with a headkick in TKD is somewhat uncommon once you are skilled enough, but once you start boxing you're getting your face smashed constantly, it's unavoidable. It wasn't for me, and I haven't competed since. I guess I found my ceiling and that was it.

Now 20 years later I'm training in a martial art again. I don't recover like I used to, and injuries are much easier to fall into. My goal is to become as skilled in JJ as I can. At my age, the best way to accomplish that is to avoid injury so that I can train consistently.

I certainly expect to roll hard at some point. I know I have to to get to the level I want to be at. I suspect I have grown more conservative with age. I have less to prove, and less to gain from winning competitively.

At the same time there seems to be a culture in BJJ that is still pretty macho. "We don't tap from joint-locks" and things of that nature. When I was younger I probably would have admired that attitude. These days, it just seems immature and reckless to me.

I guess I'm just old. :)

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Originally Posted by Craig Murray

Yeah, I understand. I competed extensively in TKD. I qualified for and competed at the national level 6 years in a row. I never got gold at nationals, but I tried like hell. I've never knocked anyone unconscious, but I've tried with everything I had. I understand the mind-set that's required to even survive at that level. If you are not going for blood, you're in serious trouble. I've seen firsthand broken jaws, guys heads split wide open, broken ribs, the list goes on.

In TKD I was within a couple years of a 3rd Dan when I stopped training. At that point I was frustrated by the lack of head punches and limitations of the art and started training karate (there was no MMA or even BJJ in those days). I briefly experimented with kick boxing but quickly realized I hated getting punched in the face. In TKD if you are careful you can avoid head kicks for the most part. Getting cracked full-force with a headkick in TKD is somewhat uncommon once you are skilled enough, but once you start boxing you're getting your face smashed constantly, it's unavoidable. It wasn't for me, and I haven't competed since. I guess I found my ceiling and that was it.

Now 20 years later I'm training in a martial art again. I don't recover like I used to, and injuries are much easier to fall into. My goal is to become as skilled in JJ as I can. At my age, the best way to accomplish that is to avoid injury so that I can train consistently.

I certainly expect to roll hard at some point. I know I have to to get to the level I want to be at. I suspect I have grown more conservative with age. I have less to prove, and less to gain from winning competitively.

At the same time there seems to be a culture in BJJ that is still pretty macho. "We don't tap from joint-locks" and things of that nature. When I was younger I probably would have admired that attitude. These days, it just seems immature and reckless to me.

I guess I'm just old. :)

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Shit I tap to joint locks. I'm not that macho, However there's tons of dudes that will take you sparing them as weakness and end up capitalizing on you not applying the submission in the realm of competition. It'll leave you sour and you'll vow to never let that happen again.