How do you deal with someone who uses nothing but strength

[David Rosado]

Besides just working until your technique catches up, watch how others deal with him. I remember this one guy was just gorilla strong and would rough me up. I had no clue how to deal with it. Then I'd watch the twins roll with him. Mind you, this guy had 100lbs advantage..and it wasn't fat. But the twins would just ruin this guy's day. So watch how others deal and pick up some pointers.

Also, the guy is likely using a ton of strengths because he has no clue what he's doing. And if he gets that tired. Just tire him out and take advantage.

[Mike Seabrook]

I'm almost always the smallest guy on the mats, typically i'm 135-140 lbs and I certainly know how frustrating a big guy can be especially if they put their strength on you. To jump on what a few others have noted, try not to get too frustrated with it. Getting smashed is part of the journey and pretty soon the big guy will probably realize that using strength over technique will end up getting himself smashed . My answer for really biggies early on and still is at times was the butterfly guard. My goal for a long time was to learn how to keep a big guy off me, once I knew I could get a big guy off me then I expanded my game. Good luck bro

[derrick ikwueme]

I started bjj when i was a kid, everyone was bigger than me. I only weighed 80lbs.

I used to have to get to guard and tire the guy out for a while. If they had me in side i would trex my arms and wait for my opponent to move, i would never make the frist move so that i could take advantage of there mistake.

"if you dont loose for long enough, eventually you'll win" Helio

“For the choke, there are no “tough guys”.. with an arm lock he can be tough and resist the pain.. With the choke he just passes out, goes to sleep.” helio

“Always assume that your opponent is going to be bigger, stronger and faster than you; so that you learn to rely on technique, timing and leverage rather than brute strength” Helio

yes siirrr, and as we saw in metamoris Grand Master Helio's jiujitsu is live and well and still the best when dealing with strong steroid freaks. Ryon Gracie treated Andre Galvao like a "white belt" saying hey you can have the dominate position do your shit and i'll just defend lol, if no time limit Ryon would have gotten the tap eventually. and Andre's obvious frustration with being mind fucked was priceless. Helio must have been smiling from ear to ear. I love Andre but his bitterness and need to mention all his titles and ect was kinda lame and certainly ego driven.

[Ron Almeida]

my son is 14 and only 88lbs and has always had to deal with bigger opponents for the last couple years.

jiu-jitsu works great on larger opponents that dont know anything.

but larger opponents that know what you know (or even just the basics) are alot harder to beat.

we all have different games, but we each have our own game that we do all the time (creatures of habit).

so what you could do is make beating this guy one of your short term goals, write that down.
each position he catches you in, write that down.
drill the offense or defense for that above mentioned position 100 times a day for a whole week.
before the week is out he will not be able to catch you in that position again.
once you have shut his game down you will be beating him regularly and you will need a new goal.

good luck

[David Rosado]

yes siirrr, and as we saw in metamoris Grand Master Helio's jiujitsu is live and well and still the best when dealing with strong steroid freaks. Ryon Gracie treated Andre Galvao like a "white belt" saying hey you can have the dominate position do your shit and i'll just defend lol, if no time limit Ryon would have gotten the tap eventually. and Andre's obvious frustration with being mind fucked was priceless. Helio must have been smiling from ear to ear. I love Andre but his bitterness and need to mention all his titles and ect was kinda lame and certainly ego driven.

Yeah people have been saying that. "What if there was no time limits? Ryron would've won." But others say "What if punches were allowed? Galvao wouldn't have needed 20 minutes." And the gracie debate continues. Hahah.

[VicDorfman]

Strength is a technique, too. So is speed. So is balance.

You're always working on improving your base, speed of transitions, use of leverage, etc., so why not strength, too? Yes it sucks getting manhandled by a bigger guy because the ego says "hey, he isn't doing jiu jitsu, he's just using strength...wtf."

But would you be pissed if you couldn't ever sweep a guy because he has an amazing sense of balance? Or couldn't catch him in transitions because he's too quick? Is that "not jiu jitsu?"

In a competition, nobody's doing you any favors and lack of athleticism will get you jacked up whether other aspects of technique are good or not. I say if you have strength, use it judiciously. If you have the capacity to develop strength, develop it. Read Pavel's "Power to the people" you'll see just how technical strength is.

..Or just leg lock the fuck out of fools.

[David Rosado]

Not trying to piss on your advice, but strength, speed and balance are not techniques. Qualities and attributes that shoule be worked on? Yes. But they're not techniques.

Other than that, good advice.

[Liquidrob]

Lol @ Mike trying to pass himself off as a little dude, this guy fights at Rumble weight!

[Griffin Lambert]

I'm almost always the smallest guy on the mats, typically i'm 135-140 lbs and I certainly know how frustrating a big guy can be especially if they put their strength on you. To jump on what a few others have noted, try not to get too frustrated with it. Getting smashed is part of the journey and pretty soon the big guy will probably realize that using strength over technique will end up getting himself smashed . My answer for really biggies early on and still is at times was the butterfly guard. My goal for a long time was to learn how to keep a big guy off me, once I knew I could get a big guy off me then I expanded my game. Good luck bro

+1 for Butterfly guard.

[Kurzy]

Technique is technique, but technique with strength is a serious threat.

There are some guys in our club that have serious technique and some have serious strength. They all dominate me because I am a noob. But we have a few guys that have both serious technique AND serious strength. Those guys dominate everyone else.

Also I would like to add a "Thanks" for the reference to butterfly guard against big guys. I will work on that.