A Smarter Approach to Learning BJJ
Вставка
- Опубліковано 9 лют 2022
- Brazilian jiu-jitsu training needs an update- our conceptualization of techniques isn't accurate. These inaccuracies aren't just academic, they're holding us back. So, it's time we get an update from the world of motor learning.
In Jiu-jitsu, grappling, and many other sports, we're taught that techniques are a simple, linear series of steps to be memorized, practiced, and refined. When you're in closed guard for example, you can break your opponent's posture, get a cross collar grip, get a second grip on the other collar, then perform the cross collar choke to submit your opponent.
Anyone who's done BJJ before knows that doing the cross collar choke (or any technique) against a non resistant, vs a resistant partner (during sparring or a competition) are 2 completely different things. But it's absolutely not because you're just 'not good enough' at performing the technique that was shown to you. It's because the linear series of steps that you saw is the tip of the iceberg in terms of the actual information and skill you'll need to perform it against resistance.
There's a concept from motor learning of perception action coupling feedback loops. (see here • I Spent Over 100 Hours... . Basically, when performing a skill, your brain is constantly engaging in these feedback loops based on current perceptions of the environment, predictions of the future, and performing actions based on them.
When we work against a resistant opponent in any sport, our perception-action coupling feedback loops are pitted against each other in an information processing- movement war. On the macro scale, each person works to progressively increase their own movement options relative to that of their opponent, until the opponent only has one option: submit.
On a micro scale, we work towards that by attempting (failing) and successfully executing techniques. These techniques are not truly the simple series of steps you were shown, they're extremely complex webs of perception action coupling based on prior and current experience- In the video I visualized this with an animation of interconnected spheres (representing positions) and lines (representing movement between the positions). Rather than a series of steps, techniques (against a resistant opponent) could be more accurately visualized with this 'funnel of despair'- where we work to gradually move down the funnel, where there are gradually less and less options for the opponent, until their only option is to succumb to your technique (reducing their overall movement options), or submit (when all their movement options have been removed, or in the case of a joint lock, would result in a broken limb).
Working with a partner involves the same feedback loops, however rather than working against each other, you work together, towards one or many goals. To be clear, in the video, I attempted to visualize this with 2 funnels feeding into the same end sphere, but this isn't quite accurate as remember, each sphere represented a position of both you and your opponent. Hopefully this makes sense though.
Working without a partner also involves the same PAC feedback loops, except that without a partner to fight back, there isn't nearly as much complexity of information processing required- these feedback loops become concerned with your own inaccuracies/errors in performing the movement in question. BTW, this also is what happens when you work against a grappling dummy, or in the case of much of current BJJ culture- a human grappling dummy (non-resistant opponent)
Leave any questions you have in the comments below or contact us at www.themovementcult.com for online and in-person training inquiries.
Sign up at www.themovementcult.com/subscribe to join the waitlist for my movement courses.
As someone who's studied motor learning, this is a breath of fresh air. I hope everyone appreciates how damn smart this is, and I hope schools learn this too.
I am very impressed with your examination of the "why" across your training. The mind is paramount, "garbage in garbage out" is universal to learning.
Definitely one of the most insightful videos on learning martial arts or anything else.. I have experienced this phenomenon but you have encapsulated it into a clear definition someone can comprehend even as a beginner student. Your studies have gained you much wisdom. Thank you for sharing.
I love your videos. Full of great information, thanks so much for sharing. I look forward to future videos and learning more 🙏🏾👏🏾
Thanks Michael! :)
Great video on an interesting concept! I like how you generalize these ideas beyond just BJJ and fitness.
Thank you Octeris :)
Great teaching there. It will help a lot of beginners.
Thank you for articulating what I've been feeling.
This channel is a goldmine!
Thanks Jules
Hey Guys, small favor to ask from you guys. I really wanted to make this video because I know how powerful this concept is and what good it could do for the BJJ community if this knowledge permeated the culture- hence we put a ton of work into everything, even hired an animator to visualize the 'funnel of despair' for you guys. For those of you who do practice BJJ, could you share this video with your coaches and friends who also do BJJ? Would be really helpful for me and the community overall to move forward.
Also for those of you who don't do BJJ, you should start :).
Yes sure 👍🙌
I really wanna start martial arts training and bjj is great and useful in many ways but it's a bit too "intimate" for me. I probably try Akido, Judo or something like that
This is amazing. Any online video teachers that focus on this modality of teaching BJJ?
Shared! Thanks for the video.
@@thaboshikwambane5578 John danaher does this to the largest degree. He's also the best (no coincidence).
The counter action part is brilliant. Hopefully I’ll be starting my first week free soon and I’ll go in and use this.
Wow, very insightful. subbed/thanks!
I will need to watch this one more than one times ! really interesting
Very cool breakdown, Bren! Would really love to train with you, one day. Will have my first BJJ class next Friday at a Gracie Barra School here close to Lisbon. This will be fun! Much Love, Karsten 🙏🏼🥰
I like this and it kind of put into words what I have noticed in the great wrestling coaches I have come across since I started wrestling when I was 5. They always are quick to put athletes in unfamiliar and more "real" scenarios. I am now a collegiate cheerleader and I see the same thing with the coaches in this sport. They are few and far between but there are some coaches that understand this, i think lol
This is perfect!
There are teachers that are teaching this way, they are laughed at, and critiqued for not teaching "real BJJ" or "that is how we teach kids not adults".
One of the problems with most BJJ schools is "free rolling" for beginners, training a beginner by making them spar, without teaching them how to defend themselves first, it just sets a student up for failure.
As for learning with resistance, it would be more productive to teach many different pathways to success (in your case an armbar from anywhere), by setting up the physical scenarios where that will happen first, and then making rules such that it teaches the student many different versions of the same attack or defensive moves.
Hey there, could you name the teachers you're talking about?
Wow, this awesome stuff Bren; thanks for putting this out there. What you talk about really resonates about how the vast majority of BJJ is currently taught. If you haven't already come across him already, I think you would appreciate Priit Mikhelson's stuff (Defensive BJJ) as he takes a very similar approach to what you advocate. Look forward to more of your BJJ-related content!🙏🙏
This is why you have to work positional rounds. I.e. do some tech from a position, then drill that position and reset anytime the roll gets out of that position, and try to work the tech, then troubleshoot.
Bravo🙌🏻
Hello Bren
I would like to ask whether the 3D funnel structure you present at 2:35 was imagined and created by you or you have drawn inspiration from somewhere.
Thank you!
created Imagined, drawn, sculpted a model out of clay all by yours truly. Animated by someone I hired specifically for this video (3d animation is no joke!)
As a beginner this is a great video . We’ll explained thanks
Great video, as always, Bren :)
I've always been interested in bjj. In 2020 I was starting out but the pandemic ruined my plans 😅. Think the moment is comming soon.
Start now! BJJ is an incredible discipline. you don't need to go to a gym, grab a close friend (that you can train with regularly) and pull up one of John danaher technique videos on UA-cam, then work on it together using the concepts from this video!
Pretty good take on fighting.
Great video and mostly agree. Perhaps you need to make it clear that it's not that drilling is useless, it's just useless beyond the point that it has been memorised. Memorisation of a movement pattern reduces the working load, so that you look for overall strategies and tactics based on overall concepts and are limited by not knowing the appropriate chain or chains of motor sequences.
I have never subbed so fast to anything in my life.
That's literally what i told one of my training partners like the first week in: These drills that we practice so heavily on, they will NEVER happen in a real fight. EVER, NEVER EVER. The techniques are fine but, since we're here either to: 1. Spar, 2. Real Self defense 3. Go into tournies, why don't we spar more? In my class we train drills for 50 minutes and only spar for 10 minutes. Because thats what the rules are. And when i tell him this, it crosses over his mind. It's like he doesn't seem to understand. I haven't told it to one of my instructors yet.
This is the same approach John Danaher uses to teach.
Enter the system, anyone?
@@BrenVezhere! 🎉
what belt are you?
Well, it's really about understanding body mechanics and physiology and being in tuned to it.
There's a perspective where yes you're right, but from a practical perspective you completely miss the mark. For example, even from the first day I started BJJ, I understood far more about body mechanics and physiology than pretty much anyone I ever rolled with, but they still crushed me for quite a while. It's a big leap between the basic physics, biomechanics, and the actual techniques & applying them real time.
@@BrenVez If you don't get experience though with applying your understanding, knowing how a person can move is like reading a book on how to assemble a car, sure you understand how everything goes together, but you've never actually done it.
wow!!! dude!!
Could you summarize this as:
1. Practice specifically in the context you will perform (i.e under pressure)
AND
2. Use contextual interference (lots of different ways to enter the choke)
?
Specificity and the SAID principle sums up a lot of this if you really understand its implications, excellent point.
Contextual interference is actually a good point that I hadn't mentioned, and from my understanding has more to do with how the actual training is structured, which is a bit of a separate issue.
I should probably start including summaries in the videos, so thanks for asking this bob!
Basically there's 2 main parts to the video: first is defining the problem, second is possible solutions.
Like you said, the problem is mainly specificity (practicing undue amounts against no resistance, which means we're practicing very different movements, and very little information processing, under a different context (less/no pressure). Worse yet, instructors are completely ignoring much of the information that makes these techniques work in the first place, and practitioners often just have to learn it on their own.
There's a million ways we can improve this that the culture should experiment with, so I've just suggested a few that I've found success with:
1) utilizing just in time information rather than just in case information
2) working against progressive amounts of resistance rather than binary resistance (zero or full)
2a) working at the edge of the amount of resistance you can overcome, and the amount you can't overcome, and troubleshooting the errors.
3) working one step at a time against resistance rather than the whole move
@@BrenVez I'm not sure what you mean by "just in time information"? I think the other strategies you stated are simply ways of decreasing the difficulty of an already difficult movement for a new practitioner (thus increasing success rate to 80% sweet spot which increases self efficacy and therefore external focus).
In my training I try to apply contextual interference as soon as possible when learning a new movement (i.e practicing different variants of the same movement pattern). Unfortunately, this tends to increase the difficulty of practice so I try to compensate for this by using other strategies similar to those you outlined.
In other words, I believe contextual inference is always good provided you can remain in the difficulty sweet spot. In fact, I think contextual inference works because it is more specific to the way our brain evolved to learn movement 'in the wild'.
@@bobbobson4030 another good point to dive into. Let's think generally for a second, because this is a very powerful general concept for retention. Say you're learning Spanish. There's literally a million different things you could learn. say you start your morning reading a chapter on certain verb conjugations. You finish, then you go about your day doing everything else in English and never thinking about it. That was 'just in case' information, since you didn't need to use it. no practice, no retention.
OR, you're at the airport in a Spanish speaking country, with no English, and you desperately need to find the bathroom, NOW. You spend precious seconds typing 'where is the bathroom' into google translate, then frantically shout 'donde esta el bano! at the nearest person, who kindly points to your salvation. You're going to be far more likely to remember this information right? It wasn't just in case information- you needed it, and actually, it was just in time for you to use it. I believe some research has shown that information you use or learn under stressful situations is more likely to be remembered as well.
Jiu Jitsu is honestly just as complex (if you look at the actual information processing that has to happen, rather than the words we use to summarize them) if not much more than any single language, so I would argue we have this problem to an even greater degree, especially given the difficulty of using techniques against real resistance. Hence the examples I mentioned: here's how to get a cross collar grip against resistance, and then now rather than sparring randomly we put you in the exact situation where you need to use that information and say 'go' with the explicit goal of using that information/reaching that target of getting the CC grip (rather than getting a submission or something).
OR 2nd example was: hey you just made this mistake, which cost you this, here's how you can fix it. I do this all the time when I roll with lower belts and people farther from my skill level, it's just in time information in the same way, and probably the fastest possible way to progress, but it requires individual attention from someone who is far more skilled than you (they know the mistake and the best solution), which is frankly quite rare.
Does that make sense?
RE: the contextual interference. I believe the research currently seems to support your idea so I'm not really going to disagree with it, but as of now I tend to prioritize difficulty over CI, and don't usually add CI or complexity until the skill gets well into that difficulty sweet spot, or the 'too easy' zone. This seems to enhance expectancies ;).
Thank you for the content! Curious, why are you not a fan of Tim Ferris anymore?
Thanks Brian! so many of you asked this that I just made a video about it
can u do the same for boxing please
This is very valuable
“Just practice something they never really learned” - gold
i haven't rolled since the pandemic started, i hope to get back at it soon. Thanks for the vid
same man. do you know if there's any discord sever anywhere where people can talk about the mental side of BJJ? defo something i struggle with
@@BlinJe @ike paz I think if you aren't practicing you're probably better off with imagery and instructional videos than just talking to people on discord or something similar. check out my imagery video and John danaher's instructional.
@@BrenVez problem's not technique. the problem is after someone smashes me at the gym.. i mentally smash myself for days afterwards. the "i got beat" feeling hits me very hard. i have no idea how i managed to train (barely once a week) for two years before covid.
This video and explanation is 🔥🔥🔥 It's makes more sense than drilling a static position over and over again. Because we know rolls and fights are not static, there are dynamic.
10000%. it makes alot of sense right? kinda seems silly to train these 'static' or static like positions, but that's the way it's often done right now.
“Situational” sparring is where it’s at.
BJJ CONTENT!!! MORE
BJJ CONTENT!!! LETS GO
woo! :)
Whoa
SO HEY I’VE BEEN LOOKING FOOOR YOUUU
Thanks, osu!!
Excellent video. I think I'm autistic enough to love this.
I got to know why you're not a fan of Tim Ferriss? Not cuz I'm a fan even though I liked his work I'm just genuinely curious
thanks franz- I just made a whole video about that because so many of you were asking
You cant just drop a BOMB like "I'm not a fan of Tim Ferris anymore" and not explain why. We need to know why! Thanks
ahahah. Ok- this could be a short video topic, but put simply- I think his whole premise of 'work smarter not harder' is misguided, and I tried it for a few years before realizing this the hard way. The reality is three fold, most things these days are winner take all. For instance, musicians. almost no one buys or listens to music from local artists- the vast majority listen to music from the 'best'- top 1% or even fewer. so you can do your 80/20 all you want, but 80% as good as Snoop Dogg means that you're not even in the real contest. Imagine if android phones were always 20% worse than apple- they would be out of existence in no time flat.
Secondly, 80/20 is a recipe for stagnation. Most of what you get from putting in the extra effort isn't results in the present (and certainly not the past), but learning and growth that pays dividends in the future.
Third but as part of the first point, in anything competitive (re: worthwhile) everyone at the top is going to be looking for ways to 'work smarter', and they'll be working hard as well. How smart you work is just a multiplier of the amount of work you do. Just trying to work smarter is asking to get left in the dust.
@@BrenVez I don't quite understand your second paragraph? I think you put it best at the end, that "smart" training is a force multiplier of your time.
I think Tim's message is still useful for the average audience who believes that success is purely a function of practice time.
There's also another interpretation to 80/20, in that you spend the same time training but bias the majority of that towards the most important moves.
Definitely a great topic for a video.
@@bobbobson4030 ah sure! Yeah, basically my point is obviously not that you shouldn't work smart, that's a given, but more that working smart is not enough, and especially that it doesn't allow you to just slack off and put in literally 20% of the effort and get anywhere you want to go.
In movement for example, especially Jiu Jitsu, the culture is overall very intelligent, and there are a lot of smart people that train very little (1-2x/wk), and alot of people that just show up and do what they're told semi-mindlessly, but do it 1-2x/day. Those who train irregularly will be crushed by the other group, repeatedly, literally without breaking a sweat. From what I've seen, progress tends to correlate with practice volume far more strongly than 'how intelligently you do your training'. Hence, I think Tim's central message of basically: focus on doing intelligent work, and then you won't need to work hard/much is more harmful than helpful.
One of the central messages I've tried to push with my channel has been: put in the work, but let's do it in the best way we can, in directions that are important. While this can seem similar, I think it's very different from what Tim preaches (though from my understanding, it's exactly the same as what he does). Definitely could do a short video on this if more people are interested.
@bob also, smart training is a force multiplier, but it's hard to get that multiplier to honestly be even 1.5x more than the norm. Now you certainly can have stupid training, and have that multiplier be 0.05 for a while, but anyone putting in the work like that with even half a brain would quickly figure it out and make changes- perhaps learning things in the process that others in the culture haven't figured out yet. It's the people who put in the work who have the exposure to learn things quickly.
@@BrenVez I think this last point is interesting, a generally curious person will learn through trial and error the biggest mistakes in training methodology. But I think most people outside the movement game have very little curiosity for this and generally don't figure it out (think of someone "exercising" for 20 years with few results to show for it). We are dealing with a unique subpopulation.
Mic or ChestHair?
Nash equilibrium
Sorry if it may sound a bit hash, but Idoportal stuff does not even do anything regarding BJJ as you do here. How can people believe his method is movement universality?
So, if you only train during bjj class times you cant train like this.
Basically, train outside class times with a partner who is willing to drill.
Drill with resistance, without resistance and learn counters to counters. This is what every competitor do these days. Normal people who only train during class times wont never do this.
This is incorrect. There are more optimal and less optimal ways to train. The number of hours per week is largely irrelevant (outside fatigue and over training). Hour for hour throw out the shit and prioritize what works). This was a great presentation and this guy is riding an early wave of a bjj training revolution.
Static unresisted training is almost entirely useless. And perfect techniques are like unicorns!
All that said. Good luck and it's great to challenge dogma. Bjj is unfortunately riddled with it.
I like your videos. I disagree that BJJ is the best martial art. Get your head wrecked on the concrete by a wrestler, or teeth punched out by a boxer in a real combat situation, and beliefs start to shake.. among other things. That said, i still think BJJ is a great martial art.
If i understood you correctly, you are talking about what J'Den Cox calls the setup? In your case, you would practice the more advanced/complex pathways(setups, or resistance like you said) to the same end/goal, which may require techniques such as feints, baits, etc. Be it for double leg takedown, or arm bar, and such.
Thanks Strahinja! First I would say wresting is part of BJJ, so it's not really possible to separate the two, but look no further than the first UFC's, when not everyone was doing BJJ, to see what happened to the boxers, sumo wrestlers, etc. when they fought the Gracies (BJJ specialists). For boxing's part, they got wrecked because most fights go to the ground and they had no training in doing that or what to do from there, and wrestling is just BJJ without the ground work and submissions- 2 very important parts of any fight. These days, you can see the value of each of these disciplines shine in particular athletes, but only because they're all trained in BJJ/grappling or, at a minimum, anti BJJ (running away, keeping distance, and not letting op get a takedown).
You could argue a case where combat sambo is more applicable than BJJ, but then you run into issues with concussions and CTE- hence the claim that overall, BJJ is the best martial art.
That sounds similar, but the setup would be just a part of this (though an important one). Could practice to the same end, or different ones- In this video the focus was more pointing out the problem rather than suggesting the single solution. and again, while I'm the one pointing this out right now, everyone is doing it, they just aren't often consciously aware of it, especially the degree to which it happens. You cannot apply any technique successfully against resistance without this complexity, and frankly it's just the way the brain works in the first place.
@@BrenVez Sure in UFC, excellent BJJ fighters dominated fighters like boxers, wrestlers...But do note that it is not THE BEST MARTIAL ART, in fact, none of them are the best. (In combat cage, yes it's a vital part of your fighting game)
There are only three styles that work no matter what. Those are
_Striking
_Wrestling
_Grappling
Boxing is good, but without wrestling and kicks, you're doomed. Same in different martial arts. Do you think BJJ alone can help you in a multiple combatants situation? Absolutely no. In those situations, what you need are distance management and striking, no fancy moves. And good luck BJJ your way out on concrete floor and being stomped by multiple guys. Or and what about you fight against, let's say an elite Nak Muay. The last thing he wants is being choked, so he will find ways to nullify your skills. Wear and Tear, even. Another thing about BJJ is that you have to get close in order to make your opponent succumbed. That is the first con. Compare to striking arts, you can damage your opponent without getting too close. Jabs are THE strongest weapon, if utilized properly. Heck, there are even crappy BJJ instructors or shitty BJJ practitioners.
Martial arts are just tools, practitioners are the ones who take the time out analyzing, experimenting, pressure-testing, etc. There are NO BEST MARTIAL ARTS, only THE BEST TOOLS that you can learn from various disciplines. This is why I hate BJJ in general, people think they are god or something, sure they are god, but what about elite boxers, elite Nak Muay. Look, I love the efforts that you put in every videos, but don't make such claims saying BJJ is the best. I, a long life practitioner of boxing, muay thai, greco roman & catch wrestling, dare if I say I can beat anyone. But they give me the tools that I can save myself in critical situations. But sure enough, weapons involved and the game changes completely. Also consider the environment, the pressure, the numbers of assailants and weapons, etc. Like anything else, fighting is formless and you don't know what would happen next.
And I'm not just criticizing BJJ practitioners in general, I am also referring to boxers and nak muay who also claim that their styles are the best.
You are an excellent mover with impeccable knowledge and patient like a saint, I love every single works of yours and heck, I treat your videos like audio books so that I can listen when I am training. Why? Because I like listening to smart people talking amidst the idiotic crowds. But please be aware of claiming that BJJ is the best. It's just one of the best, and it greatly supplements your style. BJJ is graceful and deadly, but grappling alone can you get you so far. These are my messages and I hope they reach to you, to inspire you, to increase your awareness at what you are lacking and what can you do to eradicate those weaknesses.
@@James-xr2uz since your points are is enlightening no one has heard it before.
This is called "partial training" aka "situational sparring" aka "specific training". This is old, old, old. Why are we acting like this is a breakthrough? Each and every sport on Planet Earth memorizes techniques without resistance then practices them against different levels of resistance to understand live execution. Science words, graphics, and virtue signaling that you're not "stuck in the past" doesn't make you high-tech. Often its a sign that you're a dilettante. BJJ is crawling with those right now.
I think BJJ is actually crawling with people who teach traditional methods because that is how they were taught.
Further, a lot of people make the same criticism you do here, but their schools do situationals for 10 minutes every 2nd or 3rd day. How is that even remotely the same?
It isn't.
Further, why will I soon call new methods in BJJ revolutionary? because many coaches think like you that "Each and every sport on Planet Earth memorizes techniques without resistance then practices them against different levels of resistance to understand live execution."
Because the new school of thought is NOT doing this, and when methods are compared, they crush. The CLA is 8/8 right now in beating traditional prescriptive instruction in the research.
@@BrenVez 8 for 8 at what? Surely you don't mean 8 for 8 at teaching one brand newbie to compete and another brand newbie a technique then marveling that the one you taught to compete beats the one you didn't teach to compete in a competition. I'm sure you don't mean that.
Stolen from Rob Gray?
No. Who’s Rob Gray?
So just drill and roll?
Respectfully, you really need sources to back up some of these premises. Playing Devil’s advocate here, why should I believe you that the brain doesn’t store movements as sequences, or that drilling with no resistance is not effective? Persuade me of your foundational points by referencing research, and I’m way, way more willing to follow you to your conclusions.
u try to.sound.smart but.that s not.useful.content. bjj is.about training the position
Nice bro what belt are you?
@@copyninja8756 I used to teach mma but I loved bjj, would train each year summer whenever I would visit my family in Europe. I had to stop training (will spare you the sad story), back then my bjj coach has already given me purple belt 3 stripes. I don't really what it mean, but I would submit brown and black belt my size, for what it is worth.
but hey more power to you if you found that video useful. To me it was just hollow and useless blabla.
This is the Eco approach of Greg Souders and Kit Dale and definitely the fastest way to learn.
Not quite. I'll be the first to admit that what Greg is teaching solves the same problems I mention here, but is actually much more sophisticated and contemporary than the ideas I mentioned in this video.
I'm actually studying at his gym now, and we're working on a video about his approach, coming soon :).
Kit's approach is not the same, and doesn't have the same depth to it.
@@BrenVez Looking forward to that drop! And while I agree that Kit's depth of terminology isn't there, his approach is much more "friendly" to the average enthusiast.