Jiu-Jitsu: Perspective and Skill

We live in a society where everything has to move at a lightening pace, where "right now" just isn't fast enough. And that highly focused goal oriented attitude has infused itself into every part of our lives. However, Jiu-Jitsu is one of those things that just works much, much better if we focus our energies on the process rather than the end result. Jiu-Jitsu is not something that you can learn over a weekend or even in a couple of years.

Too many people start training in Jiu-Jitsu with the belief that they'll train this submission stuff and be a champion in a few months. I've even had guys tell me "I wanted to get in a couple of classes so that I can fight." I hate to point this out to everyone, but Jiu-Jitsu isn't a magic wand that will instantly turn you into a great fighter. Jiu-Jitsu isn't something that you can learn overnight. Jiu-Jitsu isn't even a single path, it has as many paths as there are people who train it, and there is ultimately no destination. It is the journey that matters.

There are some strong goal oriented people who train in Jiu-Jitsu and regularly confront their instructors wanting to know "when can I test for my next belt?" In my honest opinion, if you're asking that question then you've already missed the point. Belts are merely a tool to gauge your own growth in the art. They are not a symbol for anything other than your progress. If you really want to get that next belt then forget about it and just train.

Don't train because you have a fight coming up or because you want to compete at a tournament. Train smart and as often as you can. Train with people who have as much passion for Jiu-Jitsu as you do. Train with guys who can kick your trash so that you are forced to adapt and grow. Train because you love the journey.

The process of learning Jiu-Jitsu takes two things #1 time/patience and #2 an intelligent approach to training.

You need to invest time to understand how the lessons you are learning connect with whatever skills you already have. When you train intelligently you will not only accelerate the process of making the necessary connections, you will also begin to make stronger, less tenuous connections.

If you are patient and you train intelligently then you will begin to gain perspective. Perspective is the element in the learning process that allows you to begin making connections between techniques, strategy, and your own innate physical abilities and/or limitations. Gaining a Jiu-Jitsu perspective also aids in growing your skill level from that of a raw beginner, or novice, to the expert level.

Jiu-Jitsu perspective and Jiu-Jitsu skill are not two completely separate processes and they do not run in a consecutive manner where you must first gain perspective before you can develop skill. They actually run parallel to each other. Each aids and bolsters the development of the other.

Developing perspective:

Perspective gives you the tools you need to make comparisons between techniques, positions, and strategies. It gives you the tools to judge the effectiveness of a course of action and aids you in the process of internalizing techniques.

John Will, a Rigan Machado black belt from Australia, advises Jiu-Jitsu practitioners to "map out" their game.

You have to put in the time to gain a Jiu-Jitsu perspective before you can identify where your game is, let alone where you want it to go.

Becoming Skilled:

We learn when we are forced to respond to a situation and our experience will determine how we respond to any given future situation. And to expand on that idea, the more experience you have training a technique or movement in a wide variety of situations, the closer you become to actually making that technique or movement into a true skill.

A skill is the ability to bring about some end result with maximum certainty and minimum outlay of energy or of time and energy. The process of skill acquisition can be broken down into levels, moving from the novice to the expert who is in true command of a skill.

Level 1: Novice

The novice has little to no experience in Jiu-Jitsu. They follow the individual steps of each technique in an unswerving manner. They do not have the experience, developed perspective, necessary to understand or make sense of the situation they find themselves in. They are excessively analytical about what they do and when they do it; however, the novice does not typically attempt to understand why a technique or movement is performed in a specific manner.

If you read, just about any, technique descriptions on the web, in a book, or watch the instruction on a video, you are presented with a series of movements that have multiple steps that include, at least, three primary steps a beginning step, a middle step and an end step. The novice rarely views the technique as a whole and typically understands it as either a series of individual steps or as the result, or end step, only.

If the novice wants to advance to Level 2 (Advanced beginner) then they simply need to spend as much time on the mats as they possibly can while attempting to understand the "why" of not just the technique but the individual movements that comprise any given technique.

Level 2: Advanced Beginner

The advanced beginner is not quite as analytical as the novice. They have gained a little bit of perspective; however, their perspective is fragmented into mini-perspectives that the Advanced Beginner cannot seem to connect. Give them some sort of input and they will give you a very specific response each and every time.

The advanced beginner understands that there are connections between groups of techniques; however, their fragmented view of Jiu-Jitsu still keeps them from moving fluidly and it makes setting them up for an attack a simple manner of giving them the right input. Place your hand on the ground next to their hip while you are in their guard and many advanced beginners will go for the kimura (figure-4 shoulder lock, branch down shoulder lock) every time. Place your arm directly in the middle of their chest while you are in their guard and many of them will go for the arm bar each and every time.

The advanced beginner is fantastic to work with when you want to polish the mechanics of a technique while minimizing your concern over the setup.

As with the movement from Level 1 to Level 2, the most important requirement for an advanced beginner who wants to move from Level 2 to Level 3 (competent) is time on the mats. They also need to train themselves to understand their opponent's point of view, or perspective. Viewing their opponent's actions will allow them to understand the myriad of potential counters that their opponent may be able to call upon and prepare them to respond properly to their opponent's actions.

Level 1 and Level 2 are also the levels where the student/practitioner voraciously adds techniques to their game as part of their quest to gain their own Jiu-Jitsu perspective.

Level 3: Competent

The competent practitioner has had a realization of the vastness of Jiu-Jitsu and how everything is connected, even if they can't make those connections themselves. They have also begun to create a true perspective that unifies the "mini-perspectives" of the Advanced Beginner and allows them to focus on a smaller number of potentially successful responses to any given action which makes the process of decision making considerably easier.

The novice chops their Jiu-Jitsu game into individual moves. Kimura, Americana, Cross-Choke, Arm bar, etc.

The advanced beginner starts to make connections between techniques and other similar movements. They cluster techniques together as the gain a greater perspective. They might have a small collection of half guard techniques that they have learned to transition between the techniques to create their own half-guard game. Add a few other guard techniques that they are still trying to understand how to transition between and they have the nucleus of a bottom game.

The competent level practitioner now has several "games" or mini-perspectives that they can transition between. They might have a half-guard game, a closed guard game, an open guard game and they understand how and when to move between these games, or perspectives.

The amount of time the competent individual needs to transition from technique to technique and game to game is still greater than that needed by the Level 4 (proficient) and Level 5 (Expert) practitioner.

The Level 3 practitioner is still learning techniques, as every Level continually learns new techniques, but their concentration has shifted to understanding how techniques in a given area work together or how they can be utilized to create a network of techniques that work together and thereby decrease the time needed to transition from one action to the next.

Level 4: Proficient.

The proficient practitioner begins to see situations in a holistic manner rather than a segmented series of actions. Patterns in movement begin to be recognized and the proficient practitioner perceives deviations from those patterns and understands what is most important in each situation. However, while they "see" what task needs to be completed they still have to decide how to complete the task. The proficient Jiu-Jitsu stylist consistently discriminates between more and more refined situations and pairs those situations with the correct action on an increasingly appropriate manner.

When the proficient practitioner finds themselves in their opponent's guard they understand that the most important thing they have to do is not to pass guard but to keep from being arm barred, choked, or swept. They know that when they do pass their opponent's guard they will select their technique from a variety of options. They have multiple strategies that may combine several techniques and the selection of which will largely depend on what they believe is the most path that has the highest potential opportunity of success against what ever actions or techniques that their opponent attempts.

When a Jiu-Jitsu stylist reaches Level 4 (competent) they understand much of Jiu-Jitsu's structure including the how, why, and when of the techniques in their arsenal that they have combined into their core Jiu-Jitsu "game"; however, they also find themselves mentally orchestrating the transitions from position to position and technique to technique. They think "I'll pass his guard, go knee on belly and then take the far-side spinning arm bar" instead of the Level 5 (Expert) process which is simply to move from one position to a more advantageous position and to take what ever it is that your opponent gives you.

Level 5: Expert.

The expert no longer applies the strict step by step actions used by the other skill levels. Forcing the Expert to utilize the each step of a technique in the way that the novice is required to will actually degrade their performance. Like the proficient practitioner, they see what needs to happen but they have trained so much in such a huge variety of situations that they also see solution. There is no decision making.

When the expert feels a deviation from what they might consider to be an optimum situation they automatically move back towards the optimum, whether that means returning to a previously held position or progressing to a new position. The expert is not going to force a series of technique, they are going to relax through their opponent's actions and take what their opponent gives them.

The novice sees the guard pass, transition, take down, or submission as the reason why they move or react. The expert sees the same end result as merely that, the end result of previous actions.

The expert may not know 10,000 techniques, but he/she should know how to transition from position to position and be able to perform a few techniques from each position just as naturally as they take a breath.

When the expert finds themselves inside their opponent's guard they seem to flow from movement to movement and from technique to technique. If their opponent gives a far-side spinning arm bar then great. If they give a knee bar off of the guard pass then great. The focus becomes on the give and take of the grappling game. The expert will take what they are given as long as it progresses their attack and if they have to give their opponent something to get there then that's not a problem as long as that "something" doesn't hinder the progression of their attack.

Conclusion

The levels listed above can be applied to a single simple technique, like a neck crank, to a larger series of techniques, like a half-guard game, or to a complete game covering a massive number of positions, strategies, and techniques.

The criteria for skill development map fairly well to what I feel are the realities of skill development in Jiu-Jitsu signified by the belt system. There is some overlap in a few areas such as older blue belts and younger purple belts both seem to know a ton of techniques but they still feel that pause that occurs when they have to make a decision. Their techniques have a disconnected feel to them as they pause to consider their situation . . . even if that pause is extremely short. Their current Level would easily translate to Level 3: Competent.

The older purples and most brown belts seem to flow more efficiently because they have entered the proficient level and spend much less time on the decision making process and begin to feel their opponent's actions. They have reached Level 4: Proficient.

Black belts have arrived at Level 5: Expert and in most situations they simply react. They are occasionally forced to revert to the novice level when they are faced with a situation that their vast amount of training has not internalized for them and they have to progress through the different levels of skill acquisition before they can make the reaction to the new stimulus automatic. Just because you're an expert doesn't mean you're done learning.

If you want to get good, you need to train. But training alone is not enough. You need to train in an intelligent, orchestrated manner so that you can develop the perspective needed to progress your game and move your skill level towards the expert/black belt level.