The Ninja Blog

Competing is a different skill set from jiu-jitsu. Do you know someone who is really good at rolling but not very good at competing? This person usually dominates open mats by developing a high level of training skills, but has not yet developed their competition skills. In fact they may hate competing because they don’t like losing and find competition too stressful. These 5 tips are for both types of grapplers...........

One of the most difficult, and almost inevitable, experiences in jiu-jitsu is injury. To make matters even worse, many people get into a vicious cycle that follows something like this:

1. Get hurt 
2. Stop training completely
3. Come back ready to go hardcore
4. Get re-injured
5. Repeat.

Are there moves that are statistically better but are underrepresented in jiu-jitsu due to a cultural stigma? In Malcolm Gladwell’s “The Big Man can’t Shoot” episode of the Revisionist History Podcast, he asks this question about basketball. Specifically about shooting free throws underhanded, granny style. In the episode Gladwell interviews Rick Barry who shot underhanded. He asks Barry about the stigma of shooting granny style and asked if that bothered him. Barry repeats what his Dad had told him, “They can’t make fun of you if you’re making them.” They go on to talk about how underhanded free throws are a superior technique and are statistically more accurate, but nobody in the NBA will shoot them because they don’t want to be picked on. This got me thinking. What jiu-jitsu moves are being unfairly stigmatized despite being highly successful?

One of my training partners was recently complaining that he felt slow.

He said that usually he would be faster to avoid getting swept or submitted. He would post faster. Find his base faster. He would be better.

Now this guy is fast.This particular training partners is known to be one of the fastest guys at the gym.  Physically he is very fast. Much faster than me. Let’s call him Gonzales. But the reason Gonzales felt he was being slow wasn’t because his physical speed wasn’t up to snuff...