Connections in BJJ

As you read the title, what were your 1st thoughts? Connections in bjj? What on Earth does he mean? Social connections? Staying in touch with old training partners? eHarmony with the threat of staph?

In this post, I am going to be making a bunch of stuff up. I am going to be relaying 2nd, 3rd, and 15th hand information on to you. And then you take it, put your spin on it, and pass it along. I don’t have time to be looking stuff up on the internet to find out who said what and when. I am just going to take it as fact because I like the concept. Of course I have put my little spin on it which is why I am writing about it.

Staying “connected” in bjj is very important. This is not the specific concept I want to discuss with you however. I want to write about CONTROLLING those connections. What exactly do I mean by staying connected?

Connections in bjj are important because they allow you to:

1) Sense when your opponent is off blance so you can get some offense going.

2) Sense when your opponent is trying create their offense.

3) Feel slight changes in direction, pressure, or force so you can adjust.

We have an instructor at the gym who has talked about connections before. I know he has trained under De La Riva but I am not sure if he picked up the idea there, along the way, or perhaps at a Rickson Gracie seminar. I have heard of this idea being attributed to Rickson though so we are going to roll with that.

What connections am I talking about?

Who’s controlling the connection?

Anywhere you and your partner or opponent are touching each other is a bjj connection. It could be a grip, it could be a hook, maybe it’s where you are driving with your head. Both people need these connections. These connections give you a feel for what is about to happen.

You need them from an offensive standpoint in order to initiate your game. You also need them defensively so that you can sense what they are trying to do or set you up for. You can use these connections to sense balance and pressure for example.

Have you ever been riding a skateboard and as you are cruising along you feel the board go over a single stone or pebble? I mean with just one wheel going over it. You still feel it because it got transmitted up through the wheel, the truck, and then the deck to your feet. Even though you didn’t step on or feel the rock, you knew it was there because of the connections made through the wood and metal.

An easy way to picture a connection is during stand up or takedown training. Generally there is some sort of grip fighting going on. If I have a solid grip on their lapel and I jerk it forward and down, I am trying to get them to take a step forward in order to keep their balance. When they step forward is when I am going to try and time an ankle pick or single leg takedown. If from that connection I can feel that they are NOT going to step forward, I hopefully instinctively will switch to something else.

See where I’m going with this? Not only is it about making these connections but more importantly about…

Who Controls the Connections

Underhook or overhook? – pic from aucklandbjj

You have a lapel grip on me. Or do you?

I have a nice and tight single leg on you. Or do you have both of my arms occupied on one of your legs?

Feel me?

You might have a lapel grip on me but if I feel that you are set on keeping that grip like dead man’s hand, I can use it to my advantage. I might have a single leg on you but maybe you use it to set up a standing kimura or guillotine.

It is all in who controls the connections. Who is going to be more dynamic with it? Or sneaky? Who’s going to maybe look 3-4 moves or set-ups into the future and use that connection then?

We are in half guard, me on top, you on bottom. Like a good jiu-jitseiro who eats all of his vegetables, I have my far side underhook. Oh shit right? Looking at it from your perspective though, you have an overhook on that side and could be setting up a triangle. Who is controlling the connection there?

Little Globe of Energy

Looks like God is going for a grip…

Picture each spot where you have a connection with your partner as a little orb of sparks and energy. Like in that picture over there. Are you going to control it?

Some other things to think about:

• Are you going to initiate and dictate the movement with that connection?


• Can you see how reacting (rather than controlling it) to the connection could be bad? (you’d react thus be late like the Saulo Ribeiro quote.)


• How many connections can you make or maintain?

More than one right? Maybe a grip here, a hook there. Maybe some are decoys, or others aren’t nearly as critical as others.

Well I hope you are all psyched up now to go train bjj after reading this. Not only is bjj, and grappling, about having these connections but it is more about controlling them. Use them to initiate your movement or a reaction from your opponent. Use them defensively to try and counter them.

When you go back to class or the gym to train, right before you roll, ask yourself – who is going to control these connections? If you do, you will probably win. If you let them control them, you will most likely be reacting. And losing.

Connections in BJJ

Who Wants to See me Wrestle?

Standing next to my sister in the 1970′s.

Yep.  That is me over there to the left.  I was about to start my senior year of high school.  If you can’t tell from the picture, I was small for 12th grade.  Ha ha no, that was me when I was perhaps 5?  When I was a sophomore though, as you’ll see in the wrestling video below, I wasn’t much larger than I was in this pic.

I was coming home from elementary school one day, I think I may have been on my way to go fishing with a friend of mine, Eric.  Back in my day, boys fished, shot bb guns, and would wrestle each other at the drop of a hat.  Eric and Dean, both classmates of mine, both wrestled for Eric’s Dad on the local team.  Eric’s Dad also coached the junior high and high school teams in the area.  He saw us wrestling one day, Eric and Dean were always much better than me, and told me I should sign up for the team.  He talked to my Dad and that was how it started.  This was around 1980 and I was in the 4th grade.  The rest is history.

I was not technical by any means and as you watch the video, you’ll see I never was, lol.  Another friend of mine that I used to go to school and wrestling camps with uploaded this video to youtube a while ago.  I don’t know why but I was embarrassed to show you guys.  Know what?  Who cares.  The guy who uploaded it is none other than Jake Zweig, former Navy SEAL and contestant on that TV show Top Shot.  Jake ended up winning the state championship when we were seniors.  He was on a different level than me.  He had something in his mental make up that allowed him to see himself as a champion back then.  It was like he already knew it was supposed to happen, he just had to carry it out and fulfill it.  Of course I didn’t recognize that at the time.

Why didn’t I shoot my doubles this way in high school?

Anyways, my Dad, Jake’s parents, Jason Dunn’s Mom, they never missed a dual meet or tourney.  Ever.  Jake’s Dad would set up his camera on a tripod on the edge of the mat, my Dad with his in the bleachers, sitting next to Jake’s Mom and Jason’s.  The video Jake’s Dad got was usually focused, non-vibrating, and relatively quiet.  My Dad’s?  Aside from only being able to hear those two Mom’s – Jake’s and Jason’s – screaming like demons, quite often my Dad would be so intensely watching my match that he’d forget he was filming.  There might be two minutes of nothing but two women screaming and the floor underneath the bleachers as my Dad would let the camera and his focus drift away.  Then all of a sudden, like motion sick sudden, he’d remember he was supposed to be capturing it for posterity and the video camera would SNAP back onto the mat.  Hello dramamine.

Anyhoo, about the wrestling video below.  I was a sophomore, the year looks like it was 1987 so I had just turned 15 a few weeks earlier.  This was in the 101 lb weight class, the same weight I had wrestled the year before.  The only difference was that the year before I was 14 lbs under the limit, this year I was maybe 3 over.  The next year I shot up to around 130, and then 140.  I am in the green singlet, my opponent from Steilacoom is in the red.  Good old Jake Hertel.  I think we wrestled each other 3-4 times throughout high school.

Here it is:

 

 What did you think as you watched it?  I cringe whenever I watch it.  Don’t worry though, I have had an old vhs tape sitting in a closet for years now.  Once a year when I happen to notice it I’ll think to myself – you know, I should convert that over and upload it so everyone can see my muscles.  But I never do it.  Until now.  I needed a vcr first.  I snagged one last night from work to use.  I already have some conversion software so I shall give it a go soon, probably this weekend.  I think the tape has matches from my senior year only.  The other tapes are lost somewhere in the Washington wilderness, packed in dusty boxes above my parent’s garage.

How about you?  Any wrestling, bjj, or judo videos of yourself that make you cringe as you watch?  Would you like to share?  Come on.

Who Wants to See me Wrestle?

Feeling Heavy on Top in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu

How many times have you heard, read, or asked this question, or variations, during your bjj journey:

Why does “insert whoever here (instructor/white belt/wrestler)” feel so heavy when they are on top of me in bjj?

Key concepts before you start devouring this:

1) The angle – the angle with which you apply this pressure is crucial.  Too low and you might not maximizing what you can deliver.  Too high, you might get swept.

2) The pressure – you will see how to maximize it below.

3) Potential energy – you want to create as much potential energy as possible, get the proper angle, and apply it to them.

These 3 points are important because it means:

• your opponent has to carry that weight.


• They then have to negate it.


• Then they have to create enough additional energy to create their own offense.

Giddy up.

from scienceofskill.com

I think if I had to name one attribute of my grappling game that I think is the strongest, I would probably say top control.  My gameplan for the last year or so has been to either pass guard or sweep, and then to apply smothering top control.  I love it.  Applying so much pressure that it causes discomfort is the easiest way I believe to break somebody’s will.  If they are suffering just from your pressure, imagine what will happen when you finally slap on a submission.

As the tagline of my website states, this is the thinking man’s bjj site.  So I have been thinking about it.  How do some people that only weigh 150 lbs feel so immovable?  Why do wrestlers seem to be human blankets when on top?  I think I have a bro-science answer for you.  It all has to do with, yep, you guessed it – physics, engineering, and evolution.

Put your gis on, tie them belts, and buckle up.  If you really think about what I am going to try and write below, it has to be true.  Right?  It may be hard to follow but once you grasp it, will be super simple to understand.

You’re not doing bjj Steve

I used to hear this a lot.  I probably still would if they probably didn’t get sick of hearing themselves tell me that.  Also, it used to hurt my feelings.  Sniffle.  I don’t care anymore though.  I bask in the creating pressure glory now, I enjoy the suffering.  Maybe I don’t do jiu-jitsu.  Jake Shields has American Jiu-Jitsu, maybe that’s what it is.  You could call it that or even wrestling jiu-jitsu.  The goal of these styles would be to be on top as much as possible, control, and then submit.  Again, for whatever reason this is often criticized as not being bjj.

Why are wrestlers so good at creating and applying pressure?  Why are their top games often stifling?

Core Strength and Potential Energy

from gcsescience.com

Wrestlers drill, drill, and then drill some more.  In wrestling, if you are on the bottom, you are losing.  In folkstyle, you always want to escape while in freestyle you always want to stall so the match gets brought back up to the feet.  It becomes second nature to 1) be on top and 2) to control.

I say because of the constant drilling and the goal of controlling from the top, wrestlers develop both a strong base and strong core from always being in and fighting from these positions.  This is just like how trying to throw a judoka is nearly impossible, why trying to break open the guard of a veteran bjj player is so difficult.  All of these bodies have been trained, refined, and honed, to be awesome from there.  It is similar to how a football player can catch a pass without thinking about it, or how a shortstop can throw a ball to 1st automatically.

Because they are always trying to control another person that is resisting, wrestlers build a very strong core.  However, that is not all.

Now we get into the fun stuff, how it happens and how you can do it too.  Physics.  Newton.  Gravity.

Potential Energy

What is it?  Any ideas?

It is the energy of a body or a system with respect to the position of the body or the arrangement of the particles of the system.  What?

In the nuclear Navy, we quickly covered kinetic and potential energy.  I think the easiest way to understand potential energy is to think of a stone sitting on the edge of a cliff.  It isn’t moving but while it is perched up there, 100 ft up, it has potential energy.

from brainlesstales.com

If it falls, gravity takes over and accelerates it towards the Earth.  When it hits the ground, that energy is transferred via the heat from the collision, as well as the sound it generates.

The Conservation of Energy

You have heard this before I’m sure:

Energy can neither be created nor destroyed but only altered in form.

We can observe this rock and its potential energy, as soon as it starts moving though, we got some kinetic energy.  Another example would be using water from a dam that turns a turbine that then generates electricity.  We’ve got water above a dam with all that potential energy waiting to be released.  It falls down the turbine causing the shaft to turn.  As the shaft turns, the brushes mounted on it rotate through a magnetic field, creating electricity.  You then consume this energy through heating your house (and subsequently the atmosphere,) or cooling your fridge.

Why are push-ups hard?

If you think about it, I mean REALLY think about it, they are hard because you are pretty much trying to create potential energy.  Create may be the wrong word but I hope you get my meaning.  With even just ONE single, solitary push-up, you are basically telling Earth and gravity to fuck off.  My arms and chest can beat you Earth!  You are fighting gravity with your arms!

Hello Superman.

And no I am not implying that wrestlers are better at applying top pressure because they do push-ups, although I’m certain it probably helps.  I am saying that wrestlers are trained to try and transfer that potential energy to their opponents.  Let’s look at the equation and hopefully some very basic diagrams.

Potential Energy Equation

U = (m) x (g) x (h)

where:

U = potential energy

m = mass of object

g = gravitational acceleration

h = height

And it’s not heighth.  I got corrected on that about 10 years ago.  It’s not heighth and width.  Heighth is not a word.  The more you know.

So from that equation, you can see how the mass of the object and the height are important factors.  G – not so much as it is constant unless you are shuttling between different planets.  Which some of you might be based upon the emails and tweets I get.

Gravitational acceleration – like I said, constant.  I think.  In the metric system, g = 9.8 m/sec2, in the English system, the value of g is 32 ft/sec2.  We are going to use the English value because I’m ‘Murican.  Actually we are using it because I like calculating force in foot pounds and not Newtons.  I can’t compare using Newtons because I don’t have a reference.  Are 10 Newtons a lot?  500 Newtons just plain crazy talk?  Who knows.  Since this is bjj and not nuclear crap, we can forget the units.  Just remember, the higher the number the better, more potential energy to transfer.

U = (m) x (32 ft/sec2) x (h)

For an example, let’s use a mass of 100 lbs and a height of 10 feet.

U = (100 lbs) x (32 ft/sec2) x (10 ft)

U = 32,000

How about 200 lbs and 2 ft?

U = (200) x (32) x (2)

U = 12,800 (double the weight but only a 1/5 of the height.)

Keep in mind that these are perfect, ideal physics conditions.  There is no way in hell that we are going to be able to transfer every ounce of energy straight down onto them.  We have to figure in motion, resistance, weight distribution etc.  But this concept of potential energy should give you an idea of what you can do to maximize how much you can apply.

Ways you can maximize yours:

1) Get off your knees.  This is however not necessarily true in bjj.  Like in top side control you want your knees up close blocking their hip and shoulder.  If you want to temporarily create pressure and cause discomfort, get off your knees.

2) Use smaller points of contact or pressure.  If you read the post on using force in bjj you know that by using the smallest point of contact possible, you are transferring the same amount of pressure to less of an area, therfore increasing the force.

Again, by doing this you are forcing your partner to carry more weight.  As such, in order for them to generate enough energy for them to creat their own offense, they will first have to neutralize your downward pressure and then come up with their own to get you off balance.  It’s almost like a double whammy punch to the dome.

Using our rock perched on a cliff example from above, you want to be the rock.  You want to be this big boulder on top of your opponent, making them the ledge holding you up.  Earth is trying to suck you back down, make your opponent carry that weight.

Feeling Heavy on Top in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu