It's Alive!

We've had quite a few new guys come through the academy these past few weeks and I seem to be caught in repeating conversations that go something like this:

New Guy #1 - "Wow, I've been watching tons of videos on the net and I either can't remember anything or can't seem to use what I remember on a real person."

New Guy #2 - "Yeah, and there are all these details you are walking us through that I never even imagined."

New Guy #3 - "My friend and I have been trying to train by ourselves rolling around a couple of times a week and we thought we were pretty good but nothing was working until you started helping us clean it up.  I guess we really do need training partners who know what they are doing."

Really Big New Guy #4 - "mrruummmph (accompanied by massive flailing and squirming), I can't even move, arrrghhhh!" after having a much smaller guy apply a little bit of pressure in side control.

New Guy #5 - "Oh so this technique is all muscle unless he is putting pressure on us here, but if he does it is an easy sweep."

My response - "That's right guys.  BJJ is alive. It requires the right movement, timing, and energy for the magic to happen. That is what you will learn here."

Other martial arts I've trained have been "alive" to varying degrees but the use of spontaneous movement, unpredictable timing, and real energy (resistance/full intent) is built into the very fabric of Jiu Jitsu. This is one of the things I love about it. There is never a question of would it work against a bigger guy - you grab a bigger guy and find out.  Will it work if I go full speed - go full speed and find out.

Of course we start slow as we learn something new and we need to be careful with those with less skill or physical attributes - we don't have to rip each others arms off to see that an armbar works.   In fact, a sign that you are mastering a technique is that you can do it under control at all times.

When we start learning a technique for the first time we go through the gross motions and then start to add details.  This stage is necessary to learn but it is where a lot of martial arts stop. It is not alive yet but it has potential.

Then we start applying a technique against a training partner that starts adding more and more resistance.  It starts to be alive, but it is not fully realized.

At last we start to use it in sparring.  As we first start to work it into our game our training partner (the good ones) might feed us some openings or we may start with positional sparring that lets us work the technique over and over.  Finally, we can use the technique when appropriate as part of our game - It's alive!

For more on the concept of aliveness go here Aliveness 101 Blog.