Episode 37: Why ignoring concepts makes our BJJ better | Improving specific skills | When efficiency is and is not important

The idea of understanding and learning concepts in Jiu Jitsu - like posture, inside position, and head control - has been the gold standard of "good" technique for years. But when it comes to learning individual skills and specific movements, does that kind of big picture focus help or hurt us? Tim and Adam discuss the limitations of concepts during periods of specific focus, their view on the place concepts have within the sport, and what we replace bigger concepts with during specific work.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:20

Welcome back to the Open Mat podcast. My name is Tim.

SPEAKER_01 0:23

My name is Adam.

SPEAKER_00 0:24

And I've noticed something, Adam. Do you want to hear what I've what I've recently noticed?

SPEAKER_01 0:28

I do want to hear what you've noticed.

SPEAKER_00 0:31

As I've worked on on triangles, not only do I get better at triangles, but I seem to understand them more the more I deal with them. It's revolutionary. More exposure to it also gives me a better understanding of it. I've never heard of the like of it before. Have you?

SPEAKER_01 0:48

So you're saying the more experience you have doing something, the better you are at understanding it?

SPEAKER_00 0:55

I don't want to take too big of a leap. I don't know if that's the case. You know, we we can't be too zealous here, but it feels like something along that line. Um in, you know, I I open up with that joke because I I've mentioned it before, and I said this exact thing before, right? I've it pretty much any time over the last couple of months that we've talked about. What are we working on? I've mentioned, yeah, I'm doing a couple of things, but when I want something specifically to focus on, it's been triangles. And I've made the observation too that, like, yeah, I've I've kind of figured out that pulling down in the head, it's not a good finisher mechanic. It doesn't really add a lot more strangling power to the choke. Um, but it's really good for control. So that's nothing new. But what I've come to realize, and this is more interesting than it initially sounds, was that you know, obviously it's taught in a lot of places, or at least a lot of the places that I've been, you know, pulled out of the head in the triangle. And so it's not new knowledge. And then I think too about the control piece, and like that's not completely untrodden ground either, because people talk about controlling posture. And so then, you know, I had a moment where I was like, well, you know, how novel is this idea really? And novel is the wrong word because I'm not inventing anything. This knowledge has been around before. Um, but if people are talking about posture control, uh, is this really all that interesting to talk about, specifically pulling down to the head? And then I got frustrated because then I was like, you know what? No, it it is actually important that we say that specifically, because whether the people saying it no or not, right? Whether they are aware of it or not. And I'm not trying to get on anybody's case here, but almost every coach in the, I don't know, it's been like 16 and a half years that I've been training jujitsu, they've emphasized posture control, they've emphasized this and that. And there's a lot of different things that that's useful for Adam, but when when the only thing they say is posture, that's not specific, it doesn't tell anybody anything. And if I, who was always pretty engaged in jujitsu, I took very few breaks. Not that I'm the great prodigy, but I don't think a lot of hobbyists who weren't super active competitors were more engaged than me. When it took that long to start to understand what they mean, aside from just pull the head down, control this, that, like how it actually works into techniques, it was frustrating to me because it feels like a cop-out, you know, and and I can't say they're wrong because they're not. Like posture control is a good thing, but are you really gonna tell a white belt like posture control is super important, and then expect them on their own through drilling or through rolling to be like, oh, he said posture, therefore I'm going to use my hands in the back of the head to pull it toward the hips. Because I think a lot of people think posture has more to do with their opponent's posture. And if you say well, it does, well, their posture has nothing to do with my body, it has to do with how bent over they are, and so it's it was kind of frustrating to me, Adam, because we've talked a little bit about like the way jujitsu, well, we've talked a lot about the way jujitsu is traditionally taught and kind of some of the the truisms and and all that stuff that goes around with that in terms of like the words that we use and how we used to teach. But it's frustrating because I think that we've taught in such an abstract way. And honestly, again, I don't want to see them like I'm coming off uh as hypercritical of other coaches, but I think they've just dove so wholeheartedly into the lingo of it that they don't actually tailor the conversations, they don't actually tailor the teaching to their students in a way that's meaningful. And so, you know, I had this revelation around the posture control uh uh a bit ago, but like around that idea that we've taught a lot of things which, you know, I can construe as being true the longer we go, but then I dive back in and I'm like, if we look at this objectively, if I'm not just trying to make a point, but I'm also not just trying to reconcile and say, well, I guess I did know this, you know, at first, it feels like there's just been a lot of a lot of teaching and a lot of like the philosophy and a lot of the way that we talk about things that we just don't even fully understand anymore because we just stick to what we were told. And I don't think if a coach said, yeah, to get it into a triangle to enter it and to control it, you got to control posture. I don't really think that most of them, if they got asked a bunch of questions, would even say, no, you need to pull their head close to the hips because that prevents escapes. So that was just one of the things that was on my mind, Adam, in terms of like, yeah, we do have access to information that if we really dive into it and really engage with it, like I think it can yield um a lot, or maybe not even a lot, but it can yield some opportunities to progress without tons and tons of trial and error. But we've gone to the point where we we're just so general with it, and we just only ever say things one way that I don't think a majority of people are gonna get there with what they're traditionally taught. Uh, you know, just in kind of the abstractions and the vague terms. And that that bothered me a little bit. And so I wanted to vent about that to you, Adam. Have you like run into that yet? Or when I say that, does that ring any bells in terms of like, oh, we'll just do this? And then like, yeah, it's kind of true, but it was so non-specific that it never really helped you.

SPEAKER_01 6:16

Yeah, it's uh it's a pretty good, pretty good vent, I think. It's definitely true in in some cases. Um, you know, I think we talked, was it even like even last uh episode I brought up in people asking the question of like, oh, hey, what's the what's the best way of doing X, right? Whenever, whether it's escaping or finishing an arm bar. And it's like, well, there there really isn't a best way. There are many ways, and every person is probably gonna have a way that is more efficient for their body, uh, and depending on who they're going up against and whatever. So I I think what you're talking about kind of hits at that same general idea of like, okay, I say, you know, oh, control the posture, keep his head down. But I think that's where um the language and being specific with language is really important because if I say, oh, control his posture, and even as I think through this, I was working with one of my students more to work on his triangles. He was, you know, he was getting close to triangles, but then having trouble finishing. And we worked on them, and and I was actually super happy. He did a competition here pretty recently, and he he hit a triangle and it was fantastic, right?

SPEAKER_00 7:26

Um, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:29

Um, so so I don't know if Caleb will listen to this, but Caleb, hey, great job.

SPEAKER_00 7:32

Well done, Caleb.

SPEAKER_01 7:34

So yeah, he hit he had a real nice triangle uh in a competition. And so it was like, oh, you know, great. That's I'm glad it, I'm glad I was able to help, right? And not that it was me that actually did it, right? All credit goes to him. He finished the triangle, he rolled with the guy, came up on top, and finished the triangle from top.

SPEAKER_00 7:50

Beautiful.

SPEAKER_01 7:51

It was it was beautiful. It was very beautiful. Um but then when I think back about how I was like kind of instructing him or giving him pointers and responding to some of his questions, I never used the phrase like head close to the hips. And I'm like, man, maybe I could have gotten him to that finish point much sooner if I had been a little bit more specific in my language. Because even when you say, like, okay, again, control the posture, keep his head down, whatever, that doesn't really tell me anything other than in general, I'm trying to maybe pull his head closer to the mat or closer to my chest, or like, you know, keep him bent over. What if his hips start, you know, building up? So I think that's actually a really uh I see it more as like, how can we use our language to be more specific and the importance of what we say and the effect it has on our students or the people we're training with, et cetera. So like I could have said something wrong and maybe, maybe Caleb would have figured out how to finish a triangle faster if I didn't say anything at all, you know, didn't say anything about his posture or about controlling posture. I don't know. So it's really interesting, I think, kind of around the importance of language and what we say can have good effects, yes, but it can also, I think, confuse people and slow down their skill acquisition in some cases, if we if we say too much or or not the right things.

SPEAKER_00 9:22

Exactly. And and you know, as we go into this, both of us, well, I don't want to speak for you, but I I'm assuming this is true. But me, me especially, like I'm still fully on the train of like I want minimal explicit instruction. I'm still very far on the the ecological side of the spectrum. But when we talk about constraints and we talk about eco, like that doesn't mean we never answer any questions. That doesn't mean I never, ever, ever am allowed to prescriptively describe anything, right? I will if it's appropriate. I was at uh I've referenced this before. I was at a seminar with Greg Sauders uh about a year ago or so. Um, he, Mr. the king of eco, at least in today's jujitsu scene, he will prescriptively describe things to his students. It's very, very rare, and it's in a very few select situations where he's seen that they're going through, they're running into a specific roadblock as they're kind of in the the general area that they need to be. And if he can guide them and then they'll go back and do that, he'll do that too. So I'm not saying that like I'm gonna turn and go to the far side of the other spectrum and try to be John Danaher on his DVDs and have like 12 hours of instruction. Um, but when it comes time to use our words, and when it comes time to answer questions or describe something, or when we see that there is one single issue and people have recognized it as an issue, and so we want to help them with the answer. Yeah, I think I think Adam, you hit the nail on the head uh in terms of what I was trying to say. We need to be really specific and we can't go into these um these buzzwords, you know. I I think in jujitsu we almost have our own corporate lingo, you know. And when at work, I'm like, oh, I'll circle back with you on that. You know, let's let's make sure we're aligned, let's take this offline. Like there's let's do a deep dive. Yeah, exactly. Let's deep dive. There's this corporate lingo, and then people kind of roll their eyes at it if it ever comes up outside of work, and you're like, yeah, like I do it too, but that that sounds so fake. But we do that a little bit in jujitsu, and it's not because the words and the descriptors were never useful or that they were always bad or that they're always a cop-out. I just think that people use words like posture and inside position, um, you know, and a lot of different things without ever really having dived in to comprehend that fully, because at least I'm not seeing a lot of people describe that in a way that a white belt is going to fully wrap their mind around that, right? There's a lot of people online, and I'm not knocking them. I'm positive that they're great practitioners. I'm sure their students do really well. But when they describe these things on podcasts or videos, uh, you know, they're talking about inside position or they're talking about frames or they're talking about posture control, all this stuff. They're not nearly explicit enough that if I was a brand new white belt, I would be able to get that right in a general sense. I might see if you're showing me a move, oh, in this move, that's what he's doing, but I can't translate that. And I also don't think, like, even as a black belt, like, am I 100% aligned with what you think this thing is based on what you're describing? I don't know that. I know I can make the concept work, but how well are you really communicating if you're using something that sounds really descriptive, but it's not right? So I think I guess the the thing I'm I'm circling around in my indignation's not the right word in this state of mind that I'm in is that when the time comes that we're using words, and everybody uses words at some point during coaching, even the most eco of eco people, we need to be really precise and we need to be really intentional, and we have to make sure we understand what we're trying to say instead of just thinking that I'm gonna throw out a buzzword and it's gonna connect. I want to be really descriptive and I want to understand why that thing works. And so I think, you know, all of us, me, me too, um, especially the people that are that are throwing around the buzzwords, and I think they know. I think I think they understand these things. I'm not saying that they don't, I'm not saying that like it's hiding ignorance, but I really think that they need to be much more specific, uh, at least in the sense of what they're talking about at that moment in time, because otherwise I think so much meaning and value is just lost, right? And if if you're listening to this, um, you know, don't forget we have Instagram, we have comments on Spotify, but like I'd be really interested beyond some of these things that we've mentioned, and I've been harping on posture just because that's fresh on my mind from uh from working on triangles. Like, are are there any words that like you feel like you're supposed to know what they mean when you're being coached? And then it's like, well, I don't really fully get this. I I get it's important, but like, what does this mean in this certain situation? Because I'm sure there's a lot more than we've uh than we've tackled so far, Adam. But yeah, words, words are important.

SPEAKER_01 13:59

Yeah, I I think I think too, you have to, especially as a coach, you have to know your audience a little bit too. You have to know your your room um and your athletes. If they're people who have been with you for a long time and they they know what you mean when you say, hey, inside position or whatever, then great, you can use that. But I've found too, even uh on a much more, I guess, simple scale, it's like, okay, uh, we play some game and maybe bottom player is inside control is like, hey, all you have to do is get to any form of guard. And I say that, and most people are probably gonna know what that means. But now if I have some newer players, they're like, well, what's a guard? It's like, oh that's a good question, right? Um anytime uh my legs are between myself and my opponent, well, does that mean both legs have to be? Because, you know, well, half guard isn't necessarily both legs between yourself and opponent. So so there again is a spot that at least I've tried to be a little bit more specific and not to say, like, hey, any form of guard, but it's just like, okay, anytime I get both of my feet between myself and my opponent, right? Or or at least one of my legs between myself and my opponent, something like that to actually like actually say what I mean instead of just using the generally accepted uh I don't know, words to describe that that position or whatever. So yeah, I think I think that's kind of interesting. I had another, oh, on this kind of same topic, one of the things that I I don't think I've consciously been thinking about it, but I have been sort of subconsciously thinking about it during some of the games I come up with and and even when I'm rolling a little bit is grip fighting, right? And and making grips and stripping grips. And because a lot of times it's like, oh, you know, make grips on your opponent. You want to, you know, make it's like, okay, well, what what grips do you want to make? Because there are there are objectively speaking, there are better grips and there are worse grips. And then there are some grips that are gonna help for um certain certain moves or or they're gonna open up certain opportunities, but other grips will not open up those same opportunities. So yeah, I that's one thing that I've been trying to think about. And I don't know if I've done it yet, but be a little bit more specific in some of my games and explaining things of like where and how I want people to grip, instead of just being like, oh, hey, you know, make grips, win the grip fight. Because again, that to me is like, well, what is what does winning the grip fight actually mean? What does that actually look like? Yeah, you know, and I feel like a lot of people probably don't fully understand that, especially if it's, you know, I don't maybe fully understand it, especially not in all situations. I can I can generalize and be like, well, if I have, you know, two grips on them and they only have one grip on me, I'm probably winning the grip fight, but maybe not. I don't know. What are your thoughts?

SPEAKER_00 16:58

Uh I mean, it's good. And and to circle back really briefly on, you know, you're talking specifically about like what is a garden. And I thought that was funny because um Hayden, who we've had on before and and really who's kind of my mentor in terms of ecological dynamics, he introduced me to it. He answered a ton of my early questions, a lot of like the early kind of styling. Uh I really I just kind of lifted wholesale from him. And then over time I added my own flavor. But I I would always I don't know the word for it. Like I was never frustrated and I never rolled my eyes at him, of course. But I was like, dude, like when you're describing these games, you're talking about what you're doing with your legs, and you just won't say guard. That this is a guard. He's like, Yeah, I want to get my legs and I want to control my partner's hips. One one leg through one hip, right? Or both, or I want my feet in front of them. Like, just say a guard. But I think that's exactly what he was going for, Adam, what you were talking about. Like, especially as you get newer people in, and hopefully most of our listeners have a lot of new people coming through their gym. If you're brand new, even if you've watched the UFC, you don't know what a guard is yet. That's that's a really jujitsu specific term. And so it is a lot easier to quickly explain games if we just talk about what our legs do and we steer clear of like these broad brushed guard things, unless it's a specific situation, and even then just describe it right. So I I think there's there's a gray area there. I think we can we can kind of balance the approaches, but I do think there's definitely something too not just using the official jujitsu word, like describing it, especially if you have some newer people who are in the gym. Now, the the question then that you asked around um you know defining things and especially grip fighting. Yeah, I think this may not be exactly what you're what you're asking, and bring me right back on track if not. But grip fighting means different things in different situations, and it does and it doesn't, if you're listening to me, right? Like I'm always fighting grips, but what success looks like is gonna be different depending on if I'm an open guard, depending on if I'm you know fighting defensively from mount, if we're both standing, um, if I have a kneeling opponent, like if I have a standing opponent, like that there's just different realities on what winning looks like. And so when we use a big picture term like grip fighting, even I think it helps a lot, especially if we're in specific games or if you're non-eco, if you're a specific like starting position when you roll, or situational sparring, like defining what success might look like, right? Say we're we're in the ghee and I have a kneeling opponent in front of me and I'm seated upright in butterfly guard. Me winning the grip fight probably means that I'm getting grips either on my partner's sleeves or arms or their lapels, right? Um, I probably don't want to deal too much with collar ties in the gi because I just have a a grip that's easier to lock onto and manipulate a disconnected opponent there, right? So that's what that looks like. Losing obviously means that they just get free control of my pants or they can get chest to chest and penny. Winning and losing that is gonna look really, really different though. Uh if we're nogi and I'm with a standing opponent. Because if I'm with a standing opponent no-gi, my open guard, realistically, at least in my mind, doesn't even involve their upper body unless they drop down. I'm not gonna lock onto their sleeves, I'm not gonna lock onto their wrists. And so my open guard and no-gi against the standing opponent means that I'm getting good grips on their legs and I'm getting a good angle so that he can either tip them over, I can start attacking their back, or in most cases now, I think I can start getting into the legs. And then if he drops down to his knees, that's a little bit different, right? But what that means is that winning looks very different in that game and in that situation than it would in the other game, right? Than it would if we were standing up. Because if I'm standing up, I don't think even in the gi, I really want to make grips on the material of my partner's legs. Um, and I probably, unless I'm going for a single or double in in the ghee, I don't even really want to make that many grips on the legs because a lot of my initial attacks come off of upper body gi grips that maybe then I transition to lower body grips. And so all these different words that I'm saying are going into the idea that yeah, as we teach these things and as we put our students in these situations, or we're not teachers at all, we're practitioners, we're trying to figure out how do I get better. Um, as I start to look at, okay, forget the grip fight right now. Like, what do I want to do? Forget what winning the grip fight looks like. What is winning this initial engagement look like? Is it pinning my partner down? Is it getting all the way past their guard? Is it sweeping my partner, getting to their back? Once we have the sense of like bigger picture what our goal is that we want to achieve, then we need to start to look at how do I get there? Right. I need to break the big thing down into a smaller thing. Um, is that before I go too far, like is that generally what you were asking, or do you want to rank you back and on track there?

SPEAKER_01 21:43

Well, I th I think I think what you said is absolutely correct. And that's that's kind of why I've been thinking about it more is is because grip fighting, just if I say grip fighting, like you mentioned, it's so broad, and you have to put it in the context of what you're doing, right? Are you gi? Are you nogi? Are you both standing? Are you both seat like seated? What's what's going on? Right. And so so that's why I think it's maybe a little bit like disingenuous if somebody's just saying, oh hey, you, you know, win win the grip fight, you know, gotta make grips or make connections or whatever. Because that's that's kind of ambiguous for for a lot of people, right? Especially like you're saying, like, oh, for somebody who's like, well, what's inside position, right? A lot of people may not know that. What is a guard if we want to go down that route. That's why I think grips, gripping, because it happens in every situation, like it's so broad that it is something that you have to kind of dissect in the individual situations. And that goes then back to again the bigger picture. So I think for me personally, I've started thinking about this more because I have a a generally, at least I like to think, I have a generally good idea of in every situation, what is kind of my my bigger picture goal, right? Whether that's passing and you know getting past defeat and then getting chest to chest or um whether that's you know reguarding or whether that's framing or you know something like that. I generally have like a bigger picture here's what I want to do. But then I've been starting to think about more like what grips allow me to do that more efficiently, especially from different scenarios. Right. So even Butterfly Guard, you brought up a good one. It's like, okay, well, why would I really want a collar tie if we're in the Ghee? There's probably easier and more efficient grips for me to use. So I don't know. This is something again that that I've been thinking about. So I was curious to kind of hear your thoughts and you're you went down kind of the same same path that I was in my head already going down. It's like yeah you have to break these down but then you have to know what uh what scenario and and what you're trying to do because that's going to inform how you should grip fight and if you are winning the grip fight.

SPEAKER_00 24:00

Yeah. Yeah. And I think that kind of alongside separate but parallel to that is an idea that when we're looking at getting better at something and I could go to down the coaching path. I want to stick more to like the skill acquisition but coaching like with your new people or with people that you're trying to build a skill up this is important too. Like I do think that we need to keep our big picture objectives in mind. Like if I want to pass a lot of the time well all with the time I need to get chest to chest at some point. Sometimes I might go chest to chest passing. Sometimes it might be after I already pass but I want to I want to get close I have to get close. I have to put pressure on my partner that kind of stuff we can teach right away like the big picture objectives. The big picture concepts though the more I think the more I'm like don't don't teach new people that don't teach your white belts that and it's not that they can't like hear the words and recite that to you but if we're trying to get good at the thing itself like all of jujitsu I think we can talk about you want to get chest to chest or chest to back. I don't think we should be focusing that much on our white belts and our new blue belts like inside position, you know, this, that, the other posture blah blah blah um and that's jujitsu sacrilege maybe to treat posture and that kind of like the basic fundamental stuff like that. But it's so non-specific. And you can say no it's specific I know what posture is yeah but like how am I supposed to interact with it as the practitioner when we talk about posture control I'm talking about my partner basically just relative to their own body and relative to the floor not relative to me because I might not want to pull their heads straight down into me. I want to have an angle and control posture. That's really hard for us to get as we're starting out in these things. And so tying that into kind of what I was initially trying to say and what you were saying is that we should have an idea of like the big picture goal we're trying to get to like in physical concrete terms. But when we're trying to get good at something whether it's just like this thing we call jujitsu and we're new or whether we're a black belt and we're like hey I've never done triangles before I'm really good at some other stuff but I want to try that we need to focus on the really small stuff first the grip fighting what does good grip fighting look like? When do I win the position and when do I lose it with grips? Like how do I work with that? What grips work best then we can talk about smaller individual things that we get good at because if I'm trying to like learn this one big abstract thing and then that thing is supposed to tie into more specific situations that's so much harder than looking at the specific situation I'm trying to get good at right now. Find the things that work there just in that context without worrying how they tie into the bigger picture of jujitsu. And then when I have the skills to do the thing then we can start talking about like the bigger picture higher order stuff like posture like connection maybe maybe connection's not the right one but maybe it is right like what is connection it could be chest to chest. I think there's connection and knee shield when I'm trying to pressure through that that's connection too but that's so different right and so I guess what I'm trying to say is that I might change my mind on this some people might disagree and I'm really not trying to like thumb my nose at them or start a fight with them but I really think in terms of getting better faster and really developing skill we shouldn't deal with like the more big picture abstract abstractions when we're trying to build the new skill right away. Because we need to deal with the realities of accomplishing that specific thing. And then as we get better at that so that we can do that specific thing after the fact, after I have the ability to do that, then we can look at how like there's some commonality with other things that I'm good at. But I don't think that those commonalities are going to make me automatically good at the next new thing that I try just because like there's some words that can bridge the gap. That's that's a real spicy take though. What are your thoughts on that?

SPEAKER_01 27:44

Could could you say this uh is is this kind of going down the whole route of like you know it's we want to be if it's if it's effective right it's it works like that's fine. But then you want to go from being effective to being efficient. Is that could you maybe draw that same parallel with what you were trying to say like hey we don't want to um maybe bombard our white belts with some of these higher order abstractions as long as they're getting chest to chest or whatever. Right. So it's like okay as a coach is like hey if it's effective I'm not gonna stop you like if it's working keep doing it sort of thing. But then there's there are ways to be more efficient in getting chest to chest or in sweeping or whatever whatever it may be. Could that be kind of a parallel to what you're trying to say maybe in just slightly more simple terms?

SPEAKER_00 28:33

Kind of not really because efficiency is it's yeah efficiency is its own thing and I'm talking about like a broader conceptual framework. And the the broader conceptual framework won't always make you more efficient and that's not a problem with it. Like that's not its issue. It's interesting you bring up efficiency though Adam because I was at a movement conference like the only one that or it wasn't a conference but it was a um it was at the Academy Minnesota which is their their headquarters in Minnesota there's a bunch of the academies across Minnesota great schools if you're near any of them at least try it out. But um they they were doing more of kind of an overall sport psychology skill development thing and they brought in a couple guys that worked with a bunch of NFL players they had some other jujitsu coaches they had a couple of bigger name jujitsu coaches there. And so they talked about you know what getting more skillful at a thing was or I forget the exact question but it was an open-ended question for coaches to say like when do you start to feel a good job? Like when do you know that your athletes are doing better and I included in my answer like they have to be effective they have to be able to accomplish their goal they need to be efficient. And there was another pretty big name coach that that said and specifically said I don't think efficiency factors into this at all and here's why and he was an NFL guy and I forget it might have been Adrian Peterson who if you're not familiar with American football he was just this extremely fast extremely athletic player he was a running back but but it's a broader parallel that he drew he was like look this guy could do things that nobody else could do. He he could just do it and he achieved the goal and you would call it a really inefficient movement because he burned a ton of energy it was a really awkward movement that he did but he accomplished his goal. So efficiency has no bearing at all in that case because that's the primary goal right um and my my thought to that is yeah but there's an order of things right our first objective is to finish what we set out to do which in jiu jitsu is to submit people you're not being efficient if you have a lot of energy and you're not submitting people you're just not doing your job. But once we get good at submitting people once we can reliably do that then our job is to start being able to do that more efficiently I think um and so efficiency is one thing and I think it's important but like the broader framework stuff I think is really important. I'm not trying to knock that and I think at some point we have to start doing that. I'm a big advocate of that. I love it. But I think that works a lot better either from like a coaching standpoint where we're designing a practice or when you are yourself as the athlete really good at a bunch of different things and you start to connect those things that you're already good at and find commonalities. But when we reverse that order and I try to take in a new white belt and I try to try to try to teach the white belt like all these different things right um pick your poison right posture. I say we always want to control posture from bottom is that wrong no of course that's not wrong that's very true I think but it looks very different. And if I keep trying to bring posture in as like the primary goal of all these different things when he's gonna have to move when he's gonna have to get his opponent to move in different ways and then he himself is going to have to move different ways or she herself will have to move different ways like posture at that point's a distraction. We need to get really good at completing the goal posture be damned like I have to be able to do it first. Then I have to be able to start to do it more consistently and as I work on doing that more consistently then we can talk about efficiency right and as we start to be good at these things because what we call posture is a requirement they're gonna start to understand how they need to control their partner's head or their shoulders or something along those lines in order to do that specific movement. Then they might do something completely different and then they're gonna have to learn how to manage their partner's posture a completely different way. The way I control my partner's head or their shoulders is very different in um in a a scissor sweep, right, versus a butterfly sweep. And you might say well posture is not that important in a butterfly sweep. It sure is we just manage it so much differently than we do if I'm gonna do a scissor sweep that it doesn't ring a bell, right? The principle is the same but if I tried to teach you both of those two things and try to make posture the main thing that's not going to be effective for me to teach or for you to learn. And so catching my breath and so as we go back like all I'm really trying to say is if we want to get it in simpler terms, don't try to focus on the big picture concepts at first. Don't try to use those to get good at new skills. We need to understand our goal. So again posture is one thing but getting on top is a different thing. I should be focusing on getting the top with all sweeps because that's the only way I win a sweep is if I get on top right uh or this or that or the other thing. So I I do that and then I kind of learn my skills backwards. But I don't think that it's that useful for new people or people who are learning a brand new skill to deal with more abstract concepts. Or put another word, maybe this is the simplest way to put it to try to use general knowledge to get better at specific skills. The general knowledge holds true but it needs to be very heavily adapted for the specific skills and I think it's a lot more efficient and we'll get better at something if we don't deal with the general knowledge until we have those specific skills already. And then we can be like oh yeah like this is still posture this still ties in I get that now right does that does that make more sense?

SPEAKER_01 34:13

Yeah I think so and I think I think maybe I'm better understanding kind of where you're coming from of like you know there's there's a difference between like your goal what your objective is and these concepts that may help you get there. Right. Yeah. So yeah I I think I maybe I maybe had confused those in my brain when you were talking earlier. So I think that makes sense. I I think not to derail this a little bit um and maybe we can have a bigger conversation on like what what skill is because I'd be curious you know more from that conference or matter or whatever. But I was actually listening to a a podcast this morning about skill development and I didn't realize we were going to talk about this in the in now today and on our in our podcast but fancy that when you brought up uh you know Adrian Peterson I never watched him I know who he is who he was you know he teams he played for and stuff I know he was very very good um but I didn't watch him enough to to know his running style um I remember him just being like I know he was extremely powerful and basically would run over the opponent sometimes. But regardless, like you said, he he achieved his goal and so whatever that coach was saying about like okay he he wasn't very efficient maybe at it but he he always achieved his goal or he usually achieved his goal right and I I think part of that is he was such a good athlete that he he would do things he'd never done before just in the moment right I'm sure there were there were times he just goes off a reaction and just what his body's instinct is telling him to do um and that that allowed him to achieve his goal even if it didn't look the most efficient because he was problem solving in in instantly right in just in milliseconds and going hey I need to get into the end zone. I need to carry this ball into the end zone. There are two people in my way how am I going to get past both of them or through or around or over and to get this ball into the end zone. And so I think part of that tying it back to the skill side of things is like skill, I would agree skill doesn't necessarily mean like you are efficient at one thing or one movement. Skill is the ability to achieve your goals while you're adapting to different situations. So I I think that was kind of the bigger point this this guy was making in the in the podcast was like skill skill you have to be adaptable in order to be skillful. So kind of kind of going with what I guess both you said, I do think efficiency comes in there to some extent but I think a very skillful person can look very inefficient because they're doing something they've never actually done before. Does that make sense? Yeah yeah I think they're used they're using a movement they're using a solution or a movement to achieve their goal that they've never trained before they've never even thought about before but it gets them to their goal in that moment in that specific situation. So yeah it might not look that efficient but hey on the fly under pressure they were able to do it and they solve that problem with this movement.

SPEAKER_00 37:21

I don't know if that makes sense it makes sense in my head no it it does and like this this might be a good illustration of kind of where I'm coming from with that. Imagine like you're manufacturing something you have a factory of some kind. What kind? I don't know fill it in your mind. Have fun with it. But as we look to manufacture something our first goal was not efficiency. It's not how efficiently can we manufacture it it's to look at the output and say is this even what I'm trying to manufacture because quality control is huge. But before quality control comes making sure that like you can even make the thing that you want to make. So when we're manufacturing we we say it's a lawnmower, right? Before I worry about any other thing, I have to manufacture it however that works in whatever way it works and make sure that when it comes off the line fully assembled and I put some gas in it, I pull the ripcord or whatever lawn mowers these days are like I don't know I haven't mowed a lawn in a while and it starts and it cuts grass. Okay. It doesn't matter how inefficient that is at first nothing else matters if I can't do that. Then once I've started to do that then we need to make a hundred and if 20 of that hundred don't start and they don't make grass again I don't need to be more efficient. I need better quality control or I need better consistency. When we have a factory that's starting to put out a bunch of the thing that we set out to create and it does work and then consistently we're almost always it's never going to be always like maybe it's a bad factory and one out of every 100 just doesn't work. I might be okay with that depending on what we're talking about. With consistency then we talk about efficiency. If it costs me you know$50 to manufacture this thing maybe I want to find some efficiency so it costs me$45 40$35. So once we know we can make the thing and once we can know we can make it and it works consistently then we talk about efficiency. That's kind of the order of things but here's here's the kicker and I think here's the point that I would want to argue with that with that coach. What if I suddenly make a pivot and instead of lawnmowers I'm gonna make jets or something like that. Something crazy sophisticated well if that's my goal then I'm not gonna be able to do that as efficiently as I can make a lawnmower right but that doesn't matter because the thing I'm trying to do changed. So if I have this ability here's here's where we tie this back in let's say it's Adrian Peterson I don't remember if it was him he I don't think he was an awkward runner or anything like that. But say say it's him or say it's Saquon Barkley or say it's some running back in the NFL that's just so physical they can run guys over. If I can do that and I can get a first down or I can get a touchdown, the efficiency matters a lot less because if I can consistently do that, if I can be successful with that six out of every 10 times I'm handed the ball. Whereas if I try a different maybe more efficient route or movement, I might get my goal three times or two times out of 10. The physical efficiency doesn't matter because I'm more consistent then. And it's also something not everybody can do. But once I'm able just to run through guys and I can do that consistently don't you think it would be better if I'm doing that a bunch in the first part of the game to be more efficient so I have more plays later in the game that's kind of where I'm getting at with that. So there's a bunch of things we want we want to be able to do something. We want to be able to do it consistently we want to be able to do it efficiently but we don't try for all those things at the same time first we need to be able to do the thing period full stop. Then before we worry about being efficient with it we want to be able to do it consistently and then when I can do that fairly consistently or consistently enough that this is something that I'm attacking. I'm going for it's part of my strategy then I do want to make it more efficient. It's just that's the last thing that I work on even if it is important.

SPEAKER_01 41:16

Yeah I I think I'd agree with that. I do think efficiency has has some role in in skill um so yeah I don't I don't know exactly what that means it's that's probably we could probably talk about this for a lot longer and debate it but um yeah I think I think that's that's good. Now I think next next episode I need to hear the most efficient way to uh break my opponent's posture you know so um hey fair fair enough if you can define that a little bit more in terms of where you are and what you're trying to do with that broken posture I'd be happy to discuss. Nope that's it it has to fit all scenarios.

SPEAKER_00 41:56

Just break yeah I'm gonna tell you something and then you're gonna be like well actually what about spider guard? That doesn't work if I'm in spider guard. Yeah sure okay and again like I I want to be really clear to everybody who's made it this far in our conversation like I'm not trying to to uh rake muck on anybody I'm not trying to make anybody look bad or punch down on people that aren't on this podcast to to speak back to me. And I think that a lot of the people that like you might listen to later today or next week or next month and be like oh maybe that's who Tim was talking about. Like they do know the things if you talk to them they do know what they're talking about. They could probably help you. I can't say they do I don't know who you're listening to but like a lot of the people we're we're past the point where there's just like influencers who don't know how to do jujitsu and like just people who are frauds on YouTube. I I don't think that's really a thing anymore. But what I'm saying is that like when we talk about the best way to go about this the best way to really get good at something and when we want to get good at something you don't just get good at jujitsu you get good at some things first normally you get good at some pretty small things first right posture control, trial whatever it is. That's the route we follow and I don't worry about posture until I know like the situations where posture is relevant and I know the different ways that I break posture and I understand that it's important to break posture different ways depending on what I'm doing. I don't think that posture is a good place to start for any of that until we're good at the things that we would talk about with breaking posture and without trying to tie them all together as if they're the same thing, we're good at them in their their own ways. And maybe this is you and like you're you're struggling with some of the stuff from guard because you're like well I like I'm trying to break posture. I get it but A like it's hard and B, like I don't know what necessarily that helps me with when I'm just hanging onto their head or their lapels like whether you admit that you're just tossing that by the wayside or not forget about posture and maybe think about would it help me to pull their head in or control their head in some way. But just give Get good at the thing first, right? Get good at doing it, get good at doing it consistently, and then we can start to talk about after we're good at those two things, how we maybe tie it into a bigger picture thing rather than trying to have these big overarching themes of this position or that position or this posture or that thing, and then trying to like act like that's just this the specific blueprint to getting good at different skills. Um so get get good at the small things. If if we've talked about nothing else, we've talked about that. Get good at the small things before we worry about tying things into a bigger picture. Um and I think that'll really help, especially as we look to get better at specific takedowns or sweeps or situations or anything like that. Any anything to add on that, Adam?

SPEAKER_01 44:44

I don't think so. I think I think kind of like we talked about, just make sure you you have your goals and and what those objectives are, so you know uh yeah, you know what you're trying to do.

SPEAKER_00 44:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 44:56

That's all I'm gonna do. So go be intentional with with what you're doing.

SPEAKER_00 45:00

Be intentional. I'm gonna make this a really clickbaity episode. I'm gonna make the title something like concepts don't matter in jujitsu. Or something like that. But but I don't know. I I I feel strongly about that. It's a nuanced topic because I I really feel strongly about the concepts too. But I'm just I'm just trying to say what I think and what I find and what I believe is the simplest, most straightforward path from A to B to get good at a specific thing. Because we don't get jujitsu we don't get good at jujitsu as one thing. We get good at jujitsu because we get good at more and more and more of the little things within it. But uh thank you all for those who have lasted this long through the conversation. Um, don't forget, we have an Instagram, an open.mat podcast, we have a Spotify, we are at a point now uh where as people reach out, if you listen to this down the road in the future, I can't promise this is still the case, we will respond 100% of the time. So if you have questions, if you have feedback, if you agree, you disagree, or even if you have something specifically that you think it'd be helpful for us to have a conversation on, please don't hesitate to reach out however you can and let us know that. And with that, Adam, great to talk to you.

SPEAKER_01 46:08

Great to talk to you.