On a Tournament Game

If you want to read actual intelligent posts on tournaments & game plans (instead of my blathering):

• Georgette: Gameplan and Strategry for Tournaments
• Shawn: Competing – an Easy Approach
• Elyse: What’s in a Game?
• Dev: Tournament Prep and Don’t Be An Idiot Like Me
• Shama: What is my game?

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This has been bouncing around in my head for the last few weeks. Just babbling for now. Might refine it later. Much better to focus on than unintelligent insurance companies…

In a tournament, the goal is to win. Experience is good, yadda yadda yadda, but the real point and goal and reason for being of a tournament is to win. Can your jiu-jitsu beat someone else’s jiu-jitsu? And since this is jiu-jitsu, by submission is preferred. Points are a necessary evil of timed matches and reflect the hierarchy of positions (assuming this were a fight and you could punch). But by submission is better because then you know that you won, you made someone give up and acknowledge the defeat.

Class time is mostly for practicing all the little parts of jiu-jitsu, for repetition and body mechanics, for learning the inches that make or break the technique, for experimenting and trying to recall techniques. But a tournament game should be the most stripped-down and effective set of techniques that you know. A “signature move” or series, a go-to submission. Doesn’t have to be something itself simple, but rather something that you yourself can do easily and often. For examples, Roger Gracie: pass, mount, choke. Ryan Hall: Inverted where-did-that-come-from triangle. Both those guys know a lot more jiu-jitsu than what they use to win tournaments, but they use only a small, refined subset to win.

(Tangent #1: I’ve seen the forum debate about whether you’d do better with a coach who competes or with one who only used to or never has. Setting aside John Danaher as the ultimate answer for the latter —-

[Tangent #2: I’ve also seen forum debate about New Zealand John. While I have no direct experience with him, Renzo himself calls John one of the best instructors and best black belts. Renzo has no problem calling things as he sees them (smiling the whole time, so you love him anyway, but he does not sugarcoat anything). And he tells stories of how world champions show up at his gym, fresh from Brazil: “Hey, Renzo, can I warm up?” Renzo says, “Of course, my friend. Go roll with John.” World champion gets tapped multiple times and hardly looks like he knows what he’s doing on the mat. World champion comes back to Renzo. “I’m a 3-time world champion. I can do nothing. Who is this guy? Nobody knows.” I trust Renzo. Do you?

Also, Scott got to train one day with him over the summer, and said the guy is just freaky smart.

{Tangent #3: Tim has his own New Zealand John story. After Paul Creighton moved up to New York and started training with Renzo, he called Tim and told him that he absolutely had to come up and train with Renzo, he’s the best. So Tim goes up to stay a while and train there. First day, nogi. Paul tells Tim, “Hey, go roll with John.” At the time, Tim is ~220, late blue/early purple, I think, and a powerlifter and good wrestler. He looks at John and thinks, “Yeah, this isn’t gonna be hard.” They slap hands. John grabs Tim’s wrist. Tim suddenly realizes that that limb was no longer his to control. Moments later, tap. Start again. Tap. Says he’s never experienced anything like that, that John had complete control the entire time.}]

— (resume Tangent #1) a coach who doesn’t compete may have a wider game to show because he’s not focused on what wins tournaments for him. Everything doesn’t revolve around, say, getting to spider guard or finding triangles everywhere. He may not be the best coach if you want to compete at an international level, but he isn’t going to be less of a good coach just because he doesn’t compete. —

[Tangent #4: I think it was Dave Jacobs who started/answered a few threads and said he doesn’t like to compete because, if he loses, the other people generally plaster his name up everywhere and use it as a marketing ploy. “Our guy beat him, so our school is better, blah blah blah.” You can’t just assume that someone doesn’t compete because they’re bad at jiu-jitsu. Another black belt (can’t remember who now) stopped competing due to a major injury. (Probably several in that category.) Tim used to compete a lot, but to get black belt matches, he’d usually have to go to larger tournaments, which is a lot of time to drive, a lot of money to enter, a long time standing in line to weigh-in, a long time sitting around, and then maybe one fight. Especially with his family, that’s time and money he has better use for.]

— (resume Tangent #1) … … though now I forgot where I was going with that. I think what I meant to say was that I don’t think it generally matters if your instructor competes or not. They can know how to without actually doing it. I think it’s more important to have an instructor who really knows his jiu-jitsu and can improve on yours, to find a good and high-ranked instructor when possible. If your instructor is a blue belt, he can help you a lot even, but there’s a limit to his knowledge that’s much lower than a black belt’s. He can only help you improve to his level. Even if he’s a world champion blue belt, there’s a reason he’s still a blue belt. An instructor should bring your technique up to their level and expand your range of techniques with theirs, but they’re not the one who has to get out on the mat and actually compete.

[Tangent #5: One of the reasons you should absolutely never have a white belt as an instructor. There is one in our town (a TKD school looking for extra bucks.) Since the instructor will always be a white belt, the students will always, ultimately, be white belts.]

(end Tangent #1, because I got so far off-track that I forgot what the original point was 😛 )

Anyway, back to my tournament game idea. Not even a move for every position, because that’s still impossible. I think, instead, something far simpler. Use Roger Gracie’s pass-mount-choke as an example. In order to pass, he has to be on top or standing or whatever, but in something of a higher position relative to his opponent. I’m calling that “on top”, just because I can:

1. Get on top.
   1. Can’t. Invalid. Get on top.
   2. Yes. Continue.
2. Pass.
   1. Can’t. Invalid. Pass.
   2. Yes. Continue.
3. Mount.
   1. Can’t. Invalid. Mount.
   2. Yes. Continue.
4. Choke.
   1. Can’t. Invalid. Choke.
   2. Yes. Continue.
5. Win.

The actual “how” of accomplishing each step is arbitrary, but the position goals drive the whole thing. If not on top, then get on top, etc. Know where you need to be to effect the finish you want. I’ve done this before with self-defense scenarios — start with the end and work backwards. You can do that with the Roger game plan above by starting at the bottom. Goal: Win. By: Choke. From: Mount. How there? Pass guard. From: Top.

Even what I broke out, I’m sure, is too detailed. (But I’m silly and over analyze everything.) And I’m not saying to throw out reacting or to bypass opportunities, when someone leaves a submission hanging out there just begging to be taken (or her coach tells her to triangle herself). Take those, sure. But to impose a quick-win game on someone, you need a quick and simple plan.

There are also insertion points along the path. Say you’re working for top, wind up in a scramble, and somehow end up in mount. Continue from there.

Not that all simple plans work out so well. I think it’s on Val’s blog somewhere, she tells a story of a student who insisted on only learning leg attacks, against his instructor’s advice. Then in his first tournament, he faced a double-leg amputee! (Also a lesson on not learning leg attacks, and another on listening to your instructor.)

Tournament game is more than just your “A” game, too — it’s the super-elite A game. Your A game is your whole bag of tricks; tournament game, though, is the best of the best of your best.

That’s as far as my brain has gone for now…

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*snort* Now everyone’s talking Roger’s gameplan: Combat Base North East Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Feb 22, Homework.