How Tension Kills your Jiu-jitsu
Hey there, hope you’re crushing your training week.
This email is going to be about a really important concept in jiu-jitsu that most people fail to understand. It’s especially hard to teach as an instructor. My students, as example, can take years to learn how to relax in training.
The fact is, it’s hard to “relax” when someone’s trying to kill you. And it’s much easier to be tense and try to win than it is to relax and learn how to train properly.
As a side note (I may have mentioned this over the last few weeks): I’ve been back training Judo. The inspiration for this email was a note from my Sensei who said something about tension that I’ve never heard before.
Up until this point, I had always understood tension from these perspectives:
Tension is wasted energy (Which goes against the purpose of jiu-jitsu)
Tension does not allow you to move fluidly (You need fluid movement)
Tension can lead to more injuries
BUT, the big idea that my sensei conveyed was that tension also sends SIGNALS. In other words, if you are tense, you are telegraphing your movements and if your opponent is relaxed, they’ll be able to sense where you’re moving and what you’re about to try.
And it made total sense.
Below, I’m going to cover these ideas in more detail and show you how to limit your tension in training.
Let’s dive in!
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