Private Lesson Notes: Defeating Strength and Resistance

Part 1

Summary of Today’s Email

Some of my lessons this week focused on understanding what resistance is and how to avoid it. In the beginning, you use what you got and most people choose to use strength. Instead of “strength shaming”, my goal is to show people why using strength is maladaptive to good jiu-jitsu. In today’s article, you’ll have a better idea of how to use (read: leverage) that strength and integrate it into technique (using levers). Here is the gist:

• When strength meets strength, the stronger person wins (this is not the point)

• Understanding how to beat strength starts with understanding how to recognize resistance (You’ll have to be relaxed)

• The roles of connection and leverage when dealing with resistance (read: strength)

By the end of this article, you’ll be better at understanding what people mean exactly when they say “you’re using too much strength” and how to apply “skills” against strength. This article is all about the “hidden jiu-jitsu” nobody tells you about.

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Ok, let me first start this off the disclaimer that I do my best to not strength shame anyone. This is a big evolution for me because as an instructor early on, I was big on correcting the big strong guys. Now I don’t… not like I used to anyway.

People are strong, I get it. And just like people are strong, sometimes they are smart and fast and quick and more cunning and more… you get the idea.

We all have physical and mental attributes that we are blessed with (or work hard for?). And to be fair, in the beginning, when we are first starting jiu-jitsu, do we all not use what we’ve got?

Now, I applaud people who recognize their strengths (physical and mental attributes) and do their best to avoid them.

As example, the agile student who tries to move slowly in order to understand control or perhaps the powerlifter who tries to avoid resistance as much as possible. These types of people are anomalies because they clearly care less about “winning” and much more about “learning”.

But for most of us, use it if we got it. And there’s nothing wrong with it.

Is there a problem with it? It depends on what your goals are in jiu-jitsu.

If you care about simply winning, then use what you got to win. Winning is about being effective and if being stronger than your opponent gets the job done, then use it; be effective.

But, if you care about learning and developing skills, strength (and other attributes) may hinder your ability to be efficient. And being effective is not always efficient.

This article goes into how to be more efficient. My goal is to show you that you don’t necessarily need to be strong to be good at jiu-jitsu. You just need an understanding of connection, levers and other words that get tossed around a lot. Because if you can understand how to beat strength (RESISTANCE), then life gets much easier.