E172 | The "Already Knowing the Movie" Concept: Pattern Recognition and Pacing in Jiu-Jitsu

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All of this stuff allows you to grow a little bit more confident as you start spotting it, because then it's going to allow you to grow a little bit more successful. You can now develop more of an A-B, A-C game. And what—what I mean by that is early on you are very rudimentary. Your first attack is your most formidable, but then they stop it. You will then develop an A to B, A to C attack on the—the failed attempt, which allows you to get a little deeper into the—the scene because now you're more experienced and you understand people start doing this, so then you do this in response. Or you feint that you're going to do one thing because you know what the most common response is—you've seen the movie—and then you start developing an attack right off of that feint. That's where the confidence grows. That's where you start to feel more comfortable with yourself, that's when you start to build a game in any given situation, and you're going to have a situation or a position that you like best. That might be top half, that might be top side, that might—you might be a guard player, that might be half guard. And then you're going to develop things off of that position, and you're going to start seeing elements of the movie with every partner that you roll with, and your confidence is going to grow.

White belts respond a certain way. Blue belts respond another, and so on. And you're going to gain some successes with the white belts, then you're going to gain a little bit of success with the blue belts, and you're going to maybe doubt yourself a little bit, but then you're going to figure something out. And if you're patient and—and diligent enough to allow yourself to see the movie through, you're going to collect so much data. And Tom Cruise had a movie, Edge of Tomorrow, Something Tomorrow. It was an alien movie on Earth, I believe. Maybe another planet, who knows? And he would wake up every day at the same spot, and then he would live out the day. The day was the same day, and then he would die at some point, and then have to relive the day all over again. And then he would get a little further, and after he realized what was going on, he got some training, and then he—his job was to play out the movie as many different times as possible so he knew what was coming. That is in essence Jiu-Jitsu. And that is in essence what "I've already seen the movie" means. I understand that if my underhook is shallow and not very strong, you're going to overhook and then crush. I made those mistakes at one point. I saw the movie. So then, I start getting a deeper underhook. And then I start going maybe deep half. But in my deep half, wasn't great for me because I was on the smaller end, and if I did this with a larger athlete, uh they punished me. So I was like, okay, I don't want to go deep half anymore. So let me entangle the legs in a way where the heel—my opponent's heel is closer to my body, which I'm going over right now. And then, we can start off-balancing because their heel isn't where it's supposed to be. And you start experimenting with things, you start applying certain techniques and the way of doing a certain technique, and then that technique—that identity of that technique follows you specifically based on your body type. And then you get further into the movie. You hit that first sweep, and then off of the sweep, maybe they reverse you because your weight was off. So then you re-establish the position from half guard.

You re-establish the underhook. You do the sweep again, but this time you're anticipating their movement so you base harder, you drop the hip better, and you hold them in place. And then you start scrambling into—or not scrambling, but you start moving into a mount or maybe attacking the back or some other position off of that that you like. And that, in essence, is what Jiu-Jitsu is supposed to be. You will have seen the movie in a specific system because you've replayed it against so many different people. You don't feel bad, you don't feel weird, you understand the mistakes you made, you correct the mistakes you made, and then you get further along than everybody else. That is the core of what it means to "I've already seen the movie." If you're newer, you're 2 years in, it's going to take you a while to get to the point where you will have seen the movie as many times as I've seen it. I can quote specific speeches, I can quote response lines, I can tell you where the jump scares are, I can tell you where the crescendo is in the movie, I can tell you where there's a fake scare, I can tell you where the love interest says this, that, and whatever. I know the entire movie of a specific system really well. So that's what I mean when I say that. It's going to take time for you and don't beat yourself up; it's just going to be a while.