E195 | BJJ White Belts: Stop Starting on Your Butt

Full Episode Transcript

**** Welcome to Tapped In. My name is David Figueroa Martinez of DFM Coaching, and today we're going to be discussing why white belts should never start on their butt. So, if you've ever rolled with me, uh and you went to your butt automatically without having to be put there, I will often tell you: don't go to your butt. And that's my uh probably one of the most common phrases I tell newer students. Because Jiu-Jitsu is structured in a way where we fall in love with the guard, we think that that's the default or that's the preferred method of Jiu-Jitsu. And also, all the pros are doing it, and it just is—we look—we view it as that's where Jiu-Jitsu happens. And we kind of discard the top part. In my opinion—and I uh I'm going to get some shit from the people who love guard—it's inferior.

**** If we're looking at this uh in a—in a form of—of a battle, which is what it is between two people, the same concepts that go into war and battle go into Jiu-Jitsu. When I have an army, I never want that army at the bottom of a—of a valley, and my opposing army at the top of a hill. It—it doesn't make any sense. It creates deficiencies for me to intentionally go into that valley and play from a defensively difficult position, and give my opponent the higher ground to assault me. Doesn't make any sense. We do it because we play a game.

**** But the minute you start adding elements of elbows and punches, the—that game changes, and we start looking at things like: oh, maybe this isn't so good. Maybe we shouldn't be down there. I view it as—eliminating all the like, the MMA self-defense aspect—just pure Jiu-Jitsu, being on your butt lends the battle to then take the next logical step. So if we slap hands, and we're both—let's imagine we're both kneeling. We slap hands, and you drop right to your butt, what is the next logical thing for me to do? It's not to play guard. You've already given me a position, you relinquished the role of attacker to me. And as the attacker, I now get to impose my body and my will onto you. That is the agreement that we have now made when you go to your butt.

**** So then I decide, okay, I am then going to stand. And when I stand, I'm going to approach your guard, I'm going to force you to have to carry my weight, or I'm going to use speed and direction and movement to keep you just one step behind, and then to pass your guard. Two elements of passing the guard: people either run around you slash over you—and I equate that to movement—or people smash the guard with pressure, and you have to then withstand that. Those are the two logical things that are going to happen. I'm going to do one of those two things as the attacker now. You have silently given me approval to play that role.

**** So I play the role. And when it's me, and I'm going against someone who should know better, I punish them. It's not disrespectful, it's not going to injure you, it's not going to—but I'm going to—I'm going to test your ego and your pride. I'm going to test how—I'm going to test your experience, and when you sit on your butt, it says to me: you think your guard is as good as my passing. You have so much confidence in your guard, a—a place of inferiority tactically, but you think that you can give up ground and then allow me to somehow not take advantage of it. So when I take advantage of it, I apply a lot of pressure. I make your life hell. Specifically those people who should know better. Do not go to your butt with me. I—I've either said it a couple of times, or you're one of my students who's been with me for a couple of years, you should know better. So then I intentionally make that experience really rough for you. It's not going to injure you, it's not going to hurt you, I'm not going to—you're not going to leave wondering why you're doing Jiu-Jitsu, but you're going to really not like the pressure that I'm going to mount on you, and I'm going to slowly grind you into the mat, and then submit you.

**** Every time that we start a round, we slap hands, there's a decision to be made. If space—and this is only—I say this if space is an issue, like it is at my gym, like it is at many gyms, it's hard to do stand-up rounds because there's so many other groups involved and it becomes an injury issue. Like, you don't—like if a group is doing stand-up next to you and you're doing stand-up, and someone does a takedown and it collides into your—your knee, your leg—like, that's a—that's an issue. So, gyms will often just say: start on the ground. So I get it. I understand that optimally, it would be better if we had this giant warehouse, and we all had adequate space, and we could do takedowns and start from the feet. That would be preferred, but because many of us have space issues, we have to relegate to starting from the ground. Now, if you're going to start from the ground, my philosophy is: start with one knee down, one knee up. It's the hybrid of the exchange that you kind of would maybe somewhat do from standing. I understand it's not apples to apples. It—there's a vast difference. But it at least gives you elements of the things that you should be doing.

**** So, when I start, and the person I'm going with is my equal or better, I will almost always start one knee up, one knee down, if space is an issue. And the reason I do that is because now it forces me to hand-fight offensively, not just grab and pull. And it allows me to then grab ankle picks if they are slow to respond, I get to stand, and now I get to pass as normal. Most people do not stand with you. So if you're limited on space and you're both starting from one knee down, one knee up, move forward first and then get a grip and stand up, start passing. It gives you some of that aggressive mentality opposed to grabbing and falling to your butt, or just falling to your butt right after the handshake. Um, I think that it overall, that it avoids the engagement instead of learning how to enter. We're not learning how to enter the—the guard passing. We're not learning how to enter into takedowns and whatnot. When I'm starting at least with one knee down, one knee up, there's an aggression level that I have to accept and impose on the other person. So at least the mindset is there. And then there are some quote-unquote takedowns we can do from that position.

**** Um, in my opinion, I think that when you fall to your butt, uh you then go into a reactive mode opposed to initiation or initiating. You may have gotten a grip first, but you're falling back, and now you're relenting control. Even if we want to argue that oh, the guard is control, and this and that, whatever. It's still inferior in my book. Playing defense before understanding the balance and pressure of Jiu-Jitsu. And again, you're going to be put on your butt a lot simply because you're new and you're not as experienced and—and knowledgeable of what you should be doing. So why would you willingly go there knowing that I'm going to put you there at some point anyway? Why not actually have a shot at it and make me earn that position? Relying on the guard sometimes too early uh doesn't allow us to understand Jiu-Jitsu as fast as we could, in my opinion. I think that we all understand hustling. We don't understand Jiu-Jitsu when we get on the mat for the first time.

**** But we've all watched some kind of wrestling, we've all watched professional wrestling, we've all watched Olympic wrestling at some point, we've all watched animals wrestling around, we've watched our kids wrestling around, we were kids wrestling around. So there's an aspect of that we—that's just sort of in us. There's no technique behind it, but we kind of know how to hustle. We don't know how to play guard. So if I can get you to at least understand one knee up, one knee down, in the case of limited space, we can hustle from there. And I can drive myself forward, and maybe I'm not using correct technique, but at least I'm on top. I'm pushing the pace, I'm driving my weight down, I'm hugging because everyone hugs early on, and I—we understand that aspect a bit more than we understand guard play. Guard play is very technical. So, that's something that requires us to learn.

**** So, if you are new to Jiu-Jitsu, you slap hands, go to your butt—the thing that you don't know how to do probably at all or very little of in the scheme of grappling. The other person passes the guard real fast, and you're now in a shitty position. If you had grabbed, and then pushed forward in an aggressive manner, and then tried to get on top, you at least have some semblance of understanding: I got to get on top. It doesn't have to be as technical. It doesn't have to be as—as pure Jiu-Jitsu, it just—stay on top. And then you can build from that, and your odds of survival are a bit higher. So, in my opinion, I think these are—I think it's just beneficial for you early on to just try to play top. The guard is going to come at some point because you're going to be on your back so often and so much. What gets missed when you skip standing or even one knee up, one knee down? You miss base and pressure. Like base is a—a strong part of Jiu-Jitsu. Base is uh how you stand, base is how you position yourself one knee up, one knee down, base is how you sit in butterfly guard to a good degree, base is how you sit in someone's closed guard, base is how you pass, how you set up your pass, how you stand when you're trying to pass. Base is one of the greatest concepts that you can learn. And you don't learn it when you're on your back in the guard. You learn how to attack it, but you don't know—you don't learn how to actually utilize it.

**** One of the things that we also get—gets missed is balance and weight transfer. You don't have to worry about any of that when you're in guard. You don't have to and in a lot of ways some people don't even worry about the grip awareness. Um, distance managing—management, like when you're the attacker, you get to understand that a—a little bit better. And I'm not saying you don't from guard, because you do. But as the attacker, you understand: I got to get—I got to get in close. I got to get in close, hug because again, that's what everyone does, and then stay on top. Let that be your guiding light early on, and develop off of that. Um, the long-term problem, uh I think is that we start to fear takedowns as—as a whole. Um, I did not spend enough time with takedowns coming up, and it's something that I need to develop even more. I've developed certain things in the takedown that I feel comfortable utilizing and I feel like I can rely on, but I'm by no means a wrestler or a judoka. So there—that's an element of my game that needs work. Uh, you do not develop top pressure, top overwhelming pressure.

**** Uh, I think that as we age, no matter what age you started, as we get older, we're going to rely on top heavy pressure. And that's the way your—your game's going to end up going at some point, no matter how guard heavy you were at one point. You're not going to want to be bent up into pretzels, you're not going to want to be taking pressure, you're not going to want to—like, want your knees to be pointed a certain way, and you don't have to worry about any of that when you're on top and you're just smashing someone. Um, you don't have to—one of the long-term problems is: you don't have to really deal with like, the scrambles uh when you're on top. So when you're uh on bottom, you're going to have to deal a lot of the scrambling and less control sometimes. What I personally think white belts really need early on is: start standing whenever possible. And again, um do not pass from your knees, because I think passing from knees is too close to their guard and create—and creates problems for you. So, once they go to your—their butt or you force them on their butt, stand up. Start passing standing. Um, learn to fall, learn how to break fall, learn how to fall correctly because you're going to get swept, you're going to get tripped sometimes. You that recovery is super important. Um, learn how to hand-fight effectively without panic, and then accept some of that discomfort.