E213 | The Shifting Technical Narrative: Why Your Jiu-Jitsu Must Evolve

Full Transcript

**** Welcome to Tapped In, my name is David Figueroa-Martinez of DFM Coaching, and today we're going to be discussing the shifting technical narrative. So that sounds all fancy and shit. Anyways, but I was listening to this podcast, and it was non-Jiu-Jitsu related. And this gentleman was talking about a book he wrote, and he wrote another book, I want to say it was 20 or 30 years later. And the host had asked him about any regrets that he had about the book or anything else that he had maybe spoken about or gotten into. And the guest had mentioned that he was a part of a panel or a debate, and he was the moderator, and he didn't handle the moderation duties as best he could. It was something that he should have maybe pushed back on or assisted with or something.

**** And then the host talked about an interview that he did with someone, and he said that the questioning—the questions that he posed in that interview got him some backlash. And when he discussed it with a mentor of his, the person said, "Well, you made the question more about you than it was about the situation." So in both instances, they kind of discussed having regrets about how they handle the situation, or an opinion that maybe shifted with time.

**** And that got me thinking about Jiu-Jitsu. I put a lot of content out there. I've been blogging for a while. I've been on social media for a long time. I'm putting techniques out there. This podcast is a little over a year old now, and there's going to be a lot of stuff out there that I get into or I explain, and my opinions on the matter might change. And I don't even mean just words, but like the way I approach a technique, the way I approach training might have changed from what you heard a year ago.

**** I might have been all the rage about passing a certain way, which that's a big one for me. Two years, I was passing a very specific way. I loved it. It was very effective, did everything that I needed to do. Then I went to a camp and I learned a different passing style, which I fell in love with because it was less intense and it conserved a lot of my energy. So then that became my new passing style.

**** So if someone looked back at some old videos or maybe an old blog post or an episode of this podcast and I'm discussing how I pass or how I approach training or something that—the way I teach a certain technique, you might see this old video and be like, "Well, you did the technique this way, but now you do it that way. What's the deal here?"

**** There's more than one way to pass the guard, to submit people, to hit a triangle, to apply a kimura. There's more than one way. And one of the things that I constantly say when I'm—or at least I try to say—when I'm doing workshops, specifically at gyms that are not mine, I try to remind people: the way your instructor does things might be different to the way I do things, so there might be two opposing thoughts on the techniques that I'm going to share. I don't want us to discount one or the other, and I don't want us to hold one as the truth and one as a lie, or one as effective and one as ineffective. They're just two different approaches to the same problem.

**** They are an approach of me—5'4", whatever age I am at the time, whatever weight I am at the time, and whatever experience level I am at the time—versus their instructor and their attributes. It doesn't mean that one is better than the other necessarily, and it doesn't mean that one is effective and not effective. It means for their body type and their approach, this one makes sense. And then the version of me at that time teaching that technique, this one makes sense.

**** So then when we're looking at me specifically, or any instructor for that matter, they may have taught some stuff at—they were 12 years in to training, two years at a black belt level, and they have a specific approach to how they do kimuras, how they do an armbar, how they do any of these things. And then you talk to me 5, 10 years later, I'm more than likely going to have a different approach. I'm more than likely going to have figured out some things that maybe make the situation a little easier for me. Maybe I cut out some of the fat, maybe I cut out some of the athleticism requirements that maybe I didn't know that I was utilizing at that two-year mark of being a black belt versus the 10-year mark of being a black belt.

**** One, I've got the experience, but two, I'm older. And because I'm older, I don't have the athleticism and the strength that I used to have. So now I'm applying techniques a little different. Maybe I'm cutting an angle a little bit different, maybe I'm utilizing more weight, I'm forcing them to have to deal with things that maybe I didn't necessarily harp on before. I could have gone to a class, I could have gone to my instructor, I could have gone to a private lesson and picked up new tidbits that sent me down a whole another path that I had never been on. And then I'm driving this whole new perspective and approaching how I want to train and how I want to apply technique that's going to be different than it was the earlier version of me.

**** Our bodies are going to make us decide things that we would not decide otherwise. 30-year-old me was very, "Oh, we're going to go, we can go. We'll go 100%." 45-year-old me is a little bit sleeker. I set up traps more. I employ pressure, but I'm setting you up for something a little bit more nuance that you're not seeing. So because my body isn't the same body that I had, and my mindset, my maturity levels are a little different, my techniques are going to follow.

**** So it sucks to some people, especially if you're looking at old video versus new video and you're trying to figure out, "Why does this instructor used to teach it this way and not that way, and was that a lie, is that less effective, is this more effective, which one do I really follow?" And it can get tricky. I don't want people to think of their instructors as static archives of information, because they're not.

**** If you have an instructor who's doing the same shit that they were doing 10 years ago in the same manner, in the same approach, there's a problem there. They have not spent enough time dedicated to themselves and their own growth that they are sitting stagnant. Because there's no possible way for an instructor or a student—and we're all students at the end of the day—to train regularly and still do the same techniques the same ways.

**** I don't do my kimuras the same ways, and I've been doing kimura for most of my 15-year career. I don't do armbars the same way that I did 5 years ago, much less 10, 15. You know what I mean? So we're going to learn things as we train, as we train with other people, as we visit other training partners, as we maybe visit different instructors that we haven't seen before. Or the game itself forces changes because someone comes out with a different approach to a specific technique and then now we're following that, and I've incorporated that into my game.

**** Or I have ailments: my lower back bothers me, maybe I might have elbow issues, I might have wrist issues. So the way I approach that specific technique is going to be governed by the body I have. "Hey, I used to do it this way, then I got an injury and I've had to rely more on framing and body weight and the strength I used to have." None of this is a static archive. It's a living, breathing entity, and the way we're going to learn techniques is going to be different.

**** Just look at the ecological approach alone. The way leg locks developed, the way we used to just have butterfly, now we have butterfly half and we have all these different niche techniques within a technique. Why? Because things got developed. And as things are developing and you're training, you're going to incorporate some of those developments. I may have used to teach butterfly guard a certain way, and now I've figured some things out, I do it this way now, simply because of this, this, and this.

**** So if you are a white to blue belt, I understand. You guys, of all the groups, because you're still new to the art, you guys are looking for hard-set answers, concrete answers. You're looking for, "Hey, when he does this, what do I do?" You want a specific answer that can stand the test of time almost. The problem is, when you ask me questions, I then have to say, "Well, it depends." And you guys don't necessarily like "well, it depends" because it's too vague. It's too out there, it's too open, it doesn't give you a specific answer.

**** The problem being: it depends because it depends what they're doing. It depends on your body type. It depends on your experience level. It depends on your weight. It depends on—are you completely healed from everything? All these things, it depends. It depends on the angle.

**** There's chokes, for example. I was teaching two Ezekiel chokes over the weekend at a workshop. These are two chokes that—they're opposite sides of the neck, but you have to be exact. It's not a rear-naked choke. A rear-naked choke, once you get in there, you get in there, and you start choking people. These are very exact. If I'm too far one way, I'm across the Adam's apple, which is not what we want. And if I'm too far the other way, I'm pushing into the muscle of someone's neck—ineffective. Uncomfortable, they might tap, but ineffective, it's not the choke.

**** So teaching a very specific thing, some of the groups realized, "Oh, if I'm half an inch off, I'm off." Exactly. So it depends.

**** So I could be doing an armbar, and the traditional armbar, I'm on my butt and they're on their back. But you might be in the middle of transition, you might be more on your side, more on your hip. You might be more of a kimura grip on the armbar. You might only have one grip on the armbar. You might be going against someone who outweighs you by 30 pounds and can bicep curl you all day long. So the answer really is, it depends. And because it depends, it sometimes screws with people. And then the answer that I might give you today might be different in a year.

**** So the white and blue belt group sometimes has whiplash when they're six months in and they say, "Well, I asked you this and you said this answer." And then a year later, I'm still working on this stuff, or I came back to it, I gave it a pause and I picked it back up again, and you're saying, "Well, I should teach this," or, "I should do this." Or maybe you're at my class and I did a pass on armbars, and then maybe six months later, I decided to do another pass on armbars, and you remember the details of the first pass and then you're like, "Oh, I noticed you're doing this a little different now." Yeah, it's because this.

**** So the specifics of the position and the situation, again, it depends. And it kind of frustrates some of you, which I completely get. I would hate to be in a math class and the teacher is like, "Well, it depends." I need something concrete here, sir, ma'am. I need some order in my life. "It depends" does not help me. I don't have the ability to grasp "it depends" right now. Completely understood, but it depends.

**** And then as you get a little older and you get to purple belt, you start understanding, "Hey, I used to do..." I remember purple, brown—I went back and started looking at my old videos, and I started looking at me as a white, blue... I think I was a brown belt at the time, and I was looking even at some of the purple belt, that's what it was. Blue belt, I thought I knew this shit. I thought I knew my shit, I thought I was good. And then I looked at my blue belt shit and I was already cringing. I was like, "Man, I'm doing all this shit wrong. I have the basic structure of what I should be doing, but I'm missing key components that I now do."

**** And then I would kind of see myself at purple belt and I'd watch those videos and I'd be like, "He's starting to get it. Starting to understand the gaps that are occurring and how to shore up some of these escapes." So the same thing happens with your instructor. They might have this beautiful game that you think is perfect, but it's a living, breathing entity. It's still building, it's still adding, it's still refining.

**** And every version of us, from when we started to the halfway point to when we got our black belt, and then even after that—from I got my black belt at 40, now 45—I'm approaching armbars slightly different than I did before. I'm playing guard play a little different than I used to do before. I'm noticing that I have to protect myself more. So this older version of myself is putting credence or more focus on safety and controls than it ever did before. So the way I might teach something now is going to look a little different.

**** And if you're with me long enough and maybe I pass through your gym every so often and you see, "Oh, you taught it this way one time and you taught it this way then," and then I have to break down, "Well, I made some advancements on how I approach this technique or this position." I understood that at the time, what I taught was very effective for me at the time. Now I notice I don't want to scramble anymore. I don't want to deal with strength anymore. So I cut this angle here, or I grab both arms here, or I drop my chest a little heavier here.

**** And that's all part of it. And the thing is, like with me, I try to be as transparent as possible, because I want the students to understand that growth does not stop at black belt. I want them to understand I am still a student. Every—like all the coaches that I work with whose gyms I come to to teach, they're all doing the same shit. We're all trying to figure it out.

**** And I got Carlos at one gym who teaches me some cool shit with two-on-ones and butterfly, and he starts passing my guard in a way that no one else passes. And I pick his ear and I watch how he's doing things—he's learning these things. And then I got Professor at Sunny Dojo, and he's playing a very unique game that I don't see in any of the other people. And then I got to kind of pay attention more to certain things. And then I go with someone who drops in at a open mat who wrecks me, completely wrecks me. And I'm having all these different experiences as a black belt who literally mirrors your own experience as a white, blue, purple, and brown.

**** So if we're all mirroring the same thing, your growth is going to look different from each belt. My growth is going to be looking different from each degree. And that's the beauty of what we're doing.

**** So don't get married to specific techniques. Even as students, your techniques are going to grow, they're going to change, and they're going to develop. What you're doing today may not be exactly what you're doing tomorrow, although the structure of your game is going to be there. You're going to make advancements. You're going to be like a cell phone or a car that came out, had four wheels, was loud, clunky, and then it started getting streamlined. Then it could go faster, it could handle the road better, it had better technology on it, it was more economical—that's a big one within Jiu-Jitsu. And you're just going to get better and you're going to continue to advance. And then you're going to advance and you're going to start being more efficient because of your age.

**** So don't get hung up on specifics. Our learning styles and our teaching styles and the way we approach things is going to be a breathing entity. I'm going to look very different at 50 than I did at 45 and 40. Like, I'm trying to learn from the older bunch so that I can advance into that game a little bit more efficiently as opposed to cracking my head against the wall trying to figure out what's going on. But that's just a part of the process.

**** I'm hoping this makes sense for you guys. If you have any questions on this or anything else Jiu-Jitsu related, please let me know. Please like, share, subscribe—goes a long way with us. Also have a Patreon page. All of my techniques end up on there, it's a growing library every week. We also have specific episodes that go only to that Patreon page based on questions from subscribers and issues they might be having, and I also have direct coaching. If you need anything from me, please let me know. Until next time, thank you so much.