Category Archives: Violence & Self Defense

Revolution, Evolution, & Fundamentals

Earlier this month I had the opportunity to train with Rickson Gracie black belt, Henry Akins. Henry’s been on my radar for a long time. We competed in the same tournament in the mid 90’s as blue belts, and over the last few years he is one of the very few Instructors whose online material I continually recommend.

The majority of instructional videos I run across tend to be things the black belts do themselves, their own game, or something that’s supposedly “new”; which seems to be a selling point for younger BJJ students who haven’t been around long enough to realize the cyclical nature of trends – and the fact that the creation of the ‘new’ is more often than not a result of not understanding the depth of the ‘old’.

Henry’s material is different. Like Rickson, I’ve yet to see anything Henry’s taught that I didn’t find important. And given the amount of time Henry spent with Rickson, that makes sense.

There is a generational dividing line in BJJ. The older, ‘old-school’ black belts, who’ve trained with Rickson, understand that there are regular black belts, there are good black belts, there are great black belts, there are world champion black belts – and then there is Rickson. The younger black belts, the ones who’ve never trained or worked with Rickson directly, have no way of knowing this first hand, and because of that, tend to be skeptical about the claim. That’s to be expected. Martial Arts are filled with legends, and they’re usually bullshit.

Henry was on the mats when world champions, in their prime, walked in, rolled with, and then quickly tapped to, Rickson – not just from submission, but sometimes, just the pressure of his weight. Henry had the advantage of witnessing this many times over. The net result is that he never gave up on the Jiu-Jitsu Rickson taught him. He never skipped past it, looking for the newest grappling fad. He never believed it wouldn’t work. He knew better. He knew that these fundamentals, done properly, with all the detail, base, posture, connection, and pressure they contain, were the reason Rickson could do what he did.

Those of you who follow SBG already know that Rickson’s influence was crucial in the early development of our philosophy and pedagogy. In fact it’s something he said, that led to me defining the term ‘Aliveness’ the way I did – and launching a life-long career. As I expressed to him myself last year, that’s something I will always be grateful for. Considering all that history, it’s fairly unsurprising that I agree with Henry on the things that matter most in Jiu-Jitsu. But what was surprising is that even after 25 plus years of training Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, even after teaching these fundamentals all around the world, I was still blown away by just how deep those fundamentals run – and how much I still have to learn.

There is nothing in the curriculum of Gracie/Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu I love more than core fundamentals. The base – posture – connection – and pressure that make everything else within the delivery system work; the technology that, when done properly, defines what efficiency in fighting looks like. That’s why I have often wondered why I see them taught so rarely. It is part of our ethos, our culture, in SBG. It is obvious that it is all Rickson ever taught, or teaches – and his black belts seemed to be immersed in it. And there are other brilliant instructors within the Gracie family and the larger BJJ community, who also make it their focus. But in total, we are greatly outnumbered by the flood of BJJ schools where the instructors teach their own games, the latest trends, and have a pedagogy that revolves around chains of movements, rather than depth of foundation. Why is that?

I think there are 3 primary reasons:

  • They don’t know the fundamentals well.
  • They think they know the fundamentals, but don’t.
  • They think people want the ‘new’, and will be bored by the important.

The techniques of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and the Aliveness inherent in the process of rolling are so powerful, that even with fragile bedrock, you can build an operating infrastructure. Add in youth, strength, speed, and the ability to scramble, and you will get a fast paced, movement based game that will be dangerous to most everyone – except for those who’ve taken the time necessary to forge a sturdier foundation. This is why young, athletic, world champions in their 20’s would end up tapping several times over to an injured, 40 something Rickson Gracie – fundamentals, not always what’s most basic, but always what’s most important.

If an athlete is winning consistently, and in an environment where he or she is competitive with the other best players, they may conclude that they have good fundamentals. The extent to which all of us learn to patch up weak areas of foundational structure with physicality is usually least apparent to us. It takes an outside observer to notice. And that requires an outside observer who knows the fundamentals at a level deeper than we do. In the environments that lack such an observer, tapping to a submission, or getting your guard passed repeatedly, results in a kind of evolution, one movement is replaced with another, or a new movement is added on – the whole ‘movement chain’ becomes longer. This is the opposite of efficiency, but if it works, it will assumed to be progress. Much of what I see being sold as ‘new’, next-level Jiu-Jitsu, is really just a flowering of a limb, which, if the fundamentals were better understood, wouldn’t have sprouted to begin with.

The final reason curriculum’s based on the fundamentals are rare, is because even coaches who are well versed in them, seem to believe that the students in their seminars and classes will be bored by them. Students want the newest game being taught, the leg lock flows, the latest technique from today’s gold medal competitors, the flashy submission – I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard that. It is always an excuse. The coach might be bored with teaching the fundamentals, but if you’re a good teacher, the students never are. I’ve said this many times to my own black belts, and sometimes even they don’t believe me. The success of teachers like Henry is a testament to the fact I am right. Want the latest ‘thing’, it’s on YouTube, and everyone is showing it. Want to learn some crucial detail about base and posture inside that closed guard that even after almost three decades of training you seemed to have missed? That requires someone like Henry. It’s rare and therefore hard to find – and it’s incredibly valuable. Young students who are new to BJJ and don’t know what they don’t know may not understand the distinction, but if you’re a professional who takes your job seriously, you should know that part of your job involves helping them grasp it.

One final point I need to add here. It isn’t always fair to lay full blame for the absence of good instruction on the fundamentals at the feet of the individual teachers. Much of what I am talking about when I use the word fundamental was kept secret by various factions of the Gracie family, as the art made its way into the United States. Even among the Gracie brothers themselves, secrets were held close. Students of Rickson weren’t allowed to train with students of Rorion, and vice verse. The Gracie family under the tutelage of Helio, was hyper competitive, even between brothers. We can talk about how healthy that dynamic is or isn’t within a family, but I don’t think there is any doubt that for a field of knowledge, it’s a negative. Bridge building didn’t evolve because engineers kept their calculations hidden from each other. At some point people have to start thinking about the art itself. I think this happens more when an Instructor passes the age of competition. I think this is where Rickson is at now. If he doesn’t pass on his understanding of the fundamentals, it may get lost, or at the very least buried in the sea of regular Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu that’s becoming ubiquitous.

You cannot consciously, intentionally, evolve beyond what you don’t know. You can’t innovate past a structure you’ve yet to understand. True evolution, not revolution: the perpetual turning of the same wheel, but evolution: progress towards a more efficient delivery system, only occurs when the younger generation of black belts is given full and complete access to the knowledge and wisdom of the previous generations of black belts. The younger black belts have to be humble enough to learn, absorb, and understand the material, before they can even begin thinking about ‘advancing’ it. And the older black belts have to be open enough to teach it.

It’s not to say Rickson’s version of the fundamentals is perfect and beyond improvement. To the contrary, modern astrophysics isn’t perfect and beyond improvement, but it also isn’t improved by people who haven’t marinated in all the astrophysics we currently have. Coaches who have the hubris necessary to think they can improve on what Rickson’s does, but lack the real understanding about what Rickson does, will, at best, end up re-inviting the wheel – all the while engaging in a boring, narcissistic trip.

When I first met my coach Chris Haueter, I was overwhelmed by the detail he would share with me about something as simple as an armlock. What the left foot did, what the right foot did, what the knees were doing, what your arms and shoulders were doing, where you placed your other hand, there was a reason behind everything. He broke it down logically. You could learn an armlock by showing it briefly, and then having students do it – or you could go deep into an armlock, and try to understand why everything works the way it does. It’s only when you to the later than you become qualified to improve on it.

As the saying goes, I stand on the shoulders of giants. I didn’t invent the Jiu-Jitsu I teach. I’d be embarrassed to even imply that. I’m not some Martial Arts genius – far from it. I was introduced to it by Fabio Santos, received my foundational knowledge and philosophy about it from Rickson Gracie, went on to receive my purple, brown, black, and all the skill and information that goes along with that from my main coach, Chris Haueter – and have learned more about it every day since, from my fellow SBG brothers and sisters. What I know comes from them. And I am deeply grateful for their willingness to share that with me, and all that it’s allowed me to experience and do throughout my life.

After 28 years of practice, 17 years as a black belt, and thousands of hours teaching all over the planet, the most important thing I know about Jiu-Jitsu is how little I actually know. That’s why I will continue to work with my coaches, and other black belts who have a wealth of material to offer and are gracious enough to share it, like Henry Akins. That’s why myself and the other SBG coaches will continue to gather several times a year to share information and association with each other. And that’s why our organization will continue to advance. Not because I believe I am going to revolutionize Jiu-Jitsu, but rather, because I am smart enough to realize just how much Jiu-Jitsu I still have to learn.

 

The Finger & The Moon – how JKD lost its way.

* (The following is a short section excerpted from a larger work set for release next year)

If you’re familiar with my work, or SBG pedagogy in general, than you know that we don’t usually talk about arts like Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, or Muay Thai, as “styles”; instead, We refer to the fundamentals of those arts as “delivery systems”.

This isn’t just a semantic difference. It goes to the heart of the entire process.

A delivery system, is a series of fundamentals that define skill within a given range. In the case of hand-to-hand combat, that means stand up, clinch, and ground.

Those fundamentals, being not what’s most basic, but rather, what’s most important, will, by definition, transcend:

1- culture (history, tradition)
2- bodies (gender, age, size)
3- geography (location, environment)
4- venue (rule set, stakes)
5- time (decade, century, epoch)

These are the universal truths of combat, which all functional Martial Arts will contain.

There is a trite, often heard fallacy within the JKD world that goes something like this – “All arts have something good to offer”. Or the ever popular: “There are no superior arts, just some that are better in a given environment than others.”‭

Neither of those statements is factually true.

Some arts will make you worse, not better. Ask any coach who’s tried to correct someone’s screwed up body mechanics, and they’ll verify that fact for you. And yes, of course, some arts are absolutely better, more valuable and useful, while others will only teach you what not to do. But even the premise of the question itself, resting on the house of cards that is JKD Concepts relativist philosophy, is misguided. It isn’t about individual styles, Hung Gar versus Wing Chun, or Aikido versus Judo. It’s about delivery systems – the mechanics of a proper punch or throw, which transcend style, culture, and location.

I want you to think of style in a different way.

“Style”, as Bruce Lee rightly pointed out, is completely individual. No two Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu black belts roll the same way. Each has different rhythms, patterns, techniques they prefer, paces, strengths, weaknesses, and routes. If they are good at Jiu-Jitsu, then by definition they will be good at the fundamentals of Jiu-Jitsu, and they will share those as a common denominator. But the application of those fundamentals, the application of that delivery system, that common denominator – that’s as individual as personality.

I call this: The Fighting Style Principle:

Aliveness is the method. The core fundamentals of the delivery system are the material. And style is what you evolves within you when you combine both. It will be as different as every individual, and it will be yours alone.

If you’re a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu teacher, should you teach Roger Gracie Style or Andre Galvao Style or Ryron Gracie Style or Marcelo Garcia Style?

The SBG answer is, none of the above.

Instead you should teach the fundamentals of the delivery system, in this case the ground, create a safe environment for the students to train those fundamentals with Aliveness, and allow each student the time needed to develop into his or her own “style”.

Remember, if you can see the fundamentals that drive the delivery system, you can learn anything.

If you know how to train those fundamentals with Aliveness, you can get good at anything.

What are the fundamentals?

Not what’s most basic, but rather, what’s most important.

How do you find them?

By asking what can be removed and what cannot. Where you find necessity you find a fundamental.

A superior boxer or kickboxer can throw pretty much any particular strike, kick, punch, or knee, and potentially make it work. They can make it work because they have ingrained the core skills, the root movements of the functional delivery system. Just as a Jiu-Jitsu black belt can probably make even the most inefficient joint lock work on someone who has no real skill on the ground. That isn’t a testament to that particular movement, but rather the delivery system, the positional dominance, transitions and timing that make up the fundamentals of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. And that delivery system is not bound to any culture, any style, or any system. Why? Because any functional thing like that, something that is based in factual truth, transcends culture and geography. Just as there is no such thing as “Canadian geometry”, but there is geometry. We call it “Brazilian” Jiu-Jitsu now, to give credit where credit is due, and to acknowledge the teachings and innovations of men like Rickson Gracie, but the truth is all functional wrestling shares the same principles. And it has been that way throughout the ages.

“I grew up with an impatience with the anti-scientific. So I’m a bit miffed with our current love affair with all things Eastern. If I sneeze on the set, 40 people hand me echinacea. But I’d no sooner take that than eat a pencil. Maybe that’s why I took up boxing. It’s my response to men in white pajamas feeling each other’s chi.” – Hugh Laurie

In a functional Martial Art, form will always follow function. The form the movements take within a given delivery system evolved that way, under the pressure of competition. This is, of course, how evolution works.

Ultimately, what we should be engaged in, assuming we’re looking to reach our potential in effectiveness, is a journey towards efficiency. Since form follows function – the most technical answer will be, by definition, the most effective answer. And the most effective answer will be, by definition, the most efficient answer. To understand Jiu-Jitsu as it is taught by a man like Rickson Gracie, is to understand that there is no distinction to be made between the most effective, most efficient, and most technical movement. The terms become interchangeable. Form follows function.

Evolution requires heritable traits, and three additional things: replication, variation, and selection. Provided all three things are present, natural selection makes use of the design space, and evolution occurs. In evolution by natural selection, the delivery system (plant or animal) serves as a vehicle to pass on the gene. Replication occurs. Variation arises through that process, and through random mutation, and the environment and all that’s arises and occurs within it provides selection pressures.

With functional Martial Arts, the process is much the same. The delivery system, instead of carrying the gene, carries the core fundamentals of animal (in this case homosapian) combat. The variation is the different bodies, temperaments, minds, which use that delivery system. And the selection pressure is the roll, fight, competition process, and theater of operations itself.

#1 Replication: gene – meme- delivery system
#2 Variation: bodies, temperaments, minds
#3 Selection: environmental pressures, the “roll”, the fight

A good BJJ teacher passes down the fundamentals of the delivery system to a room full of people. Let’s call them a “variety”. That variety then competes against each other, and that process forces adaptations. The same choke is used, but each player finds, over time, the best way to apply it individually. If you have a room full of 30 people, you will, given enough time, have 30 different “styles”. Same delivery system, in this case BJJ, but they will all be as different as Roger Gracie is from Marcelo Garcia – each great, each highly skilled in the same core movements, shrimps, hip motions, weight distribution, chokes, etc; and each very different from the other.

That’s how functional Martial Arts work – like evolution – through competition, eventually, creating a variety of species/”styles”.

By contrasting the delivery systems of martial arts with the evolutionary process, we can better understand why certain arts developed the way they have. Alive-functional delivery systems will evolve under the selection pressure the environment provides, so even a minor change in the rules of something like MMA, could have a profound affect if it remained a rule for long enough. In addition, a large cultural change, such as the one that occurred in post WW2 Japan, can also have lasting effects on the way a delivery system is used. That doesn’t mean the core of the delivery system changed, remember, a true delivery system is based on movements and principles which transcend culture and venue – no, what it means is that certain parts of that delivery system will become more dominant, while others may go unused, and over time become lost.

An example is the headbutt. If it were allowed back into the sport of modern MMA it would not mean that Aikido, Silat, Systema, or (insert fantasy based martial art here) all of the sudden became “functional”. We would still see the same core delivery systems of kickboxing, wrestling, and BJJ. It also wouldn’t make a position like the guard (where you control the person on top using your legs) go away. What it would do is change how athletes who compete regularly in that environment played from the guard. That change would remain so long as the environment allowed that selection pressure of ‘headbutts’, something that UFC fighters currently don’t have to contend with.

Another good example of this process is Judo. Remember, it was a Judoka who initially taught the Gracies Jiu-Jitsu. However, Kano, Judo’s founder, was known to favor the throwing aspect of the delivery system to the ground fighting (newaza). That favoritism was reflected in the sport. Time allowed on the ground was limited. And perfect throws could gain you an instant victory. The result? The Judoka developed a great deal of skill in the takedown portion of the art, and in comparison with their Brazilian cousins, limited skill on the ground. Does that mean the art of a well-placed choke on the ground, or a well-timed hip throw standing, changed? Of course not, what it means instead was that a competitive Judo player is more likely to be skilled at throwing someone to the ground, and a competitive BJJ player is more likely to be skilled at choking someone once it hits the ground. Same delivery system, different emphasis and specialty developed, based on the selection pressures (rules), of their respective competitive environments.

Once you see how the evolution of functional Martial Arts works, the reality that the entire curriculum, whether it is for stand up, clinch, or ground, needs to revolve around the fundamentals of the delivery system, becomes self-evident.

Something else about the process also starts to come to light. You’ll realize that when each individual athlete is given the freedom needed to develop his or her own style, they will, over time, come up with one that is optimum for their own body, mind, and temperament, in a way otherwise unachievable if you were attempt to do with a conscious, human choice. In other words, the process is always smarter than you are.

I’ve spent more than 25 years teaching these arts fulltime, and yet, I still have no idea what a Jiu-Jitsu white belt will end up looking like, ten or twelve years later, when they achieve a black belt. I might assume a particular “style” of play based on their size or athleticism, but, more often than not, I’ll be surprised. I’ve seen short stocky people who became phenomenal guard players, and tall skinny people who ended up wrestling and playing for top; the evolution like process that occurs from the selection pressures that arise on the mat with alive training and rolling is always smarter than I am. Never let a coach tell you how you “should” play – learn it all, and let the your opponents on the mat, over time, teach you your body how it plays best.

The reverse is also true. When a coach begins to teach his or her own personal “style”, rather than sticking to the core fundamentals of the delivery system itself, it is akin to inbreeding within biology.

This is the mistake the “Original” JKD people made. They were trying to fight the way a 130lb man who died in 1973 fought – trying to replicate Bruce Lee. If Bruce Lee could fight well, then, like all modern MMA fighters alive today, he would have had a unique individualized style that made use of functional delivery systems – and it’s the delivery systems, and their pedagogy for training, Aliveness, that the Original JKD teachers should have focused on, not one individuals application of them. Said plainly, they missed all the glory of the heavenly bodies because they were too busy staring at a finger.

This brings us back to our JKD endorsed fallacy: In that case, isn’t it all just up to the individual? There are no superior delivery systems are there?

I hope you can see the flaw in their reasoning now. There is a proper way to perform a rear naked choke that will allow you to achieve the desired results as quickly and efficiently as possible. This is simply a reality. Likewise, there is a proper (best) way to throw a right cross. There may be many variations in how it is thrown. This is ‘style’ specific, and every boxer will have his own, but the fundamental body mechanics, the rotation of the hips, the transmission of power from the ground through the body into the target, that’s based on the laws of physics, and that is the delivery system. Whether people choose to acknowledge that reality does not change the truism. Everyone who teaches functional ground fighting these days, meaning every MMA coach on Earth, is incorporating the guard, the mount, etc. They may call it Submission Wrestling, but it’s the same delivery system. Since the Brazilians brought that delivery system to prominence, and since so much of it was perfected by men like Rickson, I feel it’s important to give them credit. But, ultimately, the name is not what matters most; the reality that the delivery system is backed by principles of leverage and timing, and works against resisting opponents; that is what matters.

Delivery systems can be tested. And that testing has been done.

At this stage it’s obvious what works and what does not. MMA has proven the boxing, wrestling, and BJJ delivery systems to be of great value. So that’s what all skilled MMA fighters choose to do. Someone trained in Silat, or Wing Chun, or Aikido, or Systema, without that background in the functional delivery systems mentioned above (kickboxing, wrestling, BJJ), would be unable to compete in MMA. They cannot defend themselves against modern MMA fighters. Instead of a sport, it would become a beating.

However, as we’ve seen, that doesn’t mean all MMA fighters look and fight the same way. Spend some time watching the UFC. Of course, you’ll see many common threads in their movement – again, that’s the delivery systems at work. But you’ll also see tremendous variation – that’s their individual style in action.

Each fighter naturally develops that style, as they practice, drill, spar, and fight.

Take away that opponent process, and you also remove that ‘style creating process’. You’ll be back to a sclerotic tradition – a dead pattern.

Why?

Because it is not a matter of taking different pieces from different arts, (the JKD Concepts method), or learning an imitating someone else’s style, (the Original method); rather, it is a matter of learning the fundamentals of the delivery systems, and then training alive.

That process is the real JKD.

A style IS: an individual’s personal method of application of a given set of delivery systems, as developed, over time, through the opponent process.

A style IS NOT: a fixed series of patterns or beliefs, passed down from Guru to pupil.

There is no shortcut. No hack. No secret words, obscure forms, or magical Gurus that can bypass the work, sweat, and effort.

You have to EARN your style.

Helping people earn their style is what JKD should have been – and what SBG is.