What’s your preferred guard?
More and more, mine is “open”. Not open guard as in some specific orientation to the opponent, set of grips, and preferred sequence of moves, but open guard as in open to wherever this guard takes me. Open to whatever grips the opponent presents to me. Open to whatever opportunities reveal themselves.
I am a hobbyist. I have competed a bit. I have had mixed success in competition. I’ve ramped up and built a whole “custom jiu jitsu season” by optimizing my availability relative to the regional tournament calendar. But at heart I am a hobbyist.
Being honest about being a hobbyist is empowering.
I don’t need to stay abreast of the current tournament meta. I don’t need a razor-sharp A game and multiple options to get back to my A game from any other place that a roll might take me. I don’t need to abuse my training partners in pursuit of my own personal goals.
Because I am a hobbyist I can afford to keep my guard open.
I watched part of the interview with Jozef Chen on LIMI and I loved what his coach had to say about Jozef’s preparation, how he had to stop playing whatever game his opponent chose. I learned this lesson at white belt level competition. I imagine Jozef did too, but frankly when you’re as good as him, you can afford to play whatever game 99% of people want to play and still be okay. But the the top level of competition is about beating those 1%.
That’s not what being a hobbyist is about. Being a hobbyist is about seeing what happens when you go anywhere, seeing what you can learn from any roll. Sadly, too many hobbyists try to adopt a professional mindset without having the lifestyle structure to support it. It gets in the way of their love of the game. It also gets in the way of their skill development. I’ve even seen it drive people to quit (though I’ve also seen a handful of those folks come back after a while. Jiu jitsu is a hell of a drug).
Don’t misunderstand, I still constrain my training.
In fact, I am a massive advocate of limiting what moves I allow myself so that i can get sufficient exposure to one area of the game and develop repeatable skill. But this is in no way contradictory to being open minded. In fact, it facilitates it.
If I say, you can only play guard for a month and you can only perform submissions from guard (or leg attacks that weren’t entered from the top), AND you make the point of exploring all the possible ways this can be done, you’ll be amazed at the variety of submissions you’ll discover. I could further constrain you and say only upper body submissions, but I’m a big fan of the dynamism of switching back and forth between the two in order to catch your opponent in transition.
If you’re a hobbyist, be wary of the competition culture, it will impede your development.
Actually, my game grew in leaps and bounds in white and blue due to my aggressive competition schedule. Each competition showed me where my game needed work. The weight of the rigor of developing and perfecting an A game made me razor sharp on a few key skills. I highly recommend competing.
But if you’re a hobbyist, the continuous prepping for competition will not serve you indefinitely. I imagine the amount of mileage you can get depends on your skill level, the skill level of your coaches/training partners, and most importantly your personality. You’ll ignore whole areas of the game in order to focus on your A game and on tournament tactics. You’ll transform the evening activity that was supposed to relieve stress, get you in shape, teach you some self defense, and introduce you to some cool people into a demon that consumes your attention and haunts your dreams. You’ll stop having fun.
People learn best when they’re having fun.
I’m coming to realize that I’m the weird guy at my gym. I don’t know how many different ways I’ve been told that my jiu jitsu is weird. I occasionally find it offensive because I think some people say it as a covert insult, and others say it as a covert way to say that they’re mad that I’m better than them. But regardless of what others think about it, if my jiu jitsu is weird, its because I enjoy exploring. An open ended game is fun. Discovering things for myself is rewarding. I prefer to be given rough instructions and the freedom to explore the techniques, then return to the coach and seek their help in refining what I’ve discovered or layering on more of their specific knowledge.
So if you’re a hobbyist, like me, take this as your sign to start acting like one. Open up your game. Keep the competition mindset in its proper place and only take it out for discrete amounts of time. Make your jiu jitsu fun.
Make your jiu jitsu fun again.
Good Hunting,
Charles