Also originally posted on 7/10/06 as “More Rules – Pressure”

More from the Chris Moriarty seminar.  Our conversation really made me reevaluate the way I think about pressure.

I always hear about the need to create pressure from the top.  I work on it every time I roll, trying to feel as heavy as I can to the person on the bottom. 

There’s a technique to this, and it has very little to do with just being heavy. I’m about 240 lbs, and from side control I feel like – about 240 lbs. Klint Radwani from Yamasaki weighs around 175, but when he gets in side control it feels like there’s a tank parked on your chest.  I can’t explain exactly what he’s doing, other than keeping his hips as low to the ground as possible.

In the Chris Moriarty seminar, he mentioned “playing light” from side control.  I thought I must have heard him wrong!  He intentionally plays light?  He briefly explained how this allows him to flow with the person on the bottom, and set up the next move.  Later we discussed this in more detail.

“How do I apply pressure?” is the wrong question to ask.  “Where should I apply pressure?” is a better question, but still off the mark.  The real question is, “Why should I apply pressure?” 

Chris demonstrated this to me from side control. I’m on the bottom, so obviously I want to escape. Chris feels mostly like he’s hovering over me, except his shoulder is in my face and his elbow in my hip.  There is no pressure on my chest or stomach.  I turn in to him a little and shrimp.  Chris is right there on me.  I shrimp more.  We’re moving across the room. Chris is still right on me.  He did apply pressure, of course.  He just didn’t apply pressure everywhere.  His goal isn’t to simply flatten me in to a pancake, it’s to shut down my escape plan.  It’s very effective.

So there’s pressure, and then there’s pressure. Crushing someone’s chest from side control will certainly make them uncomfortable, but understanding the rules of side control allows to apply pressure just where it’s needed.  In this case, I guess the rule is if you can’t move your head, and you can’t move your hip, you can’t move.

This was originally posted as “The Rules” on 7/10/06, although I don’t recall where.  Maybe bjjnews.org (which seems to no longer exist). There’s no big secrets to Jiu Jitsu here, but I was somewhat new to BJJ when I went to this seminar, and it had a big impact on me.

I recently attended a great seminar by Chris Moriarty. The format was a bit different than previous seminars I’ve done. He took more a philosophical approach. The focus was primarily sweeps and maintaining the guard.  He spent a fair amount of time discussing concepts he referred to as “the rules.” The rules are simple ideas that in a given situation will always apply. Chris didn’t focus on attacks or tricks from the guard, instead pointing out that all the tricks in the world are not helpful if you can’t simply hold someone in your guard, or at least quickly recompose it when they attempt to pass.  He showed a variety of creative ways to recompose the guard that I found fun to work.

He also talked at length before, during and after the seminar about what it means to truly understand a move.  I’ll give you an example: In your mind, picture yourself putting someone in a triangle – I’ll wait.
Okay, now what did you just picture? 9/10 of you just got an image of you on your back, opponent kneeling in your guard, one arm in, one arm out, you’re up on your shoulders finishing the triangle.  Right?  You applied your preconceived notions about this move to the image you created.  Why didn’t you imagine doing the triangle from mount? From the back? Flying triangle? Inverted?  Triangles are everywhere, if you learn to see them.  The common element, the thing to remember, is as simple as “One arm in, one arm out.”  Remember that, and find triangles everywhere you look – it’s “the rule” for triangles!

If you can break down every move you do to its most basic elements you can learn to apply them from anywhere.