What a pleasure it was to join Team Canada this weekend as assistant coach while they competed in the JJIF world championships in Malmo, Sweden. Two of my students earned their spot on the team, including some of the best competitive Jiu-Jitsu athletes in Canada: Estefan Joseph of Lin Martial Arts in Markham Alison Tremblay and [...]
Renown psychologist Carol Dweck’s book Mindset: The New Psychology of Success describes a way of thinking observed to be a hidden factor in success and happiness: the growth mindset. “Individuals may not necessarily be aware of their own mindset, but . . . it is especially evident in their reaction to failure. Fixed-mindset individuals dread failure because it is a [...]
Jiu-jitsu is unimaginably empowering. You learn techniques that allow you to completely dominate a larger person or easily escape what looks like a desperate position. As you gain confidence in a technique you may be tempted to “insist.” Go to use it, it doesn’t work, you try to force it. This is a waste of energy. [...]
Typically, we are taught that there are two responses to conflict: fight or flight. The Art of War teaches us that there is a third option: planning ahead. For defending oneself, training jiu-jitsu is that third option. Finding oneself in a physical confrontation would surely trigger a panic response in most people, causing them to either freeze or run [...]
Secrets are powerful, but how do you know they are real? You cannot take it for granted; you must test it yourself. Many grappling arts contain the same techniques as BJJ. Japanese jiu-jitsu, for example, may contain many of the same techniques but trains them very differently. As with so many traditional martial arts, Japanese jiu-jitsu [...]
You can have unity and still not know what to do. What makes jiu-jitsu so empowering is that is shows you techniques and strategies for making the impossible easy. What’s most scary for the untrained person when facing a bigger, faster, stronger opponent is not knowing what to do. All of jiu-jitsu is based on one [...]
It usually takes time for beginners to learn to use their body as a single unit. If, for example, someone is on top of you and you want to unseat them, you’ll often try to push with one arm, then the other, then maybe both. Then, perhaps you’ll bridge, before going back to using your arms. As you [...]
#3 Incremental Positioning: Baby Steps Once you have ensured you can survive in a bad spot, how do you get to a good spot? It would be nice if we could go from a terrible position to a good position with one crafty move, however life seldom works like that. On the mats we learn instead [...]
Checkmate in jiu-jitsu is called a submission — you force your opponent to give up, which they signal by tapping you or the ground. A submission happens because you are either causing one of your opponent’s limbs to go beyond its natural range of motion or choking them unconscious. Your first job in jiu-jitsu is to [...]
Jiu-jitsu is known for enabling the smaller person to overcome the bigger person. How? What’s the secret? Positioning. From a good position, things are easy, from a bad one they are difficult. A big person you stand in front of is far more dangerous than one you stand behind. The classic example from [...]
