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The Architecture of Attack: Endgame First
In the spirit of Barry Johnson’s Polarity Management: there are few problems in life we can solve with absolutes. Most have to be managed. BJJ gives us high-rep exposure to exactly this kind of problem. Every roll asks us to manage the tension between commitment and adaptability — between fully investing in an attack and […]
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Why Grappling Matters
“Self-determination theory holds that human beings need three basic things in order to be content: they need to feel competent at what they do; they need to feel authentic in their lives; and they need to feel connected to others. These values are considered “intrinsic” to human happiness and far outweigh “extrinsic” values such as […]
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Training Your Tolerance: How Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Teaches You to Manage Stress
As a practitioner of the sport for over 26 years and a teacher for almost two decades, I believe that one of the most profound, yet hidden benefits of the art is its ability to train our stress response. We practice work, relationships, sports, instruments — but not the thing that inevitably shows up to […]
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How to become a liberated learner: Desire, data and drive
By Emily Kwok
Sometimes feedback can be a painful thing. As a teacher, I can be disappointed or dismayed by a student’s reaction when I try to offer some helpful advice, but then I am reminded by how I’ve felt when people have tried to help me. When I think about some of my most embarrassing […]
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Jiu Jitsu after 30: How to stay in the game
By Joe Hannan
The body keeps the score. In my case, the score is one torn MCL, one irreparably dislocated floating rib, torn rotator cuffs, several QL strains, four or five corneal abrasions, countless staph infections, and a litany of other damage my brain can’t recall but my ligaments, tendons, muscle, bones, and fascia won’t forget.
The […]
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To Win or Learn? Competing Commitments
By Emily Kwok
All students oscillate between being the hammer and the nail. Idealistically, we aim to be the hammer any time we choose against anyone we choose, but few ever arrive in that place without strain.
When we are the nail, it often feels like we are desperately fighting to survive, which makes it difficult to […]
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Do you need Jiu Jitsu anymore?
The last year and a half has been a slog.
Ask anyone who owns a brick-and-mortar business that depends on patrons to walk through their doors and they’ll tell you it was a year of dragging a dead horse toward a fake horizon. And while dragging a dead horse around for a year, the sun kept […]
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A highly unconventional lesson on closed guard
If I had to sum up the past 12 months in a word, that word would be transition. Neck deep in the uncertainties of the pandemic, we were all stuck in one place wanting to be in another, like beleaguered passengers in some crowded airport terminal. Many BJJ players found themselves in a state of […]
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10 Ways to Accelerate Your BJJ Growth
I can’t think of a more edifying moment in my Jiu Jitsu life than this one. I was talking to Emily on the phone in the aftermath of the Atlanta Open, where, for the first time, I managed to get onto the podium at an IBJJF event. My performance produced some mixed feelings: relief that […]
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6 Ways to Break Out of Your BJJ Slump
It’s a common problem. It emerges as a gray, drab shadow that zaps the joy out of your most delightful hours of the week. Whereas you once couldn’t wait to hit the mats daily — sometimes multiple times — you now drag your feet heading into class.
At my worst, I even shed some tears of […]
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