I have had the luxury of experiencing Jiu-Jitsu in a somewhat unique way compared to 99% of the BJJ community. When I started at 20yrs old, I was as I am now, incredibly below average in stature, so I was forced from day one to understand and apply my grappling as efficiently as possible. This is where my point of view in terms of learning, communicating, applying, and teaching grappling became 100% conceptual that you see me use here at LogicBJJOnline.
I was never good enough at any belt rank to just do a technique in training against guys who were 50lbs – 100lbs+ bigger than me while more experienced, I knew that my very first class. I knew the percentage of it happening existed but I was always obsessed with increasing that percentage and playing the options against each other in order to prove which one was actually worth implementing. The problem solving of increasing the percentage starts with “What do I need in order to do that technique?” It doesn’t matter if it is a sweep, pass, submission, retention, take down, etc. They all require having tempo in order to maintain a high percentage of successful applications.
Most people when asked to play guard will see a series of techniques. When training and articulating a response to the question will pretty much just “try” to throw as many techniques at the person on top until something happens. Conceptual foundation practitioners, when training as well as communicating, will have a completely different approach and focus with zero techniques. The difference between the two is that a blue belt conceptual foundation guard player vs a technique brown belt guard player is that the blue belt will get passed and submitted far less than the brown belt, and have more efficiently created opportunities to sweep and submit than the brown belt. The blue belt now can add one or two techniques on top of that foundation and if compared to the brown belt would have a higher percentage of success while probably having a handful of years less of mat time.
Not only have I personally done this with myself from a learning and application standpoint, I have also done it from an instructor perspective at environments like Atos HQ, Drysdale Jiu-Jitsu HQ, and my own academy Logic here in Philadelphia, PA. Although it was/is incredibly easy to do with anyone with zero experience, I have had just as much success structuring it for practitioners who had already created habits that needed change. Kids, adults, male, female, big, small. hobbyist, competitor, zero experience to black belt, the percentage has been undeniable.
Here are 4 videos communicating the “Concepts” of focusing on passing vs grips from the Library and the course “Blue Belt Concepts and Positions” that can be found here.
