As I was coming up the ranks, one of my biggest influences in the academy was a guy named Tyler Malys.
He was a blue belt when I first started, and we used to often get partnered up because he was also a big guy. But he wasn’t just as big as me. He was also more technical and strong as an ox. I got smashed on such a regular basis that it was straight up ridiculous.
I consider that reality to be one of the reasons that I gravitated to playing guard early. When we rolled, I was the small guy.
At a certain point though, he switched his focus to wrestling. In fact, he spent many years training with the wrestling team at Penn State, and his technical prowess just exploded exponentially. In addition to that too, he also spent almost year in Vegas training as one of Roy Nelson’s frequent sparring partners.
Overall, he’s just a straight beast.
And even now, rolling with him brings unique challenges.
But about a year ago, I spent several hours (over a few weeks) working with him on my wrestling, and we also spent some time discussing what a wrestling focused submission grappling program would look like.
In fact, he sent me a general outline for how he would like to structure the curriculum.
It breaks down the micro positions that happen on the feet with specific possible attacks for each. So there were attacks listed for the double overs, double unders, over under, collar tie, arm drag, russian and so on.
What was interesting to me then (and still is) was how many micro battles existed on the feet.
No joke.
The document is two pages long. And there are no explanations on it at all. It’s just a list of different technique options, organized by micro positions.
In hindsight, those discussions and that document are what made me start thinking about the micro battles in BJJ. It was also about that time that started becoming disillusioned with technique.
I realized that it doesn’t matter how secksy a technique is.
All that matters is how good you are at creating the conditions necessary for that technique to work.
And if you don’t understand what those conditions are and can’t create them consistently, you won’t have success at the highest level.
It’s that simple.
That’s why I’ve decided to delve even deeper into the conditions for each technique as a part of each new lesson in the micro adjustments course. The latest addition is an example.
I broke down the specific conditions required for the 50/50 ankle leg to work before showing a slight adjustment that makes the attack even more powerful.
That will be the flow.
And if that kind of teaching appeals to you, start learning my sneaky ways now. Each week, a new lesson will be added, but also an old lesson will be retired.
Here’s the link:
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