How to be creative AND effective with your martial art!

Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu can be a nice workout AND a mentally taxing science. At NJ United MMA, you will have a solid support-network of brothers and sisters in arms to help you through the grind!

This morning, I watched this rather interesting video from Youtube celebrity Chewjitsu. In recent history, he’s become something of a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu counselor and e-therapist. He’s definitely good at what he does, and I think that’s partially because he answers questions while at the same time pointing his listeners in the direction of more important questions that should be asked. For example, the in-video title of the vid above is “How do I become creative in BJJ?”, but the actual title of the video is “BJJ Techniques Spread Like a Disease.” His overall point is that in a BJJ academy setting, you’ll learn more moves the more brains you pick. But as you try these moves and have success with them, your opponents (who will be doing the same thing as you) will adapt defenses to negate them – much like an immune system counterattacking a virus. And then you’ll have to counter-adapt and modify your moves to overcome your opponent’s adapting! This can get pretty involved, to say the least. So it’s important to recognize the only context in which the process can occur is in a strong, technically sound martial arts academy with good teachers.

Training with qualified, black belt technicians is definitely a step up from backyard wrestling and sparring!

I wrestled when I was around 8 years old, but my interest in martial arts really took off when I was in college. My friends and I would hold wrestling matches in the dorms, and it was actually a pretty effective way for techniques to spread like diseases. However, there was no organizing system in these crazy sparring matches that had no time limits, that were completely unregulated,  and that frankly injured us all too often (rocket scientists that we were, we actually wrestled on carpet, so we got carpet-burn pretty regularly). So within a short time, all of us knew a lot of techniques. But since we weren’t an academy or dojo of any sort, there was no vetting-process that could help our techniques adapt, grow, and become flexible and practical. Additionally, some of the techniques we shared were plausible yet “The sort of thing that only works when your partner wants it to”!

It’s been said that knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit, but wisdom is knowing to not put tomatoes in fruit salad. During my humble beginnings as a grappler in the college dorms, my friends and I had a LOT of knowledge about fruit, but our “fruit salad” – our system of practical self-defense – was riddled with tomatoes. I use this analogy because, for beginners, I think it’s more pleasant-sounding than the disease analogy! Really though, you can use whatever analogy best helps you see that a workable, realistic BJJ game is not only about knowing a bunch of stuff. It’s about developing smart relationships with experienced teachers who can fact-check your plethora of moves, correct their errors, put them to the test, and refine them further over time. This is not the type of wisdom you’ll get by doing what I did in college dorms, or in the e-dorms of Youtube University. You’ll only get it through consistent, smart training with quality instructors. That’s why I tend to refer to my home ground of NJ United MMA as an academy – not a gym or a club!

JJ Mike

Come train at NJ United Mixed Martial Arts and take advantage of our 7-day free trial offer! Whether you’re an aspiring competitor or casual student, you will benefit from training in our friendly, professional, and ego-free environment. Call us at 973-638-1570 to schedule your first class, and visit us on the web at http://www.njunitedmma.com/ for more info.