In Brazilian Jiu Jitsu one of the negative connotations that can attached to purple belts is that they can occasionally think they already know it all. I’ve only done a few pieces where I have injected my own views on grappling and I always try to use materials from other, more knowledgeable grapplers in my pieces. But I’d like to try out doing more reflective, blog-like pieces on training. I’m not an expert. I don’t compete a great deal. I’m just a guy who works full time, writes on the side, and trains grappling 5-6 times a week. But I’ve embraced the stereotype of the know-it-all purple belt for this little blog.
This first post was inspired by a dicussion with Ben Thapa, where we talked about the role of aggression in training, and how we’ve both made efforts to make it a bigger part of our training.
I think everyone remembers starting jiu jitsu and being “a spaz”. You tried your hardest to do… something… anything… while your opponent, adorned with a colored belt, dismantled you while seemingly mostly asleep. Some of the most common words a beginner in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu will hear are “relax”, “breath”, or “slow down”. And this is for good reason: beginners often have their aggression on overdrive in simple activities such as drilling. This overdrive leads to the new grapplers putting themselves in “fight mode”, which makes real, constructive learning almost impossible. A key step in the BJJ journey is learning to relax, to think, and execute moves rather than just grabbing whatever is in front of you as hard as you can.
But at some point the student needs to bring that aggression back into their grappling. There is a tendency in some jiu jitsu students to develop very passive games, spending a great deal of time conserving energy, grappling defensively and hoping an opponent makes a mistake or leaves an opening. This is not a bad strategy at all; in fact when rolling with new students who tend to be over-aggressive and unschooled, this tends to the best way to deal with them and many experienced grapplers do this while lowering the risk of an accidental injury for themselves and their partners.
Learning to “flow” and “roll light” are important training tools, but it can lead to becoming too accepting of an opponent’s actions. Sometimes it is allowing grips, or not aggressively pursuing your own grips, and assuming an opponent will simply allow you to take them. It can be found in allowing an opponent to close their guard without a fight, rolling over meekly when hit with a sweep, or giving up on a guard retention battle before it is truly lost. While acceptable things to do in a flow or light roll, these are not something one should be doing in an intensive roll.
This was something I struggled a bit with when I was coming up. I had been a college athlete before getting into jiu jitsu, so I like rolling with a competitive edge to it. Part way through my jiu jitsu career, I switched schools due to a move from work. I went from a large school with many higher belts to a small school where I suddenly became one of the more senior students working with more beginners than veteran grapplers. The way that I rolled changed quite a bit. I added a great deal of flow to my game that to this day still benefits me, but for a time I lost a good deal of aggression in my game.
But our school grew and now almost five years later, many of those beginners are now blue and purple belts. As they progressed and we gained other high belt students, I started to notice that while I could still engage in high paced, aggressive rolls, it had become something I wasn’t totally comfortable with anymore. I would get adrenaline dumps, I would get too excited, and I found myself making dumb mistakes. I had forgotten how to roll with aggression and not just waiting for my opponent to make a mistake.
One of the things that helped this was my gym and training partners. My gym is small, but we have an excellent core of veteran students – some of whom are competitors – and for the last few years, the intensity of rolling my gym has picked up quite a bit. Additionally the last few summers, I have sought to broaden my grappling horizons and have dabbled in Sambo at a local school. At that Sambo school, we would do sparring that almost always started on the feet, and when we hit a takedown, there would be one minute of mat time before we stood back up.
This gave my game a huge shot in the arm because under that rule set I was forced to throw caution to the wind, I was often out-matched on the feet, so any time on the mat was precious and I had to use it as effectively as possible. So whenever I hit the mat, I flipped into what I mentally referred to as “kill mode”. The goal of my matwork stayed the same as when I would roll easy: get to a good position, find a submission. But the urgency is what made the difference; there was no waiting for escape opportunities, no waiting for a perfect grip, and no waiting for the opponent to make a mistake. I had to impose my will, and sometimes take a risk.
“Kill mode” started making appearances in BJJ class and I started getting excellent results with as I became reacquainted with aggression. I really enjoyed the rolls I was having, even when I was getting smashed. Now for the last few years, I’m disappointed when I don’t get to have at least one high paced, aggressive roll when I step onto the mats. There is a downside of rolling with aggression: you will make mistakes and when you do, they will be more costly, but that is an important part of the learning process. Learning to manage yourself at a higher intensity is one of the primary benefits of training martial arts, but you have to get up to high intensity to truly learn that skill.
To me, working aggression back into one’s grappling is a key part of progressing as a jiu jitsu student. Competition is a fantastic way to maintain an aggressive game; anyone who has competed will tell you what a different experience it is to a light gym roll. I stress that those light rolls have a real and valuable training purpose, as they let you add new techniques, play with positions, but having a consistent checking of your game in high stress, high aggression rolls is a must. If you are like me and not much of a competitor, then I recommend expanding your grappling horizons either by traveling to other jiu jitsu schools or trying out a different grappling style. You will see faster improvements and see more examples of good, sharp, aggressive rolling.