Nice Train Lab presents
Fake Jiu Jitsu 2
Quick-Start Guide
Why Fake Jiu Jitsu?
- Learning real brazilian jiu-jitsu is hard
- many positions to learn
- many attacks and counters
- BJJ "Fundamentals" do little for white belts
- Drill scissor sweep, still get crushed
- Fake Fundamentals Immediately help white belts
- turtle trenches increase play time
- Fake is easier to remember
- defense and offense played in all positions
- no techniques
- all jiu jitsu built from 7 things
- Proven at the lowest level
- Encourages flat social hierarchy
- Consistent with Ecological Dynamics
- Correctly predicts skill development events
- More fun than real BJJ
Why NOT Fake Jiu Jitsu?
- Invented by a fake blue belt
- Involves 1+ years of turtle work
- All "submissions" considered advanced
- Must regularly "lose" training rolls
- Encourages flat social hierarchy
- Lack of techniques or positions can be disorienting
- Huge body of success from real BJJ
- Works at the highest level
- Taught by subject-matter experts
Instead of drilling positions or techniques, drill these:
FJJ2 Fundamentals
Origin Point
- Defensive structures stolen from Priit Mihkelson
Bridge and Shrimp
- These are the two primary movements in FJJ2, stolen from Wim Deputter
Shotput
- This is the main method of power generation in FJJ2, derived by mining shotput and discus for movement patterns
Connection
- This is the ability to position your body as a strong connector between the ground and your opponent (see Antaeus, patron saint of Connection)
Pattern
- Be able to create and read repeatable reactions in your opponent
Timing
- Be able to break the established patterns in ways that destabilize your opponent
Put together, FJJ2 is
Using Turtle Space Control to maintain your ability to apply alternating Shotput-powered Bridge and Shrimp movements onto an opponent you are Connected to, Timed contrary to an established Pattern.
That's it. FJJ2 asserts that if you get really good at only that, your performance on the mat will be indistinguishable from real BJJ.
But how do you get good at it?
How to Train FJJ2
- Admit you have a problem
- You love techniques, they give you something outside of yourself to focus on and learn. Let this go, be open to the possibility that the jiu jitsu was inside you all along, and the only thing to learn is how to pay careful attention
- Learn to do nothing
- Constantly moving and framing and fighting creates a bunch of noise and makes it hard to feel what is going on. Learn to comfortably stop moving, so you can stop freaking out and hear the jiu jitsu. The Cosmic Grappling Background Radiation is out there, dense with jiu-jitsu information.
- Learn to Turtle
- Once you can do nothing, you can start to do a little
- Practice rotating through turtle postures until training partners feel that attacking your front is as good a plan as attacking your back
- an important component of turtle is the ability to use movement to maintain posture under load
- Learn to Stand Up
- The ability to go from laying down to standing requires
- learning to reach safely
- learning to build weight-bearing structures
- Estonian Get-Ups are my preferred drill for this
- Be a Good Uke
- prerequisite: Learn to do Nothing
- Feel out how to push or pull just enough to make your partner respond
- DON'T BE TEMPTED TO FINISH TECHNIQUES
- (but if it happens, its ok)
- These are mostly-cooperative activities to learn how to feel weight shifts
- learn to push to get pushed
- learn to push and be pushed in various configurations
- explore good and bad ways to give weight, so you know what they both feel like
- try to create repeatable patterns of pushes and pulls
- if you can create repeated patterns, you are paying attention
- Be a Bad Uke
- prerequisite: Be a Good Uke
- this is the essence of jiu jitsu
- once you can be a good partner and create patterns, practice being a bad partner and breaking the patterns
- get syncopated on your partner