If there is one thing that I have learned in my Jiu-Jitsu Journey, is that in BJJ there is no right or wrong. Many times we hear people saying – “Don’t do this, its wrong”. The truth is that there is no right or wrong, if the position is working well for that person, this is what matters. Each person is their own. The mat is where the person shows their uniqueness. Finding their own style, game and techniques is an important part of what makes BJJ about the individual. To be at their best each person most find what works for themselves.
I remember when I started playing half-guard ( Check Out: 5 Things To Avoid In The Half-Guard ) , everyone used to say that was wrong to give the under-hook to the guy on top, but for me this “wrong” strategy was working really well. If I got smashed and my strategy would not be working. I believed if I stayed on the path I would get better. I learned to know everything about my game. What was wrong for my game. What worked best for my game. BJJ is all about getting better and adapting the positions to your game.
I believe that the most important part is to understand everything that can happen in the situation that you are playing ( Check Out: How To Improve Your BJJ Faster ), once you know all the options that your opponent can try, your job becomes much easier. It is better to know everything that is connected to one or two positions that you do the most then to know a couple things about hundreds of techniques.
BJJ is an individual sport, we should always try to learn all types of techniques, but at some point we have to start playing them and adapt them to our body types, to our styles. A good example of this, would be one friend of mine from my hometown. We all learn since the beginning that when we are in the bottom mount, we should never stretch our arms, we should keep ourselves closed and work the right techniques (bridge or elbow escape) to get out from there. This friend of mine, he is very flexible, he is the type of guy that you can get him in the armbar and he will get out without too much effort. When he is on bottom in the mount for example, he gives the person on top the armbar, just because he knows what is going to happen, and trusts more on his armbar escape than on his mount escape, so how can we say that this is wrong? For him, only for him, that works, so it is right for him, perhaps not for me and not for you, but for him yes, it is right.
My goal here is to try to make you understand that you should always keep your creativity, because in BJJ you can always create techniques for you. BJJ is ever evolving and growing. Most of the best BJJ Fighters I know, they have their own style. They learned BJJ from somebody, they picked the techniques they thought that would match with their styles, and worked thousand of hours on that technique. If you only copy other peoples style and game. It will never become your own. You will never be as good as you could be or understand BJJ the way you could if you put in the effort to make your own BJJ style.
Don’t let people tell you that this or that is wrong, if its working for you keep going, ignore everyone and trust in yourself. Use your coaches, training partners, competition experience, seminars and DVD sources as a way to supplement your style not to find your style. At the same time be smart to measure if this is really working or not. If it is not working, try to understand why and make the right adjustments. Analyze your game, study it, become a BJJ nerd. And don’t forget to enjoy the journey.
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On my “5 Minutes BJJ Talk Episode 2” I talked about it, check out:
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