Ask a Black Belt - Jiu Jitsu Podcast
Ask a Black Belt - Jiu Jitsu Podcast
131. Jiu-Jitsu's Dance: Dominance vs. Friendliness
Ever found yourself wrestling with the Jiu-jitsu conundrum – to be a nice guy or to go full throttle on your training partner? As a seasoned practitioner myself, I've seen that delicate balance teeter many times. In our enlightening chat, we explore the highs and lows of this intricate dance, where the push to dominate often rumbles with our inherent desire to be friendly.
Join us as we journey through my early Jiu Jitsu days when, admittedly, I was more of a bully than a partner. Fast-forward to now, and you'll discover a transformed individual who understands the importance of a mutual learning environment. We also have our guest, Deco, enlighten us about the dangers of being a "dead fish", and why it's crucial to challenge our partners mentally and physically. Remember, while it's all about pushing limits, safety and respect for your training partners should never be compromised. So, let's hit the mats, learn, enjoy, and keep the peace.
Ask me questions on IG @rozdzynskibjj, I will personally respond to you and record the episode with an official answer.
Links you need to check out:
www.rolacademy.tv
www.therolradio.com
Should I be a nice guy? Pedro is asking. I recently had a conversation with one of my students and Pedro was asking me. Shout out to Pedro, by the way. He was asking me how can we manage the balance of being a good training partner at the same time apply pressures and apply control points to manipulate the situation to our advantage? And I'll tell you, this is the hard part, because our head, by nature, is we want to be friendly, we don't want to smash our partners, but at the same time, we do want to smash our partners, we do want to control them, we do want to put points of pressure, we do want to submit them, and I always think about this in a sense of well, if we are not selfish about this, then our progression will be much slower. However, if we smash our partners all the time, then we are not going to have training partners. So it is a very smooth and fine balance here between those two how to be a good training partner and how to apply pressures and achieve goals that you personally establish for yourself.
Speaker 1:I'll tell you this when I was in my earlier days white and blue belt I was not a good training partner. You can ask any of the guys who still train who are blackboats by now who train with me. I was a jerk. I trained hard, I trained all the time and I trained truly to submit to finish, and I was not the most gentle guy in the academy. And unfortunately, or maybe profanately, there has developed some habits which made me more aware how to be a good training partner, and today I really embrace the fact of taking care of your training partners, taking care of your peers and being really phenomenal support for them, because they need to learn. If they learn, you are learning as well.
Speaker 1:So how do we do this? And number one point of acknowledgement is a simple fact that we're here to learn. We are here to learn Jiu Jitsu, and Jiu Jitsu is a physical context sport. The objective of the time is to escape and then control and then attack, and no matter how we slice this, there is a point of friction that will take place, where we are applying our own will, our own weight, our own points of control against the training partners And, to be quite honest, they will do exactly the same thing to us. So manipulating and going through these motions is extremely important, is extremely important.
Speaker 1:So how do we get ourselves in a mental state where we can achieve our goals and yet not to be jerks. Well, one clear communication with our partners. Listen, you are my academy. I embrace this all the time. I continue talking to my students constantly Your partner is the most important part of your training. If you have no partners, you can train and then life sucks.
Speaker 1:So let's embrace this. Let's get good with our training partners, let's get friendly and really take care of them. At the same time, we shouldn't give them them easy roles. We shouldn't give them easy training, because ultimately, they are learning too And we are that fish. The DECO told me this just a few years ago I'm sorry, a few months ago when we had them on our podcast, the Royal Radio, and he said listen, you don't want to be a dead fish. A dead fish is somebody who's just there and they are not applying any resistance whatsoever. They just let you do whatever you want. That's not good at all, something that's even worse than being the jerk, simply because it's completely unrealistic situation.
Speaker 1:So how do we maneuver through this One? we need to give our partners resistance, we need to challenge them from mental perspective and physical perspective, but there is a big difference between being a jerk and being a tough training partner. Be tough training partner. Put obstacles in front of your partner. Put challenges, challenges of physically and mentally. At the same time, communicate. You know when you got it, you know they know when you got it. When the submission is in play, there's no need to crank it. There's no need to be a jerk. There's no need to smash past the point of discomfort. There is no reason to hurt your partner. Think about it always this way If your partner is unable to have a next role because the way how you rolled right now, you messed up. One goal here is to challenge our partners, push them to the limit, but never push them to the point when they are unable to return. Take care of your partners, take care of yourself and continue learning together. See you on the map, peace.