BJJ EscapesI think there are two main keys to talk about when it comes to BJJ escapes, and how it plays in your overall game. Really understanding escapes, and understanding defense. Defense from bad positions makes your offense better. Because, when you understand how to defend the right way, you have a better understanding of what your opponent's going to do when you're in the better position. So you expect what he may do. And you also know when they're not defending, which is even better. So you want to, not only know when they are defending, so you can find ways to break it down, but knowing that if they're not defending, knowing that "Hey, there's your opening right there." You have to know when to take advantage, and not everybody knows this. Some people just get a good position, and later on someone's like "Man, you had an armbar." "Oh, I didn't see that." Work your defense a lot and you'll see when people are defending right, and you'll see when they're defending wrong or not at all. So that's important. Some people don't have to use their defense very much because they rarely get put in bad positions. They are just good at winning and being in the dominant position. Some of them are really at a loss. It really surprises them when someone catches them; takes their back, passes their guard. A lot of times by then their like, "Holy crap. What happened?" It's a shock. They're use to flipping everybody, they're use to no one passing they're guard, they're use to no one being able to defend or flip them. And then when it happens, especially if it happens in a tournament, it's kind of shocking. And it's easy to panic and throw your arms up and just try to push the person off and leave something open. Then you get tapped. But it's not that they don't know how to defend, it's that they spend such little time on in that they're not able to. They don't react the right way. They're just not good at defending because their offense is so good. It can be a surprise to them. If you ask them "Hey, what's a BJJ escape from the back mount", a lot of them can tell you. But somebody takes your back, and it's just like "Oh my god, what happened?" And a lot of times you'll see guys in tournaments, that are very good, get put into bad positions and they don't react properly. Now take Roger Gracie. His defense is like, perfect. But his offense is really really good too. He spends most of his time smashing people. When he's competing he is passing the guard, mounting, and choking people out. But, he'll make mistakes sometimes. I've never really seen him make mistakes to where he's about to get tapped. He may make mistakes on a movement; someone will take his back. Like, Jacare took his back, bad. And Marcelo almost took his back. And you see guys trying to attack him. I really agree with his philosophy in this. His first thought in any bad position is to not get tapped. You can't have an attitude like "It's not that big of a deal. This guy's not good enough to tap me." That's a bad attitude. That's a risky attitude, to just think that you're immortal in the bad positions. "I'm so much better than this guy. Yeah, he got lucky. He passed my guard. He got lucky, but there's no way he can tap me." You may focus on the escape first, but that's not the right order. The order is "I can't get tapped. Ok, I took care of business there. I'm not getting tapped. Now I can start moving toward the escape." That doesn't mean that you have to completely freeze, not get tapped and then move on. That's not how Jiu Jitsu is. Brazilian Jiu Jitsu is constantly moving and constantly flowing. But it's got to be there. You have to have the defense in mind. Even if it goes right into your next move, which is the escape. And then after that, once you start to escape, then you get back into a neutral or offensive mindset. Defense is more important than a lot of things. You don't win by defense, but it keeps you from losing. You have to have a lot of defense. And, I think it goes back to the original purpose of martial arts and Jiu Jitsu, which is self defense. The original purpose of martial arts was to learn how to defend yourself. If you don't know how to defend yourself it, doesn't matter that you can beat a lot of people. If you come across that person that matches you offensively, but then beats you defensively, they've won. They are more complete. Defense is just as important as any other part of the game, and more important than most of it. BJJ Escapes (con't)
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