More study materials

http://scienceofskill.com/jiu-jitsu-statistics-and-how-they-change-the-game/

http://wrestlejitsu.io/2015/04/15/drop-lock-and-pop-it-the-theory-of-leg-lock-positions-and-entries/

BJJ bucket list

Marcelo Garcia

Marcelo Garcia is one of the greatest of all times. He specializes in intuition, movement, and chokes, has an amazing competition record at the highest levels, and is famous for being a small guy who wins open class competitions. One of my all time heroes. Training at his gym in NY is a dream of mine, and I have considered moving there to train under him to get a black belt under him. His first crop of fresh black belts just recently went and swept a high level BJJ competition (I think it was worlds?), all taking double golds if I remember right.

Not surprised, just the legend living up to his name.

John Danaher

John Danaher is a legend within the BJJ community. He dropped out of a Ph.D Philosophy program to focus on BJJ and become a full time Jiu Jitsu monk, essentially. His analytical, cerebral, philosophical approach to BJJ is exactly what I crave, and is how I approach the sport myself.

Unfortunately, he teaches under Renzo Gracie at his gym in NY, and they have some Yelp reviews that make me afraid to ever give a credit card to their processors, much less sign a contract with them.

Further, he has experienced serious hip/knee problems, sadly, which continue to hurt his ability to participate on the mats. Sad day. On the other hand, the less in the body, the more in the mind. I'm sure he'll continue being someone invaluable to study under for many decades.

Dean Lister

Dean Lister is a guy who went unsubbed in competition for 14 years, ever since blue belt. He is known for his amazing leg lock game, but to me, I found myself really impressed and interested in him when I read an interview where the guy really showed that he's a thinking man. He also lets guys crash at his place and train with him, an idea I found really cool. He just seems like another kindred spirit in the sport.

Leandro Lo

Leandro is a living legend in his own right. He has now won worlds in three different ascending weight classes, and he focuses on guard passing, and does it like no other. His game is innovative, aggressive, relentless, and doesn't waste time on being overly focused on guard. That's not to say he's not incredibly competent in guard; he just realizes its place, and puts the guard players in their place. :)

For that, he has my respect, and I'd love to train with him for a season to absorb what I can from him.

Kit Dale
http://www.jiujitsubrotherhood.com/2014/04/why-concepts-are-better-than-techniques-in-bjj/
Kit Dale is someone that most don't take too seriously after a lackluster Metamoris performance and being more well known for his funny youtube videos than anything else. But I have found in his writings someone that thinks about training like I do--focus on concepts, not moves. Focus on principles, not drills.

And he does have a good sense of humor. ;)

I'd love to just develop a friendship with him, seems like a great gym mate/instructor.

Gary Tonon

Gary Tonon has a game that is all the things I aspire to have in mine. He also looks like he just takes it easy, is inventive and surprising and unpredictable. Would love to study with him and soak up his game.

BJJscout

These videos are the mind of an analyst par excellance! Whoever he is, the way he breaks down and thinks about topics has richly illustrated my own thinking on many concepts, and I would love to have someone like this around to analyze my game and tell me how it works better than I myself know!

Unity Gym NY:

These guys are like my spirit gym. Hard rolling, 3 open mats for the public every week, no room for politics. And some of the top names in the world.

https://www.reddit.com/r/bjj/comments/39ahll/inside_unity_jiujitsu_gym_with_the_miyao_brothers/

Do a BJJ Globetrotters camp
Paradise, man. I love the ethos these guys espouse, and these camps look amazing. This is the kind of thing I would fill my days with if I had time to blow. Christian seems like a great guy.

awesome heelhook setup in nogi by keenan cornelius.

DOJO STORM: The BJJ Videogame We've Been Waiting For

When I was a wee lad in 4th grade, I learned that Pokemon was the coolest thing in the world. And so I started saving up to buy the cheapest gameboy out there, and a copy of Pokemon blue. I mowed yards for weeks.

Oh, the memories.

I got lucky, and my mom actually was so proud of me saving up for something for the first time in my life that she graced me with an upgrade--buying the $80 atomic purple (that's clear purple) Gameboy color, instead. Seriously, that moment was like a bonus Christmas.

So, when I found out that not only is a legitimate BJJ game coming out, but that it looks like this...

...I understandably started having nerdstalgia seizures.

It would be easy to imagine something like this just being a novelty thing, but it turns out that, a healthy dose of humor throughout aside, it's a seriously real project. They've been working on it for months, and they have a real indie gaming label collaborating with them to make it.

How do you make a BJJ videogame?

BJJ is weird and complex. It's not like striking/blocking, a fairly simple dynamic. It's a tangle of body positions. I've often wondered how I would make a BJJ game, and it usually comes up as a blank, a collection of half formed ideas, and ends up with me giving up and moving on to less hopeless causes.

This game sidesteps that issue altogether, smartly. You are an aspiring world champion who recruits a team of fellow martial artists, with the ultimate goal of competing at the Polaris Team Invitational.

Apparently drama is added by the outbreak of a "McDojo Virus" you seek to help prevent, to save the culture of jiu jitsu itself! The game appears to be riddled with inside jokes from the BJJ world; martial artists of all types--through the lens of a BJJ worldview--are included, however, and there is a rock/paper/scissors "type" system.

What's cool is that, while there aren't 151 pokemon to catch and collect, there are a range of fighters to recruit (up to 50 are planned), and unlike pokemon, each fighter can develop in many possible directions, depending on how you structure their training. There are hundreds of learnable moves. Finally, there are 'evolutions' that can occur depending on how the fighter's abilities develop! The fighting dynamic looks to be better than one might initially have hoped for of a niche indie game.

In the nature of the handheld game it was inspired by, it is primarily intended for an iOS/Android release, but they intend to port to PC as well if they reach their crowdfunding goal (which it clearly appears they will, being 2/3 of the way there in the first few days).

What's very cool is seeing companies like Scramble and Polaris support this project. There aren't many things that a company could do that would really scream 'interested in the BJJ community, not just making money' to me like supporting a niche project like this, and it really lends it a sense of legitimacy that is just cool. Inverted Gear, my personal favorite gi company, has also purchased a company sponsorship, so we'll likely see something by them in the finished product as well!

Even the music is done by a BJJ purple belt, Mechanical Advantage, keeping the whole thing 'in' the BJJ community.

The planned release date is this October, and it's already in a nearly-finished state, it seems, so these are exciting times indeed!

One of the coolest features, though, is that because this is a crowdfunded game... It's possible to be in the game. While several of the cool perks featured include books within the BJJ genre, two of the highest tier options include $350 to be included as a character in the game, and a $1000 option to make your gym be a sidequest, complete with characters from your gym!

When I read that, I geeked out to an entirely new level. Unfortunately, I'm not a wealthy man, and neither are the owners of either of the gyms I train at. I considered blowing money I didn't have on being a character anyways...

...But then an idea occurred to me. A way to get me and 3 other people as characters in the game, for an investment of only $20 a piece. Interested? Go read and sign up here!

In closing, I just want to say thank you to Aesopian & Marshal of Artechoke Media, the guys at Synersteel Studios, and all the others who made this happen. This kind of stuff really enriches the community, and it's great to get to feel like a kid again.

Lastly, if you're thinking you'd rather just wait to buy it after it comes out, rather than help with crowdfunding, please reconsider! They have multiplayer support as a stretch goal contingent on receiving enough funding, and you know it'd be incredibly badass to be able to settle arguments on /r/bjj or with your gym friends during downtime with a Dojo Storm battle!

Check them out: DOJO STORM!

"Flow"

This inspired me. It's so meditative. I love flowing like this. At our gym, we try to start out with 'flow rolling'. With some people, this clicks better than others. But when I get to go with someone else who also really 'gets' it, it's magic. It looks something like this.

I love watching Barnett do it, though, because he's better than me, and has a different style than I or most BJJ guys do. And watching it, I felt an idea coalesce; BJJ "Kata".

Hear me out. I generally am not a fan of 'kata', which in most martial arts look like solo repeated movements, the same pattern of strikes or kicks done at length; in Judo, it's slightly better, involving two people, and with your opponent sometimes throwing full resistance at you to test your pin, for instance. Still very 'stiff', though, very rigid, formal. It is useful, but somehow... Not inspiring, I guess I might say.

But this... In BJJ, in the beginning, you learn discrete 'moves'. As a result, for a long time, a lot of people are caught up on whatever one move they are trying to execute. They think, 'I want to do this certain move', and then they project that that's clearly what they want to do, and they try and force it, even though it's no longer the optimal time to perform that move. Sometimes, they go one step further, and include a setup as a part of the move. But if it falls apart, some defense is mounted, the move is over, and they have to mentally switch gears, and keep vaguely fighting for position until they find theirself in some place where they can stop and focus on trying to execute a move again.

In quality BJJ, this is not what is happening. Many a westerner is familiar with the term 'no mind', or 'mushin', as something that sounds mystical and perhaps silly. But the idea is well captured by the modern psychological principle of... flow. Yes, that's actually what they call it. The idea is that you are deeply mentally engaged at the subconscious level. You aren't parsing individual thoughts about what is happening, you aren't planning specific moves, or discrete concepts. Everything you know just effortlessly coalesces into what it should be. One movement flows into the next, a failed attempt turns into a transition which turns into another attempt, which he tries to counter with a reversal which you flow with into a counter reversal.... all without thinking or planning, it just happens.

Doing what Josh does in this video, I think, could help facilitate this mentality. Could help people build up their neural knowledge base not in terms of discrete 'moves', but as collections of related positions, transitions, and submissions that are inextricably bound. If one developed a series of these, focused around different submission chains, and had students drill these...

I think one would see incredible progress, not just in positions learned, but in mentality.

What's more, I think this concept could be applied to Judo as well. We typically teach Judo in terms of concrete, specific, discrete 'moves'. Ocassionally we'll also learn one-two combos. But what if, like 'go', we studied entire match sequences? We looked at one-two-three-four-five-ippon combos, and practiced them together? Because in reality, this is how throws happen. It's very hard to hit one move on its own; when someone stumbles to recover from their defense, which compromised their posture, then you can hit your next move. This is what combos are supposed to teach; why not take it to the next level? Not just ko-ouchi -> seoi nage, but ko-ouchi, seoi, o-ouchi, uchi-mata, ko-ouchi. All of them together. Teach the brain about the connecting pieces between the moves, make that as natural as the throws themselves.

BJJ Books

This is from Slideyfoot, and I'm saving it here for my own future reference. Source.


You have a number of options. For a full length biographical type book, there is just a handful: earliest one is The Gracie Way, which I think is now out of print. Interesting book with some beautiful photos, but it does have the drawback of being very biased (understandably, as Peligro is a friend of the family).
If you can read Portuguese, then that opens up a lot more, but I'm assuming like most of us that isn't an option. Although fortunately one of the most significant books, a biography of Carlos Gracie, has now been translated into English. Again it's biased, but not as much as The Gracie Way, and it is willing to be critical of both Helio and Carlos.
That book was also summarised and analysed over at Global Training Report. Not quite a translation, and it means it is being filtered through somebody else's perspective, but still a brilliant contribution to BJJ history available in English.
Much of the previous material on Global Training Report (he has loads of fascinating articles and interviews about his time training in Brazil, Japan etc over the last couple of decades) was taken down by the author, Roberto Pedreira (not sure if that is his real name or a pseudonym). That’s because he has since expanded it into into a BJJ history book, 'Jiu Jitsu in the South Zone: 1997-2008'. He's now better known for his two volume history of BJJ, 'Choque', which a third volume on the way. It's very dry, but lots of interesting stuff in there.
With The Back On The Ground has a far better narrative flow and also covers BJJ history, though it isn't as extensive on notes and references. Certainly more readable, but I like them both (I don't mind something more academic, especially as Choque has been very useful when I'm researching the history articles I write for Jiu Jitsu Style magazine).
Matt Phillips is due to come out with a big book on BJJ’s early history too, which should be cool. That’s still a good few years off, but you can hear him present his argument on a few threads around the internet, especially a huge one on Sherdog talking about Choque.
There is more history and biography in other books, but not full length. E.g., John Danaher has a long historical section in Mastering Jujitsu, updated from an earlier version in BJJ: Theory and Technique. John Will talks at length about the early years of BJJ in his autobiographical 'Rogue Black Belt' trilogy, but those have to be ordered from Australia and unfortunately don't contain much in the way of dates or a bibliography. A fascinating read nonetheless, as Will is a pioneer, having begun his BJJ training in the '80s.
The introductions to various Victory Belt releases (eg., 'X-Guard', 'Guerrilla Jiu Jitsu' etc) have some interesting bit of biography too, although it probably isn't worth buying the books if you are ONLY interested in that. There is a growing genre of BJJ travelogues though, like The Cauliflower Chronicles and BJJ Globetrotter. I prefer the latter as I found the first one a bit immature (especially regarding women), but then the author (who posts on this subreddit) was 20/21 when he wrote it, so that's not too surprising (and he went on to found Artechoke Media, which has produced some excellent stuff, like Aesopian's book on the crucifix). He's also done an updated version with annotations, IIRC, which I haven't read.
I can recommend Mark Johnson’s Jiu Jitsu on the Brain, and he also has a collection of articles he’s called Borrowing the Master’s Bicycle. I'd also suggest taking a look through the archive of Black Belt Magazine, which is online at Google Books: I did a spreadsheet (naturally) of them a while ago - here
Some MMA biographies contain further details, like the biographies ghost written for Big John McCarthy and BJ Penn. There are snippets of BJJ in judo and MMA general history books too, which are worth a look: Clyde Gentry's No Holds Barred, Jonathan Snowden's Total MMA and Mark Law's The Pyjama Game (released as Falling Hard in the US, IIRC).
Or for something a bit different, Gene LeBell's 2004 autobiography The Godfather of Grappling is cool. Grappling rather than BJJ (though BJJ does pop up a few times), but entertaining. It's basically a book length collection of anecdotes, from his judo, pro-wrestling, film, stunt etc careers. He's had an incredible life, and he's still relevant today (popping up in Ronda Rousey's corner, for example, who he has known since she was a baby).
Or something again that's different, Flowing with the Go by Elena Stowell. It's about how training jiu jitsu helped her get through the sudden death of her daughter, so there's a lot of powerful emotional material in there. Lots of discussion of grief, as you would expect given the genesis of the book.
I've got some book reviews which may or may not help, here. I've also attempted to compile some of what I've read about BJJ history, here, though that needs updating.

Study Materials II

Seen on /r/judo

Judo, as defined by Kano, is not the winning of prizes in shiai, or throwing the most in randori. Judo is an ephemeral, abstract ideal that one strives for their entire life. I really like the way my sensei phrases it:

"I do not teach you judo throws. I use throws to teach you judo."