Guest post by James Duscio, a BJJ black belt under Walter cascao vital and runs cascao bjj hard knocks out of Las Vegas nv.
In the past warriors, soldiers and martial artists had an advantage, and that was that nobody really knew their fighting style and tactics, and they liked it that way. In the Art of War, one of the key principals to victory is knowing both yourself and your opponent to ensure victory. If you do not know your opponents fighting style, habits, patterns and tactics, you cap your chance of victory at 50%. That is why professional fighters spend months watching tape on their opponents and special forces spend weeks or months getting intel on their target before mission execution. Even football teams study hours on hours of their opponents plays and tactics before they meet on the field. And by not exposing your game to others you limit their chances of victory over you. But there is a downside to this level of secrecy, and it is a lack of growth.
First of all, the art of combat and our art of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu has been evolving at a very fast pace. Historically combat has always had a very slow process of evolution and advancement, whether it is in the military realm or the martial arts realm. Now don’t get me wrong, there have been massive changes and sometimes those occurred in a very short time frame, but compared to today, it was like a crockpot back then. The biggest factor with today’s speed up, is the ability to get shared knowledge. It comes from books, YouTube video’s, short clips on social media, online learning, televised fights, black belt seminars and having multiple martial arts schools in every town. Everybody has access to more techniques and strategies then they could possible retain and it is a good thing, but there is one source that is often overlooked, and that is your training partners.
25% of my game has come from my training partners. They are a priceless asset that is far to often over looked. The reason? EGO!!! Why show an opponent on the mat your tricks that stop him from beating you? Why admit to him that he knows something you don’t by asking him a question on his game? EGO! Personal ego is a natural habit of the mind, but it must be overcome for progress to happen. You cannot see your training partner as an opponent. He is not your next tournament enemy, he is not the street thug looking to assault you, he is a part of your team and an asset to your personal growth in the art.
The amount of knowledge out there is far greater then any one person can obtain let alone master. Navy Seals work in teams with each one having a specialty and a back up specialty. No one person can master every job on the team. They each obtain a high base level and then specialize. The same should be translated to BJJ. Learn your foundation, pick your specialties and accept that others have knowledge and expericance that you don’t.
By sharing your knowledge and teaching your game to your training partners, you allow them to challenge your game better and deeper. That might frustrate you at first but long term it will elevate your level . Also it has been proven time and time again that when you teach somebody something, your understanding of that subject is also elevated. So it’s a win – win.
On the flip side of knowledge exchanging, you might have a real weakness going against knee bar submissions, but your training partner has made it his bread and butter. By asking for his help you will save yourself a lot of failure time and capture a large chunk of his trail and error results just by working with him a handful of times specifically on that area. Then your more prepared going against anybody’s knee bar attacks.
Drop the ego, stop hiding your game secrets to your training partners, stop looking at the belt color before you ask a question and start exchanging knowledge openly and freely. It will help your game, your partners game and the team. Training partners are our greatest tool for progress, they are not our opponent. When we say train with no ego, this is a perfect example.
