Ever rolled with someone who was so good… That it seemed as if they could read your mind? Like, no matter what you did, it was almost as if they knew what you wanted to do way before you did?
No, you’re not imagining things. These people can really see the future. Jocko Willink explained why that’s the case in an interview for the Black Belt Mag:
I have explained to people that when you are good at Jiu-Jitsu, you can see the future because you know what that person is going to do.
When you are rolling with somebody who’s great, someone who is world class — this happens to me with Dean Lister — I’ll make a move and he will be there waiting for me to make my move. I know what he is going to do, so I try to fake that move and do another move, and he is right there waiting for that, too.
He shares the story of rolling with Rickson Gracie to illustrate this point of “seeing into the future”:
I always have fun when I try to explain what it was like rolling with Rickson Gracie. I always tell people: “Let me get in your guard. Now don’t do anything.” When they don’t do anything and I push their legs open and mount them… That is what it was like for me training with Rickson Gracie.
It was almost as if I wasn’t resisting. Whenever I put up resistance, he wasn’t there, and when I wasn’t resisting, he was there.A lot of times, that is what it feels like when you are training with someone who is at a super-high level. The Rickson Gracies, Marcelo Garcias and Dean Listers of the world can see the future. They know what you are going to do.
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