In bjj there are several typical movements that are being taught to all the beginners on the very first class. These movements are the foundation of bjj. But even so many practitioners frequently make some essential mistake rendering their moves less useful.
Additionally there are some New School vs Old School debates going on. But first things first. What are the most common shrimping mistakes for newbies?
Here’s how Rickson Gracie black belt Henry Akins explains the mechanics:
Of course when we understand the traditional mechanics that’s where new school vs old school comes into play. Here’s what Ryan Hall had to say on the topic (source: lockflow.com):
“The reason I don’t shrimp is not that it’s garbage or that it doesn’t work, but there are problems with the way it’s taught,” Hall said. “Say for instance you have side control, and I manage to get an underhook, and I start shrimping away from you. When I’m initially in side control, I’m kind of glued to you and as a result, I’m relatively stable. My feet are wide. My hips are back. When I shrimp, I put my feet together and I scoot and my profile goes from this to this, for a moment, and then I reset.”
Hall held his hand out with his fingers spread into a square and brought them together into a single cluster to demonstrate what happens when you shrimp.
Hall continued, “And then I go again. I’m pushing you away. Reset. Pushing away, scooting away, reset. The serious problem with the bottom is that you’re not only pinned in place by the person’s weight, but you’re also controlled because the person on top has the ability to move very quickly. You should probably act accordingly.”
Hall has reportedly substituted the shrimp with what he calls a trade secret – a result of his thorough analysis. This is what he believes gives the edge to Roger Gracie for instance:
“The whole key is saying, ‘Look. I don’t want to beat regular people. I don’t want to beat guys that are kind of good. I don’t want to beat hobbyists. I don’t want to pull out a sweet highlight reel full of backflips and wacky nonsense.’ You know who has a sweet highlight reel? Roger Gracie. If something doesn’t work against the top 1% of competitors, I don’t want to do it. If you fight for a living and you have a lower standard than that, you have to be out of your mind.”
One proposed answer to this dilemma is the Jason Scully proposed way of shrimping – the so called new school:
New type of shrimp can provide ample space for a submission setup, for instance triangle chokes. This is why he equalizes the new way of shrimping with an offensive shrimp.
Top leg pushes, hips are on the side, hands are used as a framing device and a knee comes in close to the body.
Another detail Scully believes in is not pushing with both feet because that can be instrumental in creating a bad habit of leaving the leg uncleared.
Shrimping is also often misconstrued as a guard retention movement as opposed to an escape movement which Scully considers it 90% of the time.
He also advocates for shrimping forward like this:
Why? Because that movement with the arms over your head mimics that you should be throwing the opponent over you.
How do you shrimp? Do you believe that these changes would help you practically?
