John Danaher recently shared an analogy that reframes how you should think about movement, control, and risk on the mat.
Rather than focusing only on techniques, the New Wave coach emphasized how mindset must change depending on whether you’re winning or losing positional battles:
As a general rule, the less connection you have with an opponent and further and faster you’ll have to move to gain advantage.
The more advantageous connection you have to an opponent, the less movement you’ll want.Just as a poor man’s main financial concern is to gain money, while a richer man’s main concern is to keep the money he already has, so too with position in Jiu Jitsu.
Danaher’s point is simple:
When you have nothing, you want to gain as much as possible, but when you already have it, your major concern is keeping what you’ve already gained.
Our attitude towards position and connection then, tends to shift with our current circumstances.
The danger, he warns, is letting that shift distort your strategy:
Just be sure that the changes in your mindset don’t make you excessively reckless when you have little, nor overly cautious when you have much.
Your goal should always be to submit your opponent, which requires you to take additional risk over position and connection.
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