There are many myths surrounding martial arts, and Brazilian jiu-jitsu is no exception. People hear misinformation all of the time coming from people who know little to nothing about the art, and the speed and wide range of the Internet has only facilitated the spread of these myths.
In this video, Coach Tom from The Grappling Academy goes over two lies about BJJ that he wish he had known when he started.
Here they are.
Size And Strength Don’t Matter
Yes. Yes they do. While there is little doubt that an extremely talented 100-pound black belt could destroy a 200-pound white belt or mediocre black belt, if that same 100-pound black belt were to face an equally talented 200-pound black belt, she would get squashed.
As Coach Tom says, “Newtonian physics is Newtonian physics.” More mass will be able to create more momentum and more power.
To add to what Tom says, think about it like this: if strength didn’t matter in BJJ, why would competitions have weight classes?
They wouldn’t. You’d see Mackenzie Dern fighting Marcus Almeida “Buchecha” and it would be a fair fight.
Just Relax
This one is closely related to the first. While you shouldn’t use strength to cover up holes in your game, you do need to use some force in order to perform many of BJJ’s submissions.
Jiu-jitsu may be the “soft art” but that does not mean you are going to be able to flow your way through submissions.
Technique may be the most important aspect of jiu-jitsu, but you need to use power.
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