BTG 169 - I'm done playing with you

Hello and welcome to another episode of Breaking the Guard. On today's episode, I want to talk about when is time to stop playing with your old toys. Right? This is something that comes up in real life where maybe you have an old appliance, which is how this topic came to in the past that we need to replace. And in that aspect is much easier to understand because it's something that's not working anymore or not working well. So, we need to get something that does. But how do we make that decision in martial arts or something that's more skill-based, right, in our life where we have to make this decision when do we let this thing go? For example, let's say that there's a particular technique that you are used to do really well. Let's say I'm thinking it myself one that I don't really I still use the knee cuts quite a bit though, but not as much as I used to. But let's just use as example. Let's just say your knee cut passing isn't really working anymore. Everybody gets the knee shield right away or everybody's able to invert. So, you're just not getting to the passing position that you want. Is it time to let go and throw this thing away? Maybe yes, maybe no. Uh it it just depends. If you feel that it's outdated, perhaps the technique is outdated and this is just a software issue, right? that we need to update the software, which would be improving our technique. Taking courses, going to a seminar, asking your coach, trying to figure out what pieces you're missing that would allow you to have a better knee cut pass. If it's a hardware issue, maybe you're not able to execute it well anymore because you know you have bad knees and you have a hard time uh getting your hips through or maybe you lack the pop or the or whatnot and you just physically are no longer capable of doing it. A better example of this might be something I could relate to more like a triangle choke, right? Like or a rubber guard. That's the best example. Maybe when I was younger, I could have pulled off rubber guard. I can't now. The hardware is not going to allow me to do it as it is. I I could try to improve the hardware, but at this point, it's pretty difficult, right? [laughter] Changing out knees or hips are not exactly something that's uh reasonable to do. So, that would be a good time to decide, hey, you know what? we gotta drop this toy. Uh this is not something that we can really play with anymore. And uh so when we are presented with what I would call like a hardware hardware issue, a structural problem that we can't really replace and the ability to fix is perhaps too difficult to warrant the effort. That would definitely be a time to say, "Hey, let it go." And I can tell you there's a there's quite a few things I know I've done that with. Uh I I don't do calizers for that reason. Not not because I can't do it. It just seems it's more injuryprone to me. Uh, I have popped my knee twice calf sizing other people and it's usually well not usually the both times it was because I was trying not to hurt them and I was doing the rear calf slicer so you know not the one where you know face to face I was on their you know in the truck and I ended up getting towards their back and I was holding on to their hips so I had them dead to right but I didn't want to blow out their knees so I'm kind of just going slow and they starts spinning crazy uh trying to evade the submission, but since I'm not putting the hard finishing pressure, my knee is not stable. So, when they spin, my knees over spins and you know, you get a little uh tear and I've decided it's not worth it to me because I don't want to go fast on it and blow someone's else knees out in training and the risk to my knee is too great. So, not a toy I'm gonna play with. If I had to do it in a in a fight, of course I could do it, but not something I I'm looking for now, right? That's something I' I've given up. So, and I'm sure you guys have stuff like that where you're like, "Yeah, that's not a move I play with." Like, I've never been a rubber guard guy. Not going to start now. >> [laughter] >> Not only is my spine too rigid, but my hips are also I have a few impediments that make it an impractical game for me. Uh, and likewise, this inverted guard is not something I can do either. So, I I know I have several things that are limitations in my game that I have decided I'm not going to use them. And this can actually help clarify what you should be doing, right? You might think, "Oh, this is we're doing something negative, which is we're taking off options off the table." But taking things off the table makes things simple. Because imagine I tell you, okay, you have to eat, you know, three things. You need your appetizer, you need your main course, and you need your dessert. But on the table in front of you, you have a 100 different food choices, but you can only choose three. Man, it could take a while because I'm looking at all the things. Oh man, I like that. I like that. I like that. Like, which one do I like more? Which two combine better, right? So, the myriad of choices that you can make can slow you down. And especially in combat, we don't want to be slow. We want to be smooth. So, when we can remove things off the table, it makes it very easy. If I only had three things on the table, well, it's very easy to pick three things out of three, right? It's instant decision. Ideally, we would have that type of decision- making happening all the time. And not because we are limited as far as we just don't have the resources or the the power to have more options. is that our decision trees have narrowed down the best options for us, right? So, we're only have three because those are the best three to pick. In this case, our decision tree is telling us that we are not in a great position to do certain positions because again, I'm talking about hardware issues. So, we'll just take those off the table so it doesn't even distract us and we don't fall into problems doing something that we really shouldn't be doing to begin with. So, the the hardware issue or the structural issue is one of the easiest ways to determine not to do something. Now, the software one, that's the one that we started with. That's the one that's a little trickier because we can improve the software, right? we can update our techniques. We can learn new things about them so that now we can overcome an issue. Maybe we didn't know how to deal with let's say on the guard passing thing again the knee cut that they're putting the knee shield and we just didn't know how to deal with the knee shield. Now there's a lot of ways we can deal with the knee shield. So we can then update our technique. So oh we knee cut the knee shield now you know I can step over it. I can crane pass. I can, you know, pull them into headquarters. So, there's a lot of things that we can do from there once we update the software, right? So, we can improve that. That's not necessarily a deal breaker, not necessarily a reason to throw that toy away, right? Uh so, that's one thing. Uh, another thing to think about from the the software side of things is if your technique or your move that you're working on doesn't really combine with the rest of your game anymore. Maybe you start off as a top player where your main strategy was take the guy down, working to pass the guard, right? and then look to finish from a dominant top position. So everything was structured around your ability to out wrestle people and always stay on top. And now you have shifted your focus where maybe you're saying now you're a counter wrestler where you're no longer the one going for the takedowns. You're the one that's countering your opponent's takedowns, taking advantage of the turtle position, front headlocks, back takes, and even if they do get you on your back, you're attacking immediately with a submission or you're attacking immediately with a sweep. So, your focus has shifted a lot. And there's certain techniques now that are just not going to make a lot of sense in your your flow. So that could be a time where you could say we could put these on the shelf. That's that's not the same as throwing it away, but it would be saying like we're going to let this uh rest for a bit while we focus on this new strategy, right? This new this new way of playing, this new flow. We're going to be working on this a lot. We're not going to really need this anymore, right? So we're going to put this away for the moment and we could come back to it another time. It's not like I'm saying we just don't do this ever again, right? But it's putting something on the shelf. And why, as I just explained previously, the dinner table that has too many options, right? If I have too many options, I get distracted. I'm not able to play a cohesive game because I'm I'm like, "Oh, I could do this. I could do this. I could do this." And you're just there's no clear direction. We want a clear direction with where we're going so that it becomes easy to navigate and make better decisions. If we don't have a compass and we're just going left, then we're going north, then we're going south, we're not getting anywhere. We need a clear direction so that all of our moves move us closer to that final destination. So that it becomes important to prune things off and remove them from your potential trajectory so that we can get there smoother and quicker. So that would be another case of how do we get rid of certain techniques or when do we get rid of certain techniques and it could be just they no longer make sense to do because they don't really go in the flow. they're not in the direction that you intend to go on. This will bring us to another point which is I mentioned there's certain strategies or flows that we get into and we might have to negate a whole strategy and put it on the shelf as well. This could be true even when it's a very valid strategy that still works great and there's no structural issues, there's no software issues. However, you're might be facing somebody that it doesn't make sense on. For example, maybe I'm a world-class striker and I'm a really good grappler and I'm facing a another worldass striker, but he's better than me in the striking by a margin, has no ground game at all. My approach to fighting someone like that is I'm going to fight them where they're the weakest ground. I'm not trying to get into a kickboxing fight with another great kickboxer, especially someone who's better than me at kickboxing. So, the the strategies there is we're not going to try to engage too much on our feet. We'll do just enough to get him distracted so that we can bring him to the ground, right? And maybe I do score knockout just because he's so worried about getting taken to the ground because he knows that's the obvious place to go that he's going to have to be watching out for takedowns. Then I can land my strikes. But ultimately, I'm looking to take them to the ground. All right? So, this is another case of when do I put those toys to the side when the best strategy tells you that's what you should [clears throat] do. This is again not one that's a permanent decision either. This is just based on the battlefield that's being presented. Based on the opponent that's being presented, you make different tactics. And I meant to say the opponent, but that also does bring another question. And another variable that could make that decision for you is the actual battlefield. Now, in martial arts, most of the battlefields are the same, although not anymore. Lately, it's changing more and more. The tactics that I would use in a ring versus in the cage versus in a bowl versus in the pit, they're all different. And those also will decide like how you will fight. For example, when you're, let's say we're doing grappling. If we're grappling and there's no end boundary, it benefits you to allow yourself to run out of bounds because most of the rule sets haven't instituted any penalties for getting pushed out of bounds. So, it's better than getting taken down inbounds. you just restart in the middle. Now, most of them, if you let it happen too much, you're going to get penalized. But if you have it, let it happen a couple times, not a big deal. Now, if you allow that to happen in the pit, you're getting taken down almost immediately. You, the pit and the bowl, especially are very unforgiving when you get pushed on them. You have to wall walk on those things. If you don't wall walk on them, you're going to get taken down. You're going to slide off. Because what ends up happening for those of know your your feet rather than being like this are going to start coming up the wall, right? If the the balls like this, your feet start coming here. So you end up with your hips over your feet, right? Or if they're able to push your hips behind you. Either way, you're getting in an offbalance position. Whereas, if there's a cage, your cage becomes your savior if you know how to use it to defend yourself against takedowns because now they don't get your feet in front of your hips or your hips too far in front of your feet. You're able to keep your feet pretty much under your hips so that your weight is heavy and stable. And often times it benefits you to find the cage to defend a takedown. Like for example, someone gets you in a body lock standing out the open, you're going to get tossed. But if I can quickly run to the fence now, I can use it to protect me. I can use the fence to scrape you off of me. Right? So the battlefield will determine tactics that we can use. The other thing are the rules of combat. Depending on the rules, we have to it'll make better decisions for us on when we can use certain techniques, when we shouldn't use certain techniques. Some of them are pretty clear. You can't throw elbows. Well, you've taken that completely off the table. It's one thing we don't have to think about anymore. We also don't have to think about defending them either, right? And so it makes grabbing wrists and stuff a lot easier to do now, especially on the ground. When you're worried about elbows, I'm a big wrist control guy, but if we're fighting, grabbing a wrist is not the safest thing to do because they can still land an elbow over the top. You have to be really uh cautious about it, especially in positions like guard or half guard there. When you're on top, it's not a big deal. But when you're on bottom, you have to make sure that you're protecting your head by putting in a place where even though you're controlling the wrist, elbow come through. But if there's no elbows, then I can just be really annoying and constantly hold your wrists and not give you any good striking options, right? So rules also will dictate what things we can remove, what we can't. Uh final thing I can come up with would be just from a growth perspective. If I play the same game a lot, there's diminishing returns in how much better I'm going to get at this technique. Right? If I've been doing this knee cut a pass now for like over 20 years, there's not a lot of room for growth there, right? So there might come a time in training particularly where I'll say, you know, I want to put this thing to the side, not because it doesn't work, not because uh there's a structural issue, it's just because I want to round out my game more and give myself more options. Maybe my dinner table only has one thing on it and it's a knee cut pass. And what if I run into somebody who's just great at inverting, has an incredible knee shield, I'm gonna have a harder time being able to pass his guard. So, I want to put this thing on the side for now, and I want to give myself a second option or a third option. So, this would be a learning decision. Nothing's wrong with it. We just want to have new things to work with so that we can then make the best decision with more than one option. Right? So those are a few things uh that I can think of that would be helpful in making that decision for you. Right? So the the first one is a hardware problem. Right? Structural issue. your anatomy doesn't allow you to do this technique. Maybe once it did, now it doesn't. Or doing so puts you at great peril and will make you more likely to get hurt, right? Maybe you used to do suplexes all the time and now it's like your back hurts. Like, well, probably not a great idea to go do it, right? So, we have to adapt and adjust. So, hardware wise, those are pretty easy. Those are usually put them on the shelf maybe permanently and replace them with something else. The software ones, again, we gave a few things. Uh, one, it's just not working anymore. And if that's the case, then we can update the software, right? Learn new techniques, go to seminars, ask your coach, get better at that thing. So we upgrade and overcome whatever the obstacle is that we're running into. And the other way we can make that decision. One, the we talked about the rule set. The rule set will tell you what things you should do. If you're somebody who's competing in a rule set that doesn't allow leg blocks, doesn't make sense to have a he lock heavy game now, does it? Right. So you would have to work around that. um if the the battlefield, is it a cage? Is it a pit? Is it just borderless? Knowing that allows you to decide what things you should have. Um what is the whole flow of your game? Does this technique fit in nicely or is it just complete off? If you have a whole game that's about pressure passing and being very tight, cartwheels don't really make sense in there, right? >> [laughter] >> Cartwheels is all about open space. So a cartwheel pass wouldn't really work in with a pressure game. So you might say, "Okay, well, we're going to put the cartwheels aside for the moment so we can focus on this pressure game better." Then we also have the opponent. Depending on the type of opponent we're facing, the type of uh strategies and techniques that we'll be employing will be very different. And finally, learning. What am I trying to get better at quickly? If I play my a game, and you've heard me talk about this before, but if I'm playing a game I'm very familiar with, a lot of experience with, and using the same techniques, I'm not going to make progress in other areas. And if I want to grow, I have to sometimes put those strategies, those techniques on the shelf and work on a new part of my game, which I'll grow quicker in. And then I'll have more options when we vary those other factors, their component, their environment and the rules so that I can choose the best option. Anyhow, I hope that talk is useful. Thank you for listening and I'll catch you next