“Don’t listen to what people say, watch what the best guys do.”
“In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice, in practice there is.”
Jiu Jitsu Film Study
On the internet, there’s a lot of theory – a lot of flash and a lot of fluff. The more outrageous the technique, the more hype it gets in the metaverse.
On the internet, the flashy is confused with the effective, the bombastic with the reliable and the controversial with the status quo.
The ills of internet Jiu Jitsu are self-containing – content creators prioritise flashy over fundamentals, the content blows up and the cycle repeats itself. The loser in the cycle is, of course, the practitioner – who rather than using film study to improve on their fundamentals, instead is biased towards flashier, less effective techniques.
As a student of Jiu Jitsu, study film of the game itself. “Colosseum” content should be your first, second and third priority with respect to your Jiu Jitsu film study. Only live matches will give you the best idea of what works on the best guys in the highest percentage of cases. It strips away the saliency bias, removes the hype bubble and gives you only the tried and tested.
Use live matches as your starting point and work backwards from there.
That takes us onto instructionals, which, in my opinion, are a double-edged sword. Good – as they break down techniques to their finest details. Bad – as they always contain a lot of junk. Plainly speaking – no one is going to charge 100s of dollars for what a blue belt could teach you in class. The instructional needs to be sexy, even if it massively dilutes the highest percentage of techniques.
Now, let’s remember what John Danaher said, “Don’t listen to what people say, watch what the best guys do.” Practice over theory. Actions over words.
In theory, this would also apply to the best guys’ words, not their actions. Case in point, Gordon Ryan – probably the best grappler in the world, charging instructionals at £500 a pop. Gordon waffles on for hours on his favourite techniques – combining the high percentage with the hail marys, with the viewer not having a clue which one is which.
The truth is, Jiu Jitsu is an industry and no one is going to pay $500 for 5 hours of fundamentals. Gordon needs to drag it out and keep it interesting – forcing him to load up on hours of funky filler.
There’s a neat way around this though – and again it all boils down to watching what the best guys do. ADCC standout, Eoghan O’flanagan termed it on his podcast as “reverse engineering.” In other words, you use competition footage to zero in on what you need from the instructional.
Many instructionals will do the work for you – and will contain a volume purely dedicated to sparring footage. Start your instructionals here. Combine that with live footage of the individual’s fights so you’re able to see what works in what context. Then work backwards – find the instructional guide to pinpoint the technique you need and then laser in on the details.
The live footage will give you the empirical evidence of what’s effective, the instructional will give you the granularity that you might not see in a fight. You will also be able to see how the technique is systemised – and how the instructor builds on the system based on the various scenarios that they might face. But still, your film study starts with practice, not with theory.
Apply this system to improve your Jiu Jitsu film study:
- Start with Colosseum footage – live fights should make up the majority of your film study
- Find an instructional that relates to a technique you want to apply to your game.
- Start the instructional with the live sparring footage (these will often be at the back).
- Combine sparring footage with the fight footage to get a better picture of the technique you need.
- Use the instructional guide to find the exact technique you need.
- Use the instructional footage to add the detail you were missing.
