Mini Ep. 51: Technique Chaining

Hey everybody, before we get started this week, I have huge news. She actually did it. We're pleased to announce that Beatrice Jin, top-ranked women's competitor in North America and long-time BJJ Mental Models premium community member, has published her first ever course with us, exclusive to BJJ Mental Models. It's called Stop Being Nice. It's a three-part audio series designed to solve real mindset problems that regular folks experience in Jiu-Jitsu. If you struggle to be aggressive and competitive in Jiu-Jitsu, you'll find the solutions here. If you're already a BJJ Mental Models premium subscriber, you've already got access. And if you are not, good news, you can get it now and get your first week free. Go to BJJmentalmodels.com and check it out today. Hey, welcome to BJJ Mental Models. I'm Steve Kwan. BJJ Mental Models is your guide to a conceptual and intelligent Jiu-Jitsu approach. And in this week's mini episode, I want to talk about the concept of technique chaining. Basically, how we chain techniques together and why that's more effective than just doing single techniques in isolation. Now, as is the way with BJJ Mental Models, this might come across as me taking a concept that seems simple on its face and unpacking it to an excessive level of detail. But I'm doing this for a reason here. I think it's really important for people to have a solid understanding of why it's important to chain your techniques together, rather than looking at them as a series of individual single attacks. So, there's a legendary quote from composer Claude Debussy, who said, "Music is the space between the notes." I absolutely love that quote. I am not a musician, but I think it's equally relevant to Jiu-Jitsu, where we could instead say that Jiu-Jitsu is the space between the techniques. What do I mean by that? Well, the the myth in Jiu-Jitsu, when it comes to how techniques work, is that if you know how to do a technique properly and perfectly, you should be able to execute it every single time. That is false. The reality is that making techniques work isn't about perfect execution. It's really about finding or creating the right opening to make that technique more effective. When I was a beginner in Jiu-Jitsu, I used to think that if I just had a sharp enough technique, I could just make moves work. Um, if I was just good enough at it, if I didn't miss any of the steps, if I was crisp enough, no one could deny my techniques. It never really panned out that way. What you've probably discovered as well in your Jiu-Jitsu journey is that as soon as people understand even the most basic level of defense against a technique, it's really hard to just do it on them from a dead stop. If someone has been training Jiu-Jitsu for any length of time, as soon as they understand basic things like don't let them armbar you. As soon as they understand that the armbar is a threat, their reaction is going to be to retract their arms and make getting that technique more difficult. So what you'll find is against people who have even the most basic level of training, it's really hard to just do a technique against them. And even as a black belt, I find this. If I am rolling with a white belt and I just try to do an armbar with no setup, it's unlikely to work, even given that massive experience disadvantage, unless they just completely fail to defend it whatsoever. So, this is why chaining techniques together is important. When we're standing with someone, we know that we want to establish Kuzushi, basically we want to get our opponent off balance before we attempt the throw. And this is for the same reason. A throw is really hard to just do from a dead stop. You need to get a person moving. And Kuzushi is an example of technique chaining in action. You are setting the person up with motion, and then once they're off balance, that's when you do the throw. We want to take the same approach from the ground as well. Instead of just doing individual techniques in isolation, we want to think about how our techniques link together, chain together, and how one of them can be used as a setup for the other one. The reason why this matters is because if someone is in perfect alignment, meaning they've got base, posture, and structure, it's going to be really hard for you to just rail off a technique against that person. So often your first move is done not so much because you expect it to work, but because it forces your opponent to react. If I attempt an armbar on someone, I might not get the armbar, but I will force them to defend the armbar, and by forcing them to react, I get them moving. And that's how you start to create openings. You get your opponent moving, you make them react to what you're doing. So often, you'll notice when you see two good black belts rolling, usually a single technique doesn't work in isolation, but rather one chains into another. And a big part of getting good at Jiu-Jitsu is starting to think about how your techniques can chain together like that, so that if your plan A fails, you can seamlessly move into a plan B and take advantage of that window of opportunity where you've got your opponent moving. So again, if we go back to a very classic and relatable example, think of the classic triple threat attack sequence from guard, the armbar triangle Omaplata combination. This is such a classic combo because you've got three options that you can cycle between. If you try the armbar and it doesn't work, you switch seamlessly to the triangle. If that doesn't work, maybe you switch to the Omaplata, maybe you go back to the armbar. But the point is, by keeping the technique chain going, by continuing to attack, you're forcing your opponent into reactive mode where they have to defend, and the more they have to react, the more they have to move, the more they have to move, the more likely they are to expose something that you can take advantage of. So my advice when it comes to how we use these techniques is don't just think of them as single things that you try and they either work or they don't. A very common beginner mistake is they'll try a move, and if it doesn't work, they'll just let their opponent reset back to a neutral position, and then they'll try something else. Don't let them do that. Don't let them reset back to a neutral position. If you try something and your opponent reacts and they defend properly, take advantage of the fact that they're in motion and they're reacting to switch to something else before they have the chance to reset back to strong alignment. That's a huge thing to understand. If you are constantly trying moves, failing, and then letting your opponent reset to a neutral position before you try again, you're losing that opportunity to chain techniques together. Now, chaining techniques doesn't mean you have to be fast or burning a ton of calories. It really just means you have to be fluid. A lot of black belts, and I include myself in this category, don't move particularly fast when they're rolling, but you can still chain techniques together because you just never let things hit a dead stop. It's like Street Fighter. If you let the combo break, then you lose the bonus, right? We don't want to let the combo break in Jiu-Jitsu. If we let the fight stop and we let our opponent reset, we lose our best opportunity, that that space between the techniques to do real Jiu-Jitsu against them. And if you talk to any experienced black belt, you will hear them say similar things about how single individual techniques are often not what make things work. It is rather once you get the ball rolling and you've got a few techniques in sequence that progressively get your opponent more and more off balance until something finally works. Now, in order to do this, there's a level of strategy as well. You also have to think about whether the techniques that you like to do actually chain together effectively. Because some techniques don't do that. Um, for example, it can be hard to switch from certain outside positions back to inside positions if your opponent's angle of their body is wrong. So for example, think of the different types of guard that you like to play. Maybe you've got two or three guards that you're really strong at. Do you have a way to transition from one of those to the other? Something that Lachlan Giles once said to me is that not all guards connect together effectively. Sometimes getting from one guard to another guard is quite challenging. Maybe there's a lot of distance to travel, or your opponent's body is in the way, or it's just unlikely that you're going to find a situation where you can move seamlessly from one of these to the other. So there's an element of strategy here. You need to look at all of the things in Jiu-Jitsu that you're good at and that you want to do, and figure out, do I have a way to connect these together? So finding that connective glue, those movements that allow you to tie together the different things you want to do, that's an element of Jiu-Jitsu strategy that you really need to start thinking about, especially once you get to say late blue belt, early purple belt, you really want to start thinking about the strategy that ties all of your techniques together. And that's ultimately where the discussion about chaining comes into play and finding that that space between the notes or that space between the techniques where we can really get our Jiu-Jitsu going. All of this is to say, if you take one thing away from this conversation, try to think less of techniques as individual things that you just try and if it works, it works, if it doesn't, it doesn't. Think of techniques less like that and more as steps in a sequence. You want to be constantly flowing through techniques, never stopping, never letting your opponent reset their alignment, because that is taking away your best opportunity to get Jiu-Jitsu done, that space in between the techniques. I hope this conversation was helpful. These kinds of strategy and philosophy talks are actually a lot of fun to do, and for me, I find them to be a really valuable way to level up my Jiu-Jitsu thinking. If you want more of this, of course, I always tell people go to BJJmentalmodels.com. All of our podcast episodes, both the full-length ones and the mini episodes like this are completely free and ad-free as well. You can also sign up for our newsletter, which is definitely worth the subscription, also completely free. But if you do want to kick it up to the next tier with us, BJJ Mental Models Premium is our paid service. It's the world's largest library of Jiu-Jitsu audio courses on strategy, tactics, concepts, philosophy. It's awesome stuff. And it's also how you get access to professional Jiu-Jitsu podcasts that you can only get if you are a BJJ Mental Models Premium subscriber. Think of Rob Bernacki, Emily Kwok. If you love their stuff, their podcasts are on BJJ Mental Models Premium. You can get that and everything else I talked about at BJJmentalmodels.com. Thanks a lot for listening to this chat. I really enjoyed it. Hope you did too, and we'll talk to you in the next one.