Mini Ep. 91: Leading Edges

Speaker 1: Hey everybody, before we get started this week, I just want to let you know, we released a new mindset course featuring Rob Bernaki from Island Top Team and BJJ Concepts. It's called Mindset for Betas. It's an amazing resource that breaks down a new way to build a resilient jiu-jitsu mindset. It's part of BJJ Mental Models Premium. I will spare you the full sales pitch because you can try it for free. Just go to BJJmentalmodels.com/beta. I will give you a free month, you can check out the course and if you decide that it's not worth your money, you can cancel, you won't have to pay a cent. I've already been told by subscribers that this is the most valuable piece of jiu-jitsu content they've ever received, so I hope you like it too. Speaker 1: Hey everybody, welcome back to BJJ Mental Models. I am Steve Kwan and 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 a really key concept called leading edges. This is a great tool for helping you fine tune your defense from the bottom, as well as making your attacks more effective from the top. So, the leading edge is basically the part of the body that makes the rest of the attack work. It's kind of the lynch pin that makes everything else run smoothly. If you want an example of what a leading edge might look like, it's like a beach head. If you're not familiar with that terminology, a beach head is a military term. It refers to where you send an initial force to establish a foothold, you defend that area while the rest of your forces arrive behind them and then you can launch your full invasion. Think of the Battle of Normandy. So a beach head is an example of a leading edge. In the context of jiu-jitsu, the leading edge will often, but not always, be the part of the body that is driving forward, where the force is coming from. If you are being cross-faced in bottom side control, the leading edge that's holding you there is the cross-face. That is where the force is driving into you and it's holding you in place. Think of the tip of a spear, the front of an attack. That will often, again, often but not always, be the leading edge in the context of jiu-jitsu. The leading edge matters because if you are not paying attention to where your opponent's leading edge is, you might wind up defending the wrong thing. Let's go back and unpack that cross-face example again because it's a really good example of leading edges in jiu-jitsu. You may have seen side control escapes that involve using your hand to frame against your opponent's hip so that you can make space and then reguard. That's kind of an old school technique. I remember being taught this at some point back in my beginner days. And while that escape can work, it's not always the best choice because it might be ignoring the leading edge. If your opponent is cross-facing you from side control, then the leading edge is that cross-face. That's where they are driving their force into you. So, while you can push against their hip to try to make space, that's not addressing the force from gravity that is coming right down into your jaw. That's really the main threat. So, most good side control escapes will encourage you to deal with the cross-face first because that is the leading edge. If you can prevent yourself from getting cross-faced, that means you can prevent all of that gravitational force from pinning you in position, forcing your head to turn the other way, and that's going to make every escape easier. If you're sitting there trying to frame against your opponent's hip while they're cross-facing you, they still have the benefit of applying all of that force while you struggle from the bottom. So there are many techniques in jiu-jitsu that work like this. They involve identifying and defending against the leading edge. If you are attempting a guard retention technique or an escape from bottom and it's just not working, think about whether you're properly addressing the leading edge of that technique. Now, the leading edge, as I mentioned earlier, will often be where the force comes from. It will often be the entry point of the attack. So you can many times think of the leading edge as the tip of the spear. It's the thing that's coming towards you. In the case of the cross-face, the cross-face is the closest part of your opponent's body to you, so that is where the leading edge would be because if the person is dropping their weight on you, that's where the gravity is going to come down through. However, a leading edge is not always the front of the attack. It's not always where the force is coming from. Often it is, but there are exceptions. Sometimes your opponent will post on you to hold you in position while they do something else, or maybe they're posting on you to distract you. A lot of throat posts work like this. And while those are problems that you need to address, you have to understand, is that really the leading edge? It might be the leading edge of the attack if the main threat is the gravity and the force and perhaps a choke. However, it might just be there to hold you in position while your opponent does something else with the rest of their body. So, although the leading edge is often the tip of the spear, the closest thing towards you, the place where the force is coming in from, it isn't always the case that the leading edge is the tip of the spear, the place where the force is coming from. There can be reasons why a person might be using a post on you, and although it might feel like the leading edge, the actual leading edge might be something else that they're doing with the rest of their body. So, this is a great hack for understanding why your guard retention and your escapes are failing. You need to be making sure that if you're the person on the bottom defending, that you are always addressing the leading edge of your opponent's attack. If you are the person attacking, you need to make sure that if your opponent defends against your leading edge, you do something about it, either by re-angling your body so that their defenses don't work, or changing your strategy so that you're doing something differently now and the leading edge of your body changes. These are ways that you can use the leading edge to improve both your defense and offense. Hopefully, this was helpful. We talk about these kinds of concepts a lot on BJJ Mental Models. All of our mini episodes like this, plus full length episodes that go into much more detail are free and you can get them all at BJJmentalmodels.com. I'd also encourage you to sign up for our newsletter, and if you want to level up with us, check out BJJ Mental Models Premium. It is the world's largest library of jiu-jitsu audio master classes on strategy, tactics, concepts, mindset, and philosophy. All of this is at BJJmentalmodels.com. I will put a link in the show notes. Thank you for listening and I'll talk to you in the next episode.