Mini Ep. 89: Dilemmas

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 to BJJ Mental Models. I'm Steve Kwan and BJJ Mental Models is your guide to a conceptual and intelligent Jiu-Jitsu approach. And I'm here today to talk about a mental model that you have almost certainly heard of before. Let's talk about dilemmas. Now, the term dilemma, it's not an unusual word, but in Jiu-Jitsu it became commonplace when John Danaher started using it to describe an aspect of Jiu-Jitsu strategy which is really important. A dilemma is a situation where you've been presented with a difficult choice. You've got to choose between two or more alternatives, both of which are bad. Technically speaking, a dilemma means exactly two choices, that's what the die in dilemma means, but in practical circumstances, we use dilemma to mean two or more choices. If you want to be really pedantic, you could use trilemma when you're talking about three choices, but practically speaking, most people use dilemma to mean two or more bad choices. So, common example in Jiu-Jitsu, let's talk about the triangle arm bar combination from guard. If you have someone's head and one of their arms between your legs in guard, then they're at risk of both an arm bar and a triangle. And they have to be very careful what they do, because if they lean forward to defeat the arm bar, they could be making the triangle more successful. If they try to posture up to defend the triangle, they could be extending their arm to make the arm bar more successful. That's what makes this a dilemma, because your opponent has been presented with several choices that are not good. Dilemmas are great for strategy. They're not just an aspect of Jiu-Jitsu, really they're an aspect of any sort of game that is competitive. In chess and other turn-based games, there is a concept called Zugzwang. That's a German word. Basically what it means is you've put the other player in a position where they're obligated to move and all of the moves that they could legally make would put them in a worse position. Very similar concept to a dilemma. I think back to the early days of the UFC and people described Royce Gracie as a boa constrictor. He would wrap himself around you and every time you tried to escape, it would just make the situation worse for yourself. When we're talking about a dilemma or Zugzwang, we're talking about strategic concepts that involve putting your opponent in a situation where any action makes the game worse for them. So dilemmas are excellent in Jiu-Jitsu. And when you have the opportunity in Jiu-Jitsu, you should prefer to present your opponent with dilemmas instead of just giving them a single attack that they can respond to with an easy answer. Why? Well, if you force your opponent to choose between multiple bad answers, there's a few advantages at play for you. First of all, you're adding more cognitive load onto your opponent. You're giving them more mental work to manage in the moment. And because Jiu-Jitsu is a real-time fast-moving environment, your opponent doesn't have a lot of time to make a good decision. If you make the decision just a little bit more complicated for them, it makes it way more likely that they're going to make a mistake or wind up in a bad spot. So if I present you with one problem that has an obvious solution, it's relatively straightforward for you to figure out what to do. But if I put you in a situation where you have multiple options and they're all bad, you've got to think about it now. And that's not a place you want to be in the middle of a match. So dilemmas are good because they increase cognitive load on your opponent. The other great thing about dilemmas is that they keep your opponent on the defensive. If I present you with a single attack that you can easily respond to, it's not that hard for you to switch it around and get back on the offensive. However, if I present you with multiple bad options, now you're playing my game. You're choosing between the answers that I've provided to you and if I make sure that they're all bad, then I'm going to have a good outcome no matter what. An example of this that's not Jiu-Jitsu related is the idea of a loaded question. This is a debate fallacy that people use if they are arguing in bad faith. A loaded question is when you ask a question of someone that has some sort of negative element built right into it. So for example, the common example of a loaded question is if I asked you, when was the last time you beat your spouse? In this situation, if you play by the rules and you provide one of the answers that I've posed to you here, then there's no good outcome for you. You don't want to admit that you've beat your spouse and if you deny it, then now you're spending your argument time denying this accusation, which is only going to just reinforce it in people's heads. And while you're disputing that fact, you're not making your own arguments anymore. Now you're on the defensive. So by presenting you with dilemmas where you have multiple bad options, I can create a situation where you are no longer thinking about what you want to do, but now you're thinking about how to avoid the bad things that I've put in your way. That's a great mental place to have your opponent in a Jiu-Jitsu match. Now, like with those bad faith loaded questions, often the best way to deal with a dilemma is just not to engage. You want to avoid these situations. You want to avoid the trap of falling into a dilemma. Sometimes your opponent presents you with two options that look equally bad. There may be a third option that isn't so bad. And again, this is a bit of a framing tactic, right? Your opponent can again put you into a situation like a triangle arm bar dilemma where it feels like you've got to choose between two bad options, but if you can find another option that's not so bad, that's going to play in your favor. Those don't always exist, but sometimes you can find one. And that's where just the benefit of experience comes into play. It's very hard to find those good options in the moment if you've never seen them before, but through the benefit of training, if you've seen a lot of these situations before, then when you wind up in there in the spur of the moment, you'll have a better idea of what to do to keep yourself out of trouble. So to recap this, a dilemma is a situation where you've got to make a difficult choice between two bad options. This is an excellent element of strategy. If you can force your opponent into a dilemma, this will probably be stronger than just an individual problem that you pose, which has a relatively straightforward solution. I love this kind of concept. This stuff resonates strongly with me. If you want more like this, check out more at BJJ Mental Models. You can get full-length episodes of our podcast, plus many episodes like this, plus our newsletter, all completely free. And if you want to level up with us further, you can check out BJJ Mental Models Premium. It's the world's largest audio library of Jiu-Jitsu master classes on strategy, tactics, concepts, philosophy, and mindset. It's the kind of stuff that doesn't fit cleanly into a traditional instructional. That plus all of the stuff I talked about earlier is at BJJmentalmodels.com. I'll put a link in the show notes. Thank you for listening and I'll talk to you soon.