Mini Ep. 86: Do What Works

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 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 concept that's really intended to bust through a bunch of the dogma and traditional thinking that comes up so much in martial arts. That's the notion that we should just do what works. You've probably heard me or my brother talk about this before, if you've listened to older episodes of the BJJ Mental Models podcast. Do what works is more than just a mantra. It's a powerful concept for being a bit of a jiu-jitsu skeptic and avoiding the tendency to just adopt dogmatic practices from your coach or from popular coaches without really thinking them through. So the idea is right in the name, do what works, but if I want to expand on that, what I mean by this is, if a technique is working for you, it's a good technique regardless of what anyone says. There's three things we're looking for in a technique. You can make it work against quality opponents, you can make it work repeatably, and it aligns with your goals. If you can do that, it's a good technique. It doesn't matter what your coach thinks, it doesn't matter what John Danaher thinks. At the end of the day, you are looking for systems that work for you. This is important to understand because especially early on in your jiu-jitsu journey, it's very easy to just take advice from coaches and more experienced grapplers at face value and just assume that what they're saying is either completely correct or always correct. And those things are not necessarily true. Sometimes people will give you an answer that is just either incomplete or flawed or false. Other times people will give you an answer that maybe is correct but only under certain circumstances. And if you just take everything at face value, regardless of what results you get from that technique, then you're going to really be limiting your mindset because you're going to be picking forth a bunch of stuff that doesn't really adopt into your game. It's important to remember that in a physical sport like jiu-jitsu, everyone is different. And yes, there are best practices and things that are generally considered a good idea. But most of these are not laws or principles or rules that must be followed. Most of the time, these are just good practices that were adopted because a lot of people had good luck with them. Now, just because a lot of people had good luck with them, that doesn't mean you're guaranteed to also have good luck with them. There's a lot of techniques that I just will not do because after years of training, I've just decided they don't align with my body type and they don't align with my goals. Maybe they're techniques that are better suited for someone who has longer limbs or is more athletic or is more competition focused. Or maybe the techniques just offer an increased risk of injury that I'm not willing to accept. All of these things factor into your decision to use techniques and tactics that you encounter in the sport of jiu-jitsu. And it's really important to remember that, look, people will criticize you sometimes if you're doing unconventional stuff and they'll say, oh, well, that's not what John Danaher says. But look, at the end of the day, again, if you can make it work against quality opponents, and you can do it repeatably, and it aligns with your goals, that's all that really matters. Those are the things that we're looking for in a technique. I bring this up because in jiu-jitsu, coaches will often give advice whether it's desired or not. And you'll hear a lot of advice that people will just expect you to roll with. Part of becoming more experienced at this sport is understanding that you are not required to take the advice that people throw at you. A lot of the time when people give you advice, it's not really coming from a place of truly understanding your position and your specific context. So although we should always listen to those who are more experienced, that doesn't mean we have to do what they say. Take all of these suggestions in jiu-jitsu with a grain of salt. This is not like physics or mathematics. It's not a hard science. In jiu-jitsu, there is massive room for individuality and personal expression, and your jiu-jitsu game is going to take that into account. So this is a really important mental framing technique. I hope you found it helpful. If you want more like this, check out bjjmentalmodels.com for free mini episodes like this one, as well as more in-depth long-form podcast episodes, plus our newsletter, and if you want to level up with us, check out our subscription BJJ Mental Models Premium. It is the world's largest library of jiu-jitsu audio courses on strategy, tactics, concepts, mindset, and philosophy. All of this is at bjjmentalmodels.com. Thank you for listening. I hope you got value out of this and I'll talk to you soon.