Mini Ep. 82: Defend With Purpose

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 BJJ Mental Models.com and check it out today. Hey everybody, welcome to BJJ Mental Models. I am Steve Kwan. BJJ Mental Models is your guide to a conceptual and intelligent Jiu-Jitsu approach. I want to use this mini episode to talk about a really foundational concept, at least for me, the idea of defending with purpose. This is the idea that a defense is only a good defense if it gets you out of a bad position. So, let me just give you an example of this. Have you ever heard of the Home Alone defense? This is where when you're on bottom mount, you put your hands up against your cheeks like Macaulay Culkin in Home Alone. By doing so, you're trying to prevent your opponent from choking you while you're mounted. This is a defense that is sometimes taught to beginners. And the idea being that when you're a beginner, we want to make sure you don't get easily submitted from the bottom when you're being mounted. So, if you block access to your carotid arteries with that Home Alone defense, you can at least prevent the choke. Sounds good in theory, right? Well, it's actually not. Although that kind of defense, the Home Alone defense in this case, although it does slow down the chances of you getting submitted, it doesn't stop them entirely. If I am underneath you and you're mounted on me, and I cover up access to my carotid arteries with that Home Alone defense, yeah, sure, I might be able to delay the inevitable. I might be able to delay you submitting me, but I'm not stopping you from doing it. If you're a good grappler, you're just going to persistently keep attacking me from that position. And eventually, you're probably going to get something. Either you're going to get the choke on me, or you're going to force me to react, which will open up some sort of other opportunity for you where maybe you can do an armbar or an Americana or something else. My suggestion is, when you are defending in Jiu-Jitsu, make sure you are always defending with purpose. And that purpose needs to be getting out of that bad position. Every defense should have the goal of advancing position and escaping that bad position. If you are just delaying the inevitable, it's not a good defense. I bring this up because many beginner defenses basically just stall and slow down the inevitable. A good defense is not just about stalling. You should always be trying to focus on how to get out of there. Another example you will see from bottom mount, especially in MMA, is people covering up to prevent themselves from getting struck when they're on the bottom. An example that comes to mind for me is when Kimbo Slice was fighting Matt Mitrione in the UFC and lost. Matt Mitrione took mount on Kimbo and just teed off on his face. Kimbo's Jiu-Jitsu was not good enough to get out. So he just sat on the bottom covering his chin. And the result was Matt Mitrione just teed off on Kimbo over and over again until the referee eventually got bored of this and stopped the fight and awarded it to Matt. A good defense is where you are not just preventing harm to yourself, but you are also trying to advance your position. When people criticize positions like turtle, usually their criticism is not of the turtle position itself, but the criticism is that when people play turtle, they tend to do so and not defend with purpose. When you think of someone who's playing turtle, you often think of someone who's curled up in a ball on the floor. And it's easy to criticize that strategy because if you sit there in a fully defensive position, you'll never get out. And even if your defense is really good, it's only a matter of time before your opponent is able to break through even the best defense. So a defense that just involves stalling out and stopping your opponent is not enough. You need to be advancing. A good turtle player will be using this position to try to get out. They'll be trying to either get up to their feet or reguard or double leg or single leg or do something that turns that position into an attack again. By just defending, you are not being successful in Jiu-Jitsu and you're just stalling the inevitable. Make sure that everything you do is with the intent of advancing your position and getting to a better place. This is a really helpful topic, especially for beginners who tend to look at defense as only one way. A good defense is also about switching back and getting onto the attack again. If this kind of discussion is helpful for you, please do check out BJJ Mental Models. You can get full-length episodes of our podcast plus mini episodes like this and our newsletter, all completely free at BJJ Mental Models.com. That is also the home of BJJ Mental Models Premium, the world's largest audio library of Jiu-Jitsu courses on concept, strategy, tactics, philosophy, and mindset. Do consider leveling up with us there if you haven't already. All of this is at BJJ Mental Models.com. Thank you so much for listening and I will talk to you in the next episode.