Mini Ep. 72: Solid Frames

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 mini episode, I want to talk about frames. Most specifically, I want to talk about the difference between good frames and bad frames. You're going to be using your your arms or your legs as frames. There's times when you can even use your head or your spine as a frame. Because distance control is so important in a martial art like jiu-jitsu, we often need to be creating frames to help manage that distance. This most often comes up when you're on the defense, when you're trying to keep someone away from you so that you can create space so that you can improve your position. In order to do that, you will often use frames because those give you the space to make that movement happen. But not all frames are good frames. Some frames are better than others. A good frame is a strong frame, and that means that it's using your bone structure and containing as few joints as possible that could be collapsed on you. So, as an example, think of the stiff arm. You will see this in jiu-jitsu sometimes where people will stick their arm out straight to keep someone away from them. At the right angle, that can be effective. However, the problem with the stiff arm is that there are several joints at play that if they collapse, it makes the whole frame fall apart. If your opponent is able to collapse your wrist or your elbow or your shoulder, that frame is no longer helpful to you. And additionally, if you straight arm and your opponent does something to collapse those joints, that could lead to injury on your part. If you are trying to use a straight stiff arm frame, that is only going to work if the angle lines up with the force that your opponent is pushing towards you. And a good opponent is going to be trying to change their angle so that they can get past your frame. So, straight arm frames do work, but they're often a bit challenging and you have to be very careful with them. You can also do short-range frames. So, most commonly, if you are in bottom side control, you are probably going to be framing against your opponent with your forearms. That would be a short-range frame where your arm is not fully extended. Now, the rules for a good frame are that number one, they should rely on the strongest parts of your body, and that means bone structure, not muscle. If your frames are only working because you're bench pressing the person to keep them at a distance, that's not a good frame. A good frame should work because you're using your skeleton to keep your opponent at bay and not your muscles. Muscles can fatigue. If they put enough force into you, your muscles are going to eventually gas out. Your skeleton isn't going to do that. So, the other characteristic of a good frame is that it should contain few or no joints that your opponent can collapse. Again, in your arm, you've got three major joints. You've got your shoulder, you've got your elbow, and you've got your wrist. If it is easy for your opponent to collapse any of those joints, it doesn't matter how strong your skeleton is, the frame is not going to hold, and then you've got that risk of injury. So, a good frame will make sure that your joints aren't in a position where they can collapse. If you want an example of such a frame that's kind of hard to collapse, think again of that bottom side control where you've got your forearms pushing against your opponent and you're keeping your elbows in tight because it's going to be hard for them to do much to your wrist, as long as you keep them out of their grip. It's going to be hard for them to collapse your elbow because it's already tight in, and it's going to be hard for them to collapse your shoulder because with your elbows tight, your shoulders aren't going to be moving much. Now, the downside to those close-range frames where you're really tight is that they're really close range. Sometimes what you want to do with a frame is keep someone far away, and if you want to keep them as far away as possible, you want to extend your arm or your leg to do that. The more you extend your arm or your leg, the more risk you run of allowing them to collapse that frame by changing their angle. So, again, back to this example, if I am in bottom side control, my elbows are in tight, and I'm framing against you with my forearm, you're going to be really close range to me, but it's going to be really hard for you to collapse those frames. They're going to be stuck pretty tight and I can keep using them to make space and ultimately try to defend myself. Now, if I am, say, denying a guard pass and instead of keeping my elbows in tight, maybe I stiff arm you, that will keep you at a longer distance, but then I do have to worry about those joints in my arm collapsing if they change the angle of their body. So, my general advice is if you are going to do a short-range frame where you've got your elbows in tight, the best situation to do that is if your opponent is already in close to you, or alternately, you need to maintain your safety. So, you'll see those kind of short-range frames in positions like bottom side control and bottom mount. For a long-range frame where your arm is fully extended, this is going to be where you need a little bit more space and where you have more movement options. So, often this comes up when you are attempting to block a guard pass. However, it's worth pointing out that you can use either of these frames in different situations. Um, I will often use short-range frames to block a guard pass. The downside to that, though, is that you're often blocking later rather than earlier because your frames are shorter. The longer your frames are, the more opportunity you have to keep your opponent from getting close to you. So, just something to think about, to quickly recap, not all frames are created equal. The strongest frames are going to rely on your bone structure rather than your muscle, and they're going to contain as few joints as possible that could be collapsed. When you keep that in mind, using both of these tools is going to allow you to manage the distance better and also understand when you can use a frame safely versus when there could be a risk of injury. If you like this, go to BJJmentalmodels.com for more. We've got a lot of mini episodes and full-length podcast episodes that are completely free. We've also got our database of concepts, including a write-up on solid frames. All of that again is at no cost. If you want to level up with us and develop your mindset, your concepts, your strategy, your tactics, that's what BJJ Mental Models Premium is for. We've got multiple different tiers depending on your need. At the base tier, you get an amazing library of content courses and premium podcasts, right up to full coaching and business support if you escalate up to the above tiers. All of that is at BJJmentalmodels.com. Thank you so much for listening and I'll talk to you in the next episode.