Mini Ep. 94: Kinetic Chains

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 2: 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. In this mini episode, we want to talk about kinetic chains. This term comes from mechanical engineering and is widely used in physiology and sport training. Now, we have to be careful not to sniff our own farts here. Jiu-jitsu loves co-opting fancy language to sound smarter, but in this case, kinetic chain is the proper term. A kinetic chain explains how jointed structures move. For us, that means our arms and legs. Your arm has three major joints, shoulder, elbow, and wrist. Your leg has three, hip, knee, and ankle. When one joint moves, it affects the others in the chain. Take the arm bar. If I want to finish you, I need to immobilize all three joints in your arm. If I loosen control of your shoulder and apply breaking pressure to your elbow, that force can bleed into the shoulder. But if I immobilize the whole chain, the finish becomes much stronger. That's the kinetic chain in action. There are two types of kinetic chains, open and closed. An open kinetic chain means the end is free. If I wave my hand, my arm is open, it's not connected to anything. A closed kinetic chain means the end is attached. If I grab your lapel, my arm becomes closed. If I plant my foot on the floor, my leg becomes closed. My stance is that closed kinetic chains are better in jiu-jitsu. When you connect your limbs, you create stronger structures. You can clasp your hands for a body lock, which lets you hold or follow your opponent. You can create hooks with your feet and now you can track your opponent's motion. You can frame with two connected arms instead of one, that can often create a stronger framing structure. When you have an open kinetic chain, your options are limited. If your hands or feet aren't connected to anything, you can't grip, hook, clamp, or generate base. As an example, think about the stack pass. If I lift your feet into the air, they're open chains. You can't push off anything. That makes the pass easier. But if you connect your feet to my body, now you've got closed chains. You can push, create space, and defend. A lot of jiu-jitsu works by forcing your opponent into open kinetic chains, which takes away their grips, hooks, base, and clamps. If you can prevent your opponent's hands or feet from connecting with anything, you can make your jiu-jitsu game much more effective. So here's the takeaway, create closed kinetic chains for yourself and force open kinetic chains on your opponent. This is a simple concept with huge applicability. We talked about ideas like this a lot at BJJ Mental Models. You can get our full-length episodes, mini episodes like this, and our newsletter completely free at BJJmentalmodels.com. And if you want to level up with us, check out BJJ Mental Models Premium, the world's largest audio library of jiu-jitsu master classes on strategy, tactics, mindset, philosophy, and concepts. All of that is at BJJmentalmodels.com. Thanks so much. We'll talk to you soon.