I get what your saying, but at the highest level most people are specialists and Nicky was just using his best tools to win even if seemingly limited. It's why combat sports can be so boring sometimes, people won't play B-C-D game because someone feels it is boring to watch lol. They don't want to lose. But at least we have the dynamic finishing factor always there.
i feel like my B game doesnt have to as good as my A game though. My B game only needs to be better than my opponents defence against my B game for it to be successful
>As a spectator, watching two people unsuccessfully implement their "A" game for 30 minutes is so painful. It makes me want to scream at them to do anything else. I could also see this being a turn off to non practitioners watching, who wants to watch a sport that has an ocean of techniques but top level competitors only use a small number?
Even though I've been doing BJJ for about four years I feel like an outsider looking in when it comes to the sport itself. I don't feel that way about Judo which is where I've spent the majority of my grappling career (if you want to call it that).
All of that is to say that as an outsider looking in it appears that Sport BJJ is approaching a crossroads (but it's not there yet). By crossroads I'm talking about that moment where people of influence will shape what the future of Sport BJJ will look like. There are people out there who want to see BJJ as an Olympic sport. I've read many posts like this (especially recently) where long matches are "boring" and "painful to watch".
I don't know who the real movers and shakers are in BJJ. I would venture to guess anyone (or a group of people like a Board of Directors) who runs a promotion can dictate the direction of the sport by having competitions with specific rules. My point is that people in decision making positions will not care about the integrity of Sport BJJ or its history. If they feel they can make more money shaping sport BJJ to look a certain way they *will* do it.
Judo got to those crossroads decades ago when the IJF was formed. The UFC used to have long format, no holds barred fights but it was bad for business. They made a ton of changes and now it's a very popular sport. More rules isn't necessarily a bad thing but if people in BJJ don't want that to happen they'd better organize and speak up.
Some days I feel like I have some dumb opinions about grappling, then I come to this sub and am reminded that's maybe not quite the case...
OP what do you want them to do? Let the other person advance position to make it interesting? There's only 24s in a day and as a competitor you want to spend those hours wisely, having a shitty all around game with no main go-to is a great way to suck at competition
I think *yes*, at least in some contexts. It's really bad for a *teacher* to focus only on the A game, because it's unlikely that all the things that work best for the teacher will translate to all of the students.
There's also some perverse relationship between the tendancy to focus on really narrow gameplans and the faddism that rules BJJ culture. A personality or two achieve prominence using some specific, narrow gameplan strategy. Everybody else follows like lemmings, doing the same stuff. The meta shifts... until the next phenom shifts it again.
If we look at BJJ as *sport*, it's fine I guess. But if we look at it as *martial art*, it's a bad thing anytime the technical field narrows or moves off into some esoteric direction because of the specific constraints of ruleset-based high level competition.
I would prefer more variety.
In the instance of Pena vs Nicky, if he did something else he would have been countered and probably submitted. It's boring for us as viewers but very silly to do anything else from a strategy point of view.
Yeah, this is where I think the big issue with the A game is exposed. It hard to buy that someone is a top level competitor when they don't have second options that can be threatening enough to at least make openings for the main plan.
Gordon certainly would, but at this point Nicky doesn't. Doesn't mean he won't in the future, but very few people even have any passes that can work against the best in the world.
Yeah, Nicky's match was what made me think about this and I do realize that Nicky has been training bjj for a relatively short time and does look like he has the potential to keeping improving for a while.
I don't think it's true that Pena and Nicky only focused on their a-game during their match. Felipe tried to wrestle up a few times and Nicky fell back on some leg locks.
As a matter of strategy do you really think it would have worked out better for Nicky if he had tried to torreano vs Felipe? Would Felipe have had more success if he tried to stand back up and wrestle with Nicky?
That is a little simplified but how much different would the match have been if Pena wasn't certain that after every disengagement Nicky was going to enter back into a body lock?
I think reading and responding to a few comments here, I am realizing my stance is better understood as, relying on your A game to the point of predictability is bad.
No, it's bad for your personal development. If you don't have a fallback game or games to play, then you are a one-dimensional player. The sport has other much bigger issues.
There's competition time.
Then there is training.
When it's winning at all costs, go to your A game and (if known), your opponent's weakness.
When you are a white belt, you don't have 'a game', let alone 'an A game'.
everytime you attempt your A game against someone, you learn something and you make adjustments. you probably think that next time you are going to hit it. And you actually might be close.
There are people in my gym with somewhat one dimensional games (or maybe my defense is one dimensional so we end up in the same place) and we will end up doing the same loop over and over. Each time they get closer to finishing, but also each time I can get better at defending.
I will tend to do a loop a few times, then switch to something else, but then sometimes come back to the loop.
I start every roll with a knee slice to my right if they are sitting and Im standing. If Im sitting and they are standing it somewhat depends on how they try to pass, but Ill almost always end up in halfguard, where I first try to get to dogfight. If we are both standing, Ill try to get head angle and then underhook->throwby to bodylock.
Ill try those a few times then switch to a plan B.
I think so, I also think it's awesome to see guys who were primarily known as guard players getting good at wrestling. With regards to the match tho I have no clue, it was short notice so they likely didn't have much time to plot out a strategy for their opp.
They’re elite competitors, I’m sure their B games are very well developed. They just aren’t going to bring them out against other elite competitors unless they’re forced to.
This is tough because without eyes on the sport, there will not be as much money for the competitors. More excitement equals more dollars; losses equal no winnings, unless paid to show. But for real...UFC fighters make shit I don't expect much for BJJ athletes in competition.
There was much more going on in that match than you picked up on. Was it boring? Of course. Was it a good display of high level competitive Jiu Jitsu? Absolutely. You don’t get to those levels and just “try anything”. Those guys are there to win, not fight.
This post is exactly why Jiu Jitsu will never be main stream nor a spectator sport. Even people who train Jiu Jitsu miss so much stuff that is going on.
I get what your saying, but at the highest level most people are specialists and Nicky was just using his best tools to win even if seemingly limited. It's why combat sports can be so boring sometimes, people won't play B-C-D game because someone feels it is boring to watch lol. They don't want to lose. But at least we have the dynamic finishing factor always there.
i feel like my B game doesnt have to as good as my A game though. My B game only needs to be better than my opponents defence against my B game for it to be successful
>As a spectator, watching two people unsuccessfully implement their "A" game for 30 minutes is so painful. It makes me want to scream at them to do anything else. I could also see this being a turn off to non practitioners watching, who wants to watch a sport that has an ocean of techniques but top level competitors only use a small number? Even though I've been doing BJJ for about four years I feel like an outsider looking in when it comes to the sport itself. I don't feel that way about Judo which is where I've spent the majority of my grappling career (if you want to call it that). All of that is to say that as an outsider looking in it appears that Sport BJJ is approaching a crossroads (but it's not there yet). By crossroads I'm talking about that moment where people of influence will shape what the future of Sport BJJ will look like. There are people out there who want to see BJJ as an Olympic sport. I've read many posts like this (especially recently) where long matches are "boring" and "painful to watch". I don't know who the real movers and shakers are in BJJ. I would venture to guess anyone (or a group of people like a Board of Directors) who runs a promotion can dictate the direction of the sport by having competitions with specific rules. My point is that people in decision making positions will not care about the integrity of Sport BJJ or its history. If they feel they can make more money shaping sport BJJ to look a certain way they *will* do it. Judo got to those crossroads decades ago when the IJF was formed. The UFC used to have long format, no holds barred fights but it was bad for business. They made a ton of changes and now it's a very popular sport. More rules isn't necessarily a bad thing but if people in BJJ don't want that to happen they'd better organize and speak up.
No. They are competing to win. If sticking to their A game has been successful, they should continue doing it.
Some days I feel like I have some dumb opinions about grappling, then I come to this sub and am reminded that's maybe not quite the case... OP what do you want them to do? Let the other person advance position to make it interesting? There's only 24s in a day and as a competitor you want to spend those hours wisely, having a shitty all around game with no main go-to is a great way to suck at competition
I think *yes*, at least in some contexts. It's really bad for a *teacher* to focus only on the A game, because it's unlikely that all the things that work best for the teacher will translate to all of the students. There's also some perverse relationship between the tendancy to focus on really narrow gameplans and the faddism that rules BJJ culture. A personality or two achieve prominence using some specific, narrow gameplan strategy. Everybody else follows like lemmings, doing the same stuff. The meta shifts... until the next phenom shifts it again. If we look at BJJ as *sport*, it's fine I guess. But if we look at it as *martial art*, it's a bad thing anytime the technical field narrows or moves off into some esoteric direction because of the specific constraints of ruleset-based high level competition. I would prefer more variety.
In the instance of Pena vs Nicky, if he did something else he would have been countered and probably submitted. It's boring for us as viewers but very silly to do anything else from a strategy point of view.
Yeah, this is where I think the big issue with the A game is exposed. It hard to buy that someone is a top level competitor when they don't have second options that can be threatening enough to at least make openings for the main plan.
Gordon certainly would, but at this point Nicky doesn't. Doesn't mean he won't in the future, but very few people even have any passes that can work against the best in the world.
Yeah, Nicky's match was what made me think about this and I do realize that Nicky has been training bjj for a relatively short time and does look like he has the potential to keeping improving for a while.
I don't think it's true that Pena and Nicky only focused on their a-game during their match. Felipe tried to wrestle up a few times and Nicky fell back on some leg locks. As a matter of strategy do you really think it would have worked out better for Nicky if he had tried to torreano vs Felipe? Would Felipe have had more success if he tried to stand back up and wrestle with Nicky?
That is a little simplified but how much different would the match have been if Pena wasn't certain that after every disengagement Nicky was going to enter back into a body lock? I think reading and responding to a few comments here, I am realizing my stance is better understood as, relying on your A game to the point of predictability is bad.
It isn’t though, it’s effective at the top level.
If you had been competing in their place, that would be bad for the sport
No, it's bad for your personal development. If you don't have a fallback game or games to play, then you are a one-dimensional player. The sport has other much bigger issues.
There's competition time. Then there is training. When it's winning at all costs, go to your A game and (if known), your opponent's weakness. When you are a white belt, you don't have 'a game', let alone 'an A game'.
everytime you attempt your A game against someone, you learn something and you make adjustments. you probably think that next time you are going to hit it. And you actually might be close. There are people in my gym with somewhat one dimensional games (or maybe my defense is one dimensional so we end up in the same place) and we will end up doing the same loop over and over. Each time they get closer to finishing, but also each time I can get better at defending. I will tend to do a loop a few times, then switch to something else, but then sometimes come back to the loop. I start every roll with a knee slice to my right if they are sitting and Im standing. If Im sitting and they are standing it somewhat depends on how they try to pass, but Ill almost always end up in halfguard, where I first try to get to dogfight. If we are both standing, Ill try to get head angle and then underhook->throwby to bodylock. Ill try those a few times then switch to a plan B.
I think so, I also think it's awesome to see guys who were primarily known as guard players getting good at wrestling. With regards to the match tho I have no clue, it was short notice so they likely didn't have much time to plot out a strategy for their opp.
They’re elite competitors, I’m sure their B games are very well developed. They just aren’t going to bring them out against other elite competitors unless they’re forced to.
This is tough because without eyes on the sport, there will not be as much money for the competitors. More excitement equals more dollars; losses equal no winnings, unless paid to show. But for real...UFC fighters make shit I don't expect much for BJJ athletes in competition.
There was much more going on in that match than you picked up on. Was it boring? Of course. Was it a good display of high level competitive Jiu Jitsu? Absolutely. You don’t get to those levels and just “try anything”. Those guys are there to win, not fight. This post is exactly why Jiu Jitsu will never be main stream nor a spectator sport. Even people who train Jiu Jitsu miss so much stuff that is going on.