From my understanding of what was taught at the Gracie University by Masters Rener and Ryron Gracie, Jiu Jitsu, just like any martial arts, is practiced as per the understanding and research of the grandmaster of the particular art form. The Gracie’s version of BJJ is much popular and widely accepted as they laid the foundations essentially in the US, and popularised it through UFC. However, now that the whole scenario has evolved to a much different level, they have also adapted to the same, and narrowed down all the things to the most fundamental units to understand their art form. The key learnings for this first week of me watching their lectures, are the following:

Control

BJJ is all about control. As long as the one who is practicing this martial art is able to gain control of their own mind, emotions and thoughts, he / she will be able to take control of the situation much easily and quickly as compared to the one on the offending side. This key philosophy of “Total Control” of the Gracie’s BJJ is derived from the fact that this style gives the ability to gain control over the opponent, and succeed in winning the fight / confrontation without harming / getting harmed. This is something that is highlighted throughout various techniques taught by them in the courses as well. Both of these ideas go hand in hand, because if you don’t have control over yourself and your mind, then you won’t have control over your actions, and because of that, you won’t have control of the opponent either, giving them an advantage despite you been better trained than them.

Efficiency

The way the techniques are executed, and the way that the fight goes down, really has to be efficient in terms of energy. It can’t be the case where the key focus is on executing the technique and bringing the opponent down rather than waiting for the right time to do so. The opponent is a human being, capable of getting exhausted too. This fact is to be utilised in a situation where the aggressor is going all out on you and gives you that window to execute the necessary technique to bring the person down and be at an advantage. If the tables are turned and you exhaust yourself unnecessarily, it’s a clear pathway to defeat.

Knowing when to strike

As quoted by the Masters, BJJ is a complete self defence in itself. If you use it in offence, it probably won’t do any good, especially in a street fight scenario. In a sporty setting, where there are people judging you and scoring you based on your strikes / techniques / etc, it may be a good idea to worry about those parameters, but when things get real, even in the matter of life and death, it is vital to engage in a defensive manner and to use the techniques to survive and thrive rather than dominate and eliminate. Perhaps, there can be a mix of all those elements too (survive, thrive, dominate, eliminate) based on the situation, but I don’t really endorse violence, just like the Masters.

Growing

As someone who practices a martial art, the aim is to reach the highest rank, the “Black belt”. However, the masters indicate that it is indeed all that it is, just a rank, a title. It is “earned” through the right mindset and practice. That comes with the idea of sharing, understanding and practicing the art very intimately. Their anecdotes of teaching and how it helped them to get better in practice is something worth noting. The idea that merely practicing it is not enough, but also helping someone practice and being open to new ideas is much more important. The different types of opponents can be categorised by their size and their experience in martial arts. This was narrowed down to only 4 types by the masters. If one can beat the toughest type of opponent, a bigger sized opponent who is experienced in Jiu Jitsu, is when a person is close to becoming a “Black belt”. Though, the journey matters, not the end result.

Ezekiel rope choke

One of the choke variations is the Ezekiel choke. It is a kind of a triangular choke which puts pressure on the carotid artery, used to control the opponent by making them pass out. There were a number of variations taught for this, primarily, the opponent has to be in a semi-mounted position, where you have the ability to wrap your legs around their hips for the grip. With the most minimum distance between the torsos, you will grab their shirt / t-shirt / hoodie from the bottom, and roll it up to the top to make a “rope”. This is essentially a bundle of the cloth which is a little thicker than a single fold of the cloth itself. This helps in creating a kind of a pivot when using the other two hands to execute the choke from the front, as this rope acts like an extra hand / arm which is putting pressure on the neck as per our desired action. There are 2 main variations depending on the distance from the torso:

1. Holding the rope with the left hand, palm facing down, entering from in the front of the opponent and gripping from the opponents left side (essentially a cross-like formation, where your left arm is holding the rope from their left side). The right arm then goes from the top of your left arm, towards the right side of the opponent, and grab the rope real good with the palm facing up. Now, with a pushing motion, grip tightly to the rope, straighten the arms a little and shift towards your right side, which will put the pressure on the opponent’s right side of the neck. This technique can be utilised if the distance between the torsos is a little too much, maybe a full / half arms length.
2. In the case where there is little to no distance between the torso, maybe you have intentionally / unintentionally engaged in a hug like position. In this case, one hand can be used to ensure the grip with the hug, and the second hand can be used for a raking action of pulling the cloth up for the rope. Once the rope is within the reach of the second arm, use that arm to grab the rope and create the entry for the second hand. The second hand, will now enter from beneath the cloth, reach around from the front of the throat of the opponent and grab the forearm of the hand that is holding the rope. Confirming that the triangle has been formed, just grip tight, and start to extend your arms forward to put generate the pressure on the neck.

This is a very effective method for opponent submission as the slightest of movement from your side will put immense pressure on their neck and arteries, leading to a quick and easy submission. The following things are to be considered:

• Tighter pressure leads to faster and easier submission;
• The rope should be reasonable, and should not just slip away / tear off without serving it’s intended purpose;
• This technique of creating a rope is ideal if the cloth worn by the opponent is a stretchable / semi-stretchable, t-shirt like outfit, where you can grab and create movement with some ease, without letting the thing slip off;
• IN CASE, the clothing is appropriate but the fibres are too tight to fold, you can directly utilise the collar itself by doing a few folds, where you potentially tear off a little bit of the front to make some more space and have more folds, and do the cross-like hold from the front after and execute the choke;

Americana armlock

An effective and comprehensive submission, taught by the Masters. It has a different approach as you would have to be in a mounted position, sitting on the belly / hips area of the opponent to execute this. It is possible to execute it in a semi mounted position where you are blocking the lower half of the opponent using your torso by laying on either sides of the opponent. The technique is to isolate one of the arms of the opponent by pinning it down with both hands. Then, using the arm that is closest to the opponent’s head, you bend your elbow down and block their neck by placing your elbow right above the shoulder and besides the neck. To avoid getting scratched or punched, you can ensure moving your head / face a little away from theirs and possibly use the weight of your head on the hands that is holding down the opponent’s arm. Then, take the arm that is not blocking their neck, grip tight using the other hand, and slide the hand from underneath the opponents arm to lock on with your other forearm. With this, you’ll be able to create a pivot, putting pressure on the opponent’s shoulder, which you can leverage by sliding their arm towards you and gradually lifting it. With enough force and speed, you can break the arm off too, with much ease. However, the idea is to be in a negotiating position during the submission. There are a lot of things to consider due to our positioning with respect to the opponent in this technique, such as:

• The opponent will certainly try to break free by moving around, doing some pushing and / or pulling motion with their free hand and body weight. It is important to lock with the body of the opponent using your legs to maintain the grip and execute the technique proficiently. An intuitive way to understand would be like this: if the opponent is pushing you from the side of their free hand, their body will be directed against you from that side as well, and in order to counter that, you should create a hook with your leg which is facing that particular side, by hooking beneath their leg so that the push has little to no effect on your body as it is locked with their body weight as well. This is a useful observation for various other techniques where you have to utilise the body weight of the opponent in your favour to execute techniques like these. On the other hand, if they try to pull you away with the free hand, then you should just switch the leg for the hook, creating the same effect.
• In case you are in the correct mount position but cannot get the opportunity to perform the lock with both hands at the same time because you have to maintain lesser distance between the torso (almost hugging the opponent), in that case, you can just lock the arm down with one hand and try to pull it towards the head of the opponent slowly by exhausting them, and then reach from under their head to grip with the second hand. While in that same position, ensure that the hand which is gripping from under the head is firm, release the other hand, reach from under their locked arm to grip with your forearm. Then quickly transition from the hugging state to the locking state by shifting your elbow to their shoulder (of the locked side) and executing the lock with the slides and lift. Note: you will still have to ensure the leg hooks work because the opponent might try to bring you down at the first chance.

Just like any other technique, you will have to execute it only after assessing your opponent’s moves and possibly exhausting them so that you can use your energy to deliver an effective submission technique.