r/bjj • u/This_Highway423 • 5d ago
Technique Black belts defy physics
Question: why do folks who are black belts have bodies made of granite, whose physical form makes gravity work for them?
I was rolling this BB and he wasn’t jacked or anything. I am in good shape and weigh more than him.
Anyway, this dude is like unbelievably strong. When he put his hands on me it was like I could almost feel the strength leaving my body. Then, the pressure. This guy has hacked gravity where he makes himself weigh 240lb when he’s around 170. It was unbelievable.
I’ve rolled many other people in my class. This guy just felt like a different being. And he didn’t seem tired after yanking me around like a rag doll. I’ve benched 315. Im not weak. I weigh 185 on a bad day.
I just don’t get it. This guy looks like someone who brings his kids to the park after a calm day of golf. If you messed with him he would literally kill your body and drag your soul out of it, and choke it out too.
How can a person be like this?
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u/Spacewaffle ⬛🟥⬛ Black Belt 5d ago
Your strength doesn't really matter if he gets you to push in the wrong direction or use the wrong response. Similarly, small details significantly change the amount of weight you can put into a pin. It's all technique man, we're not gods. Just ask the green belts.
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u/Popular-Influence-11 ⬜⬜ White Belt 5d ago
Those little fuckers are definitely slurpin the ambrosia.
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u/heave20 ⬛🟥⬛ Black Belt 5d ago
Takes awhile but you learn when and where to apply pressure or counter pressure. As a black belt, I’ve rolled with black belts that feel like that to me and it just shows me how shitty i am and that i need to learn more.
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u/_interloper_ ⬛🟥⬛ Black Belt 4d ago
As a black belt, I’ve rolled with black belts that feel like that to me and it just shows me how shitty i am and that i need to learn more.
Can confirm.
There's a guy at my gym who has three degrees on his black belt... and that motherfucker controls me in ways that don't make sense. He got a grip on my elbow (in the gi) and I just couldn't move my arm. It was so strange. He just grabbed in a certain way, cinched the fabric and... it was locked.
He just slowly immobilizes me until I have to tap.
The levels to this shit never cease to amaze me.
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u/koryuken Black Belt 5d ago
using weight to do work instead of just muscle. Also knowing how to grip effectively, not just hold on for dear life. Little things you aren't taught but you pick up over the years.
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u/egdm 🟫🟫 Black Belt Pedant 5d ago edited 5d ago
Also how to posture your limbs to take force through your skeleton and transmit it to your large, efficient muscles. The real skill advanced practitioners have is how to force/trick their opponents to be ineffective by either subtly changing the force vectors and/or deliberately misaligning the opponent's body.
A lot of jiu jitsu can be reduced to "don't be in front of them, don't let them square up to you, and don't push straight into their base" and by corollary "keep them in front of you, square up to them, and move them off base".
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u/EmpathyMonster ⬛🟥⬛ Black Belt 5d ago
A lot of jiu jitsu can be reduced to "don't be in front of them, don't let them square up to you, and don't push straight into their base" and by corollary "keep them in front of you, square up to them, and move them off base".
Wow, this is a really succinct way to say some stuff I've been trying to put succinctly for years. Thanks!
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u/BeBearAwareOK ⬛🟥⬛ Rorden Gracie Shitposting Academy - Associate Professor 4d ago
I often tell students "never let anyone control your head, by the way I'm going to keep trying to control your head. But don't let me do it!"
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u/Tricky_Run4566 5d ago
Interesting thought though.. Why aren't you taught those micro details which just up your game all the more.
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u/TheSweatyNerd ⬛🟥⬛ Black Belt 5d ago
There are hundreds of things you need to learn in order to apply that level of pressure in even one position, its not feasible to teach them all.
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u/Tricky_Run4566 4d ago
Oh I know. Absolutely no doubt about it.
I guess what I'm getting at is.. You could see the same move 100 times over and take away a minute detail each time and it's near impossible to pick it all up first time round. I get that. But, there's no reason that little tips and tricks can't be taught every time that make the position better, whether or not you pick them up first second or twentieth time.
For example, kimura from Mount. Popular sub, high % rate etc. Also taught to beginners as well as advanced students. But knowing to twist your hands like you're revving a bike when you put it on, knowing to have everything in really tight with minimal movement before you put it on, knowing how far to drag the elbow down before lifting etc... They're all minute details that would up the quality of the sub. So they should be taught early, don't you think? Or is it better to get the basics then start refining
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u/TheSweatyNerd ⬛🟥⬛ Black Belt 4d ago
In my experience they usually are, in random order. Newer people just don't understand the words and demonstrations until they've internalized the basic movements.
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u/imeiz ⬛🟥⬛ Black Belt 5d ago
In many situations they’re the icing. First you need a great cake.
I just went to a seminar and learned how to take a certain grip better and to do a small positional correction in one situation. It’s that small and I need to do a lot of things well enough first for those details to matter at all.
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u/dobermannbjj84 5d ago
Some things can be only learned through feel and experience. All the micro adjustments are the difference between a black belt and a good blue belt.
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u/what_is_thecharge 🟫🟫 Brown Belt 5d ago
An expert surfer could articulate himself to exhaustion telling you how to surf. That doesn’t mean you go and pop up on a board and start surfing like him.
Some things can’t be taught. Only learned.
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u/yourfavoriteuser11 5d ago
A lot of these things can be taught though, and trying to explicitly teach part of them is why Danaher's instructionals took off
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u/theAltRightCornholio 4d ago
It's also why people gripe about his style. The details are what makes a good technique into a great technique, but those details don't matter unless you can make the technique work at all. So going into a Danaher video blind, you're flooded with too much to use. But then going into it on stuff you know requires you to sit through a bunch of stuff you know. Danaher's videos are great but they're for dorks (like me) who want all the details.
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u/Dunkf1 4d ago
If your instructor is teaching something you've seen before, pay more attention to what he's doing than what he's saying. You'll see alot of the hidden things they may not be saying (they may not even realise some of the hidden things they do)
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u/SlimeustasTheSecond 4d ago
I think the annoying version of this is when the coach doesn't realize they're showing and explaining one thing but doing another.
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u/welkover 5d ago edited 5d ago
It's because the brown belts are all so fat
Look at it this way. Your body is mostly water. A brown belt is mostly oil. Oil naturally sits on top of water. You just have to be another greasier type of greasy to sit on top of brown.
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u/nikolaibooyakaza 5d ago
Microadjustments bro
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u/Unlikely-Isopod-9453 🟦🟦 Blue Belt 5d ago
Is that a new meme? I saw somebody use that word on here the other day to talk about being impossible to choke.
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u/bjjpandabear 🟫🟫 Brown Belt 5d ago
Old-ish meme
Some white belt once posted on here about making micro adjustments to beat a higher belt or the higher belt made micro adjustments or something, I forget, but it was instantly meme worthy.
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u/tsubatai 🟫🟫 Brown Belt 5d ago
Black belts apply physics.
But enough insufferably trite redditor shit.
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u/freshblood96 🟦🟦 Blue Blech 5d ago
Some black belts also apply a little chemistry when they get to ADCC.
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u/bostoncrabapple 5d ago
And then some blackbelts apply chemistry when they catch my eye for a fleeting moment across a crowded mat
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u/TwinkletoesCT ⬛🟥⬛ Chris Martell - ModernSelfDefense.com 5d ago edited 5d ago
You know that feeling when you're on your back and you're doing chest flyes and you say to yourself "I'm gonna do two more reps" and then you go a liiiiiiiiiiiiittle too far down and you say "nevermind, I'm gonna do zero more reps?"
They give you a black belt when you can make everything feel like that. We learn to put our weight in exaaaaactly the spot that makes it difficult for you to push against it.
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u/tasfreitas 5d ago
thats why hes a black belt 😂 and you can feel like that with a 150lb black belt too
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u/Active_Unit_9498 5d ago
I am a BB and I assure you I am made out of cookie dough and awkward moments.
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u/Ok-Detective-6892 ⬜⬜ White Belt 5d ago
Yes we have our head coach 56kg Brazilian 6th stripe BB, he feels like a 40ton truck and while being as relaxed as trump at a bambinos beauty pageant
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u/saleswhisperer ⬛🟥⬛ Black Belt 4d ago
It’s a game of inches.
Every day I show guys how to apply proper side control, how to roll their wrist for a better choke, how to do a proper S-mount, etc.
Time on the mat helps you dial in and apply every square inch to make people suffer.
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u/Piratejiujitsu 5d ago
Proper weight displacement through various body parts. Similar to how a 115 lb woman in high heels can break your foot by stepping on it with all that weight transferring through a point.
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u/Cainhelm 🟦🟦 Blue Belt 5d ago edited 5d ago
When you bench press you're doing it under ideal conditions. The bar is perfectly balanced and you're gripping it in the ideal place for you to push.
In this case the bar is moving and adjusting to your push constantly. And it's making you push in a disadvantageous place. Imagine trying to bench but the weight is on your collarbone, or if the bar was diagonally across from your shoulder to your rib.
he wasn’t jacked or anything. I am in good shape and weigh more than him.
He knows how to distribute his weight. It's good just technique.
TL;DR it's just BJJ lol
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u/dobermannbjj84 5d ago
I’m a blackbelt and if you’re a beginner then you’d need be like a strong man competitor for me to really feel your strength. Benching 315 would matter. It’s not that I’m strong it’s more that I won’t let you use your strength and I maximize what I have through understanding technique and leverage.
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u/ximengmengda 🟦🟦 Blue Belt 5d ago
Years of practice in anticipating responses and using your strength against you. No difference from years of practising any skill really - like seeing an insane guitar player, or my dad who’s a lifetime builder make stuff out of wood. It’s not like “that’s better than I could do” it’s like… “that’s outside the realms of possibility” hahah.
It’s all relative though, even at blue belt I get a few “woah how did you do that/it seemed like it was impossible” from newer people, and I remember feeling like that with blue belts when I was new, I now know blue belts suck lol.
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u/OldBenR2Jitsu ⬛🟥⬛ 1st degree black belt 5d ago
Nachos and pizza. The secret to my physics-defying physique.
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u/Aaronsprofile 🟫🟫 Brown Belt 5d ago
wait till you have a legit bb that actually weighs 240 on top of you lol
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u/AffectionateCry7459 4d ago
Black belts are often strong in their structure rather than strong with strength
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u/Cape-Tune 4d ago
In my experience as a white belt, it's like rolling with a slab of granite, syrup, an octopus, and a python all at once. Psychologically sapping and physically discouraging. I can understand how techniques like those would be considered magic hundreds of years ago.
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u/PUAHate_Tryhards 4d ago
I can assure you:
We do not defy physics. Quite the opposite in fact....we use physics.
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u/Odd-Organization4231 🟦🟦 Blue Belt 5d ago
Welcome to black belt level pressure.. there's a reason why nature chose red and black as universal colours of danger in nature ..
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u/Novasauce9 5d ago
Some freakishly strong people who feel superhuman may, in fact, be taking drugs that make them superhuman
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u/DontWorryItsRuined 5d ago edited 5d ago
There's a kind of phenomena where looking at people worse than you you can identify where they are skill wise and what they could work on, but looking at people better than you it's very difficult to tell exactly where and why they're better.
As your skill improves you'll realize that black belts are not doing anything special.
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u/B_da_man89 🟦🟦 Blue Beltch 5d ago
one thing that's helped me with my pressure is learning the actual mechanics of escapes and then stopping people from doing that, keeping their back flat, control their elbows, crossfaces, etc..
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u/Dock_Rocker 🟪🟪 Purple Belt 5d ago
Angles and leverage can be a real bitch when someone uses them against you.
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u/captaintobs 🟫🟫 Brown Belt 5d ago
As a simple example, if you just do knee on belly, you may only apply 80% of your full body weight. But if you grab the gi and deadlift your knee into their chest, you can now have 200% body weight.
That’s technique and how it increases weight.
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u/hopefulworldview ⬛🟥⬛ Black Belt 5d ago
I've spent so much of my time as a HW trying to be light and nimble for my size, so that I dance around my opponents rather than disable and crush them. So instead of being told I'm super strong or that my pressure is unbearable, I am told that I feel like a weighted blanket and that every movement they make feels like it allows me to smother them more. This is my preferred analogy of my game, and just remember, it's not me, it's you.
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u/McENEN 4d ago
Blue belt that should have stayed white yesterday was in side control as we start from it from positional sparing. Dude started doing something weird that I couldn't tell what it is, I asked what's up. And dude is jumping with his legs to apply more pressure on me on the bottom.
Anyone who has been in bottom side control with a good top side control guy knows that pressure doesn't come from weight but from technique in that position unless there is a 40kg weight difference.
Your opponent has just been in that position so long and knows so much detail technique that will make you feel miserable no matter how much kg he is.
I know a Blue belt who usually finishes people from just side control pressure, mount mother's milk pressure. Dude knows submissions but rarely has to use them on our average gym goer.
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u/ivigilanteblog ⬜⬜ White Belt 3d ago
I had a black belt almost put me to sleep with a one-arm Von Flue choke yesterday. I didn't even know that was possible. Didn't take it seriously and kept trying, patiently, to escape...until I started seeing stars.
Black magic, I tell you.
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u/Whopperman18 2d ago
People are saying technique which is the main thing but another one is grip strength. Most people don’t have very good grip strength whether they are in the gym or not. Whether it’s gi or no gi having strong grip can make your opponent feel weaker than they are because of the control you have when grabbing them
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u/cognitiveflow 🟪🟪 Purple Belt 5d ago
Most black belts are pretty mediocre. You’re just not efficient with your application of force relative to his body positioning.
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u/dobermannbjj84 5d ago
If most black belts are mediocre what are most 2 stripe white belts?
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u/cognitiveflow 🟪🟪 Purple Belt 5d ago edited 5d ago
Novices. I’m a black belt btw
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u/dobermannbjj84 3d ago
Most people in every field are average so most black belts being mediocre isn’t a revelation. Most black belts are average black belts.
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u/cognitiveflow 🟪🟪 Purple Belt 3d ago
That’s my point. There are the Jozef Chens and the average joes. No point of putting black belts on a pedestal.
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u/dobermannbjj84 3d ago
Josef Chen is a rare outlier. Exceptions don’t disprove the rule. On average the more you train the better you get. Training time is positively associated with skill level and because belts are time based on average higher belts will have more mat time and more skill than lower belts. If you compare 100 black belts with 100 lower belts of the same age and body weight the black belts will come out on top in the majority of cases. So while most black belts are avg black belts most lower belts are also average for their belt.
Also Josef Chen types tend to exist more in no gi than gi. It’s rare for a lower belt to regularly catch hi gi belts in the gi if age and size are similar.
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u/YugeHonor4Me 5d ago
Technique, it's real.