Aaron Shutt

If you’re good at real sports, you’d never become a hybrid athlete. If you’re okay at sports, become a hybrid athlete. If you’re bad at all sports, try Jiu-Jitsu.

Oh, damn

The real "fundamentals" of grappling: When I played baseball, "fundamental baseball" involved throwing, catching, baserunning, making contact, and fielding. When we think of a fundamentals class in Jiu-Jitsu, we think of closed guard arm bars. That's not right. The "fundamentals" are not techniques; they're the basic things you must be able to do to eventually do advanced things in the sport. These are the 5 real fundamentals: ----------- 1. Base. What is base? At a fundamental level, the base is simply not falling over. Not falling over when someone pushes you. Not going down when someone tries to take you down. Staying in the pocket. Once you can stay up without falling over, you can graduate to more advanced movements. ----------- 2. Off-balance. Just like in baseball, where hitting AND fielding are fundamental, the opposing action of base should be fundamental as well. Can you make somebody fall over? Can you put a standing opponent on the ground? Can you make their hands or hips touch the mat so you can pin them? Good grapplers are masters of off-balance. ----------- 3. Pinning. After you off-balance someone and get them down, the next skill to master is pinning. When you get someone down, can you keep them down? It's like Craig Jones said, "Jiu-Jitsu doesn't work if you just stand up." Don't let them get up. ----------- 4. Pin escapes. Just like the inverse of base is off-balance, the inverse of pinning is pin escapes. It's also fundamental to our sport. Even if you have no skills except being extremely hard to hold down, you're an effective grappler. Learn how to escape pins and not be pinned. ----------- 5. Grip-fighting. Every exchange in grappling involves grip-fighting to some degree. We fight with our hands on our feet. We fight with feet and hands in the guard. All of this is done to gain inside position, put someone down, keep them down, and finally, submit them. But if you can't grip-fight, you lose at phase 1. ----------- I posted briefly about this last week, but if I were running a fundamentals class, we would not spend all of our time doing arm bars, Omoplatas, and Americas. If you focused on the 5 things above, you'd build really solid grapplers without even teaching them submissions. Injury rate would, in theory, drop. By the time submissions are added, the students will be excellent at all of the preceding skills. Try to name a part of Jiu-Jitsu that does not contain these 5 components. Even ideas like "positioning" or "timing" are skills developed through learning these 5 "fundamental" skills. I'm not the brightest of light bulbs, but I can't think of many exceptions. If you're in the same boat, it's pretty fair to say that these are the 5 essential skills you should be focusing on in your training.

Lt. General Thomas Johnathan "Stonewall" Jackson was a man with noted peculiarities and undeniable military genius. "Tom Fool" to his students at VMI, "Old Blue Light" to his his men, Jackson was a devoted Christian who served his God, and brought death and destruction to his enemies. Born in what is now West Virginia Jackson became estranged from his family for serving the Southern cause, including his favorite sister with whom he often corresponded before the war. He walked with a peculiar gait, sometimes held an arm in the air to balance his internal organs, and often sucked on lemons. Though gifted fine uniforms, he didn't care for the pomp and finery. Approached by a little girl at a house where he was visiting with Lee & staff, Jackson peeled the braid off his kepi and gave it to the girl to her delight. When next he visited and learned she had passed of an illness he wept openly. The same man who, when asked what was to be done with the enemy who plundered and pillaged the homes in Fredericksburg replied, "Kill them. Kill them all." During his Valley Campaign, where he almost miraculously beat three different armies in turn, Jackson pushed his men to the limit and beyond, saying, "I'm obliged to sweat these men tonight so that I might save their blood tomorrow." Jackson, who achieved such fame, looked so disreputable in worn clothing, slouching against a fence, the following occurred. A wounded northerner, hearing the great Jackson was nearby, asked to be lifted up so that he might see him. Upon seeing him, he became dispirited and said, "Oh God. Lay me down." His men howled, and the story spread quickly through his army, and when they were pushed by Jackson they would often say among themselves, "Oh God. Lay me down." At Harper's Ferry Union soldiers expressed similar sentiments, but also, "I wish we had him." Jackson formed a working relationship with Lee that resulted in further victories against overwhelming odds. On the eve of his greatest success Jackson was shot by his own men after scouting the front lines after dark. He developed pneumonia, and with his wife by his side he crossed over the river to rest under the shade of the trees on May 10, 1863. The Southern nation was heartbroken, and Jackson remains the greatest "what if?" of the whole war; what would have happened differently if he'd survived?