One of the big things promoted by the Gracie gyms and making a big impact on the BJJ community lately is the concept of "keeping it playful." For the uninitiated, the Gracie's emphasize taking the aggression and need to "win" out of the roll and start "playing" again -- keep it going to keep it going. A recent study of puppies found that male puppies naturally "keep it playful" with female puppies; male puppies tend to soften their play style with female puppies as opposed to male puppies, and encourage the female puppy to continue playing by allowing the female puppy to win.
Because my brain can make almost anything BJJ related, I thought about the puppies behavior in relation to "keeping it playful." As an upper belt and more experienced practitioner, I see it as my job to keep the roll going for lower belts, not tap them within 5 seconds. I don't make it easy, but I try to have some idea of what their skill level is and get them to positions where they can use what they learned. Additionally, I don't really want the roll to end after 5 seconds -- I want to keep playing and trying new stuff!
I've also noticed that as an upper belt, suddenly the same guys who were intent on tapping me when we were white belts are now in it more for the fun of the game than the tap since we got promoted to blue. Rather than exert 110% strength and effort and trying to smash the living daylights out of each other, we tend to roll for longer periods of time without a submission and get into more interesting and challenging positions. And it makes us all better for it.
Coach Tim: Do you agree that the puppy post applies to BJJ? In how men and women interact, or how players interact, or otherwise? What can we learn from the puppies?
COACH TIM SAYS:
First, ALL of the major lessons in life can be learned by watching puppies. Namely that cuteness is the #1 priority for all things, all the time, always and forever.
"Keeping it playful" is a great motto when used at the right time. I wouldn't restrict the notion of being playful to instances where males are sparring females, or upper belts with lower belts, etc. Instead, I want to examine how being playful in practice can be useful and how it can be detrimental.
On the plus side, being playful is very useful anytime you try a new movement. If you allow yourself to bend, roll, fold up, etc when you first attempt a new movement, you will quickly understand what you are supposed to be doing even if you can't quite do it yet.
"Keeping it playful" also helps ensure that we don't create unnecessary tension in our body, which often can hinder movements we want to make -- when you are "keeping it playful" you are relaxed. This is true even when a drilling/sparring partner is not involved. For example, when attempting to learn the granby roll/side roll, students will sometimes create tension in their body as they push off into the roll. This tension often results in the student posting their elbow on the mat or contracting their core muscles early - both of which stop their momentum in its tracks instead of allowing the momentum to carry them through the entire roll. In this sense, "keeping it playful" allows us to override our (often incorrect) default movement pattern because it forces us to relax and be less tense.
On the opposing side of "keeping it playful" is the very real reminder that we are practicing fighting. Yes, grappling is fun and, yes, you should have as much fun as you can (especially because this will keep you training and on a long enough timeline, sticking to your training is the only way to get better). The danger is that if you are always "keeping it playful" then you are training yourself to adopt that mindset. Just like physical movements, mental patterns can be trained as well.
The danger in training your mind to "keeping it playful" is that if you run into trouble / have to struggle in sparring, the "keeping it playful" mentality may hinder your ability to get out of a tough position because, hey, struggling isn't playful! It's important to train yourself to not allow the dialogue in your head to stop your body from reacting appropriately to the situation. Whether you are training or competing, often there are moments where a small voice in your head says "Hey... I'm kinda tired, let's just let them pass then we'll escape later" or "Wow, this person is really good, it's going to be hard to beat them." These thought patterns are absolutely fatal - you cannot ever beat someone that you cannot imagine beating. For example, blue belts will often excuse themselves if a purple belt beats them because they are under the impression that purple belts should beat them. However, if a blue belt consistently adopts this pattern of thinking, they will never critically analyze why that purple belt was able to pass their guard or sweep them because it will be easily dismissed as what "should" have happened. If you expect yourself to beat everyone you ever spar with, you will more readily adopt changes to your technique that can make this expectation come to fruition. Of course, a blue belt should start by trying to raise their expectations to beat the purple belts before moving on to brown and black belts, but the point stands. In fact, the biggest barrier to a blue belt beating a black belt is that the barrier in their own mind that they cannot beat black belts! If we never wore belts, students would just focus on how individuals move differently instead of how one person is "better" than another - and they would see that the gap between how they currently move and how a highly-skilled individual moves is not that big a of discrepancy. However, we cannot close that gap if we constantly have a dialogue with ourselves about the existence of this gap!
THE TAKEAWAY:
Jiu jitsu is as much a mental exercise as it is a physical one. It is critical that students train their mind to believe success is not only possible, but probable, even while they learn to relax and "keep it playful."
Also, puppies are adorable.
