Learning Brazilian Jiu-jitsu Through a Scientific Lens

In 2003, during the summer before I started graduate school, I spent a few weeks in Rio de Janeiro. My purposes were twofold: (1) for vacation and sightseeing, and (2) to learn something about Brazilian Jiu-jitsu. What I didn’t realize was that I would be starting a journey in Brazilian Jiu-jitsu, as well as a love for the Brazilian people and culture, that would span decades.

Over the same period of time, I spent eight years in graduate school and in the decade since then have been pursuing a career in academia as a physics researcher and college educator.

There are many parallels in my two journeys in physics and Brazilian Jiu-jitsu (BJJ), and in this article I’d like to share one of them. In particular, I’d like to talk about learning jiu-jitsu (or any complex subject) and some of the concepts from physics and education that I’ve applied to learning Brazilian Jiu-jitsu.

Principles and Expertise

The Complexity of Brazilian Jiu-jitsu

In my experience, Brazilian Jiu-jitsu is traditionally taught as a collection of moves. You go to a class and you are taught a technique to add to your bag of tricks. Maybe you are shown several techniques that are related. Then you go to class on another day and are shown another technique, perhaps of a completely unrelated nature to the previous ones. And so on, until your bag of tricks is overflowing with techniques, more than half of which you’ve probably already forgotten by the time you try to apply them when you hit the mat for sparring. And most, if not all, of your techniques apply to specific situations only.

There are hundreds upon hundreds of techniques, and they are organized primarily into just a few broad categories based on a positional hierarchy. The positional hierarchy gives you a framework for understanding whether you’re in a good position or a bad one. Such knowledge is surprisingly elusive when you first start grappling, since everything just seems like a jumble of head, torso, and limbs. Learning the hierarchy is crucial to understanding how to navigate the grappling landscape.

A good instructor can help you fit these techniques together within the positional hierarchy and even go a bit farther (e.g., this is a sequence of techniques that work well together), but the majority of mental organization is left to the student to figure out on his/her own. And this eventually comes to you little by little, through hundreds of hours of drilling and sparring in which you try the techniques and create a web of relationships in your mind, eventually learning to string moves together into a coherent game plan.

Expertise and Learning in Other Disciplines

Learning jiu-jitsu is not dissimilar to how we all learned to speak a language as children: we learn words first, and some phrases, and then through trial and error we eventually learn to string the words and phrases together into ever more complex sentences.

Educational psychology research has shown that one major difference between a novice and an expert — in any subject, whether it’s physics ^[1]Chi, M.T.H, Feltovich, P.J., and Glaser, R. “Categorization and representation of physics problems by experts and novices.” Cognitive Science 5:121-152, 1981 or chess ^[2]deGroot, A.D. Thought and Choice in Chess The Hague, the Netherlands. Mouton. 1965^[3]Schneider, W., Gruber, H., Gold, A., and Opivis, K. “Chess expertise and memory for chess positions in children and adults.” Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 56:323-349, 1993 or history ^[4]Wineburg, S.S. “Historical problem solving: A study of the cognitive processes used in the evaluation of documentary and pictorial evidence.” Journal of Educational Psychology … Continue reading or computer programming ^[5]Ehrlich, K. and Soloway, E. “An empircal investigation of the tacit plan knowledge in programming.” pp 113-134 in Human Factors in Computer Systems, Thomas and M.L. Schneider, eds. … Continue reading — is the expert’s mental web of connections between ideas and the resulting ability to group ideas in a variety of ways. I’ve found, both as a student and as a teacher, that my learning (or my students’ learning) happens best when the instruction is structured around broad ideas and core principles. These principles can then be applied across a wide variety of situations. In my opinion, you should teach the principles, connections, and relationships first, and the facts second.

A black belt — or indeed an expert in any subject — is simply someone that has thoroughly mastered the core ideas and has a deep understanding of how they all fit together.

As an anecdotal example of this, I disliked the way my history classes were taught in high school because they were taught as a collection of dates and events. Because of the focus on facts and figures, I never felt I saw the bigger picture and never appreciated all of the causal connections between historical events. Fortunately, that’s changed now and history has become one of my favorite topics.

Instead, I really preferred the way math and physics were taught to me, because they were developed in a systematic way around a set of core principles (Newton’s Laws, for instance) that you could apply to a wide variety of problems. Knowing a figure such as the “acceleration due to gravity = 9.8 m/s/s” is not useful on its own, but knowing what “acceleration due to gravity” means and how to apply it is very useful.

As another anecdotal example, when I play the piano, I find it much easier to remember why I’m playing something rather than what notes I’m supposed to play.  For instance, if I can remember that I should be working with the notes of an F minor 7 chord, I find the chord as a whole easier to remember than the individual notes themselves: F, A-flat, C, E-flat.  Once you know what chord you need to be playing, the notes follow from that automatically.

Grouping things into concepts (like chords) makes them easier to remember and use. This approach — remembering the chord progression instead of the individual notes — allows me to learn to play a song much more quickly.

(Aside: This is commonly done in jazz — my favorite style of music — because, in jazz, improvisation is king and choosing the individual notes from a pool of available notes is done in the moment, as determined by the musician’s taste and mood.)

Finding the Principles of Jiu-jitsu

Taking this back to Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, I believe my BJJ education has revolved around this “focus on the details” approach, much like when history was taught to me as a collection of dates. Finding and seeing the “big picture” is left as an exercise for the student. I imagine nearly everyone that’s in the process of learning BJJ has had a similar experience.

There are apparently an infinite number of ways to twist two human bodies together, and I love that about grappling because it makes it endlessly complex which ensures that it’s always interesting and exciting. However, this means that, when you’re a relative beginner, it’s very common that you’ll find yourself in a position you’ve never experienced before. And that’s problematic when your “bag of tricks” is essentially a discrete collection of moves; you have no idea what your next move should be, because it’s a situation that you’ve never trained for.

For this reason, from day one as a BJJ student I found myself craving and seeking out any science-like principles of wide applicability that I could find. Over the years I’ve found a few and I’ve clung to those the way a student in freshman physics clings to . But those that I have encountered are minimal in number. For the most part, I’ve had to stick with the “move collector” approach and then work out the overarching relationships for myself.

The earliest attempt that I was aware of that tried to enumerate principles of BJJ in this manner is the book “The Black Belt Blueprint” by Nic Gregoriades (black belt under Roger Gracie) published in 2015 ^[6]The Black Belt Blueprint by Nicolas Gregoriades. A few months later, Paulo Guillobel released another, titled “Mastering the 21 Immutable Principles of Brazilian Jiu-jitsu” ^[7]Mastering the 21 Immutable Principles of Brazilian Jiu-jitsu by Paulo Guillobel. More recently, Stephan Kesting and Rob Biernacki released an instructional that uses a principle-based approach called “The BJJ Formula” ^[8]The BJJ Formula by Stephan Kesting and Rob Biernacki; See also Rob’s website bjjconcepts.net/. And most recently, Rener and Ryron Gracie have jumped on the principles-based learning bandwagon with their release of “32 Principles of Jiu-jitsu” online program ^[9]Gracie University: The 32 Principles of Jiu-jitsu by Rener and Ryron Gracie.

Accomplishing this enumeration of principles is a tall order. I think that the fundamental principles are probably few in number (and why not? — most of the known laws of physics can be written down on a single coffee mug which currently sits on my desk). And their elusiveness is to be expected –- it can be a scholar’s life’s work to take any subject and boil it down to its fundamental ideas.

Example Principles

Now I will share a few examples of principles that I’ve encountered in my journey and illustrate how they are broadly applicable to situations in jiu-jitsu. This is just a small sample for the sake of providing concrete examples. Some of these principles were taught to me, while some I figured out on my own by applying principles of physics. I’ll share examples of each kind.

Principle 1: Hips and Grips

I’m starting with this one because it’s a very broad description of the goals of jiu-jitsu. My first jiu-jitsu instructor, Phil Cardella, had a saying: “Jiu-jitsu is all about hips and grips.” This was one of my earliest lessons in jiu-jitsu.

The first part of a grappling encounter is the “grip fighting” phase in which you look to obtain good grips on your opponent and at the same time stifle his/her attempts to get good grips on you. The grips you acquire then determine what moves are available to you next. Therefore, grips are the crucial first part of executing any game plan in jiu-jitsu.

Hip movement is the fundamental movement of Brazilian jiu-jitsu (and arguably in almost any sport — power comes from the hips). And there is a corollary to this rule that I like:

Corollary: When in doubt, shrimp.

In other words, if you’re unsure of which move to make next, try moving your hips!

A principle like this is useful for its simplicity. Something simple is more easily recalled in the heat of battle. One could imagine entering a sparring session with the mantra “hips and grips” in your mind and that wouldn’t be a bad mindset to start out with.

Principle 2: Power Comes From the Mat

I first heard this one from Ryan Hall in one of his DVD instructionals: Power comes from the mat (i.e., from the ground).

The place where I think this is most obvious is when performing a bridging movement. Lying on your back, feet flat on the floor, you can lift your hips toward the ceiling in a movement called a bridge. When someone is on top of you (e.g., in mount or side control), a powerful bridge is crucial to creating space underneath your opponent that will allow you to escape.

Take one foot off the floor and your bridge becomes weaker, although still possible. Take both feet off the floor and you can no longer bridge. The bridge isn’t possible without a connection to the floor.

This applies to other movements as well, and it also applies when pushing off not just with your feet but also with your hands or elbows or other body parts… even with your head.

Another way of saying this is: in order to push, you need a platform to push from.

Despite the use of the word “mat”, your platform for pushing could be the other person’s body (I’m reminded of a principle that was taught to me by a wrestler: “Put your hands on the man, not the mat”). But this only works if your opponent’s body part is anchored by being in direct or indirect contact with the ground.

There can be a chain of platforms but, if they are to be useful platforms, they all must ultimately originate from the Earth.

This principle can be useful when troubleshooting a technique that may feel weak. If you need more power for your movement, look for a way to connect yourself more with the Earth.

Principle 3: In Chess, You Can’t Give Them Two Moves in a Row

This principle I learned from Grandmaster Relson Gracie during a seminar. This principle applies more to the strategy of jiu-jitsu than to deciding what move to make.

In the game of chess, you make a move. Then I make a move. And we continue to take turns. Now, imagine how quickly you could win a game of chess if you took two moves for every one of mine. You could move all the way across the board and capture a piece and then retreat back to safety before I could respond. During the endgame, having two moves in a row would enable you to corner and checkmate the king in a fraction of the usual time, or even when the odds are against you.

Just as you can’t allow your opponent to make two moves in a row in chess (or else certainly lose the game), Relson says neither should you allow your opponent to make two moves in a row in Brazilian Jiu-jitsu.

To put it another way, for every move your opponent makes, you should have a response. This may sound obvious, but in practice it can be quite easy to allow your opponent to make multiple moves in a row.

One illustration of this is the aforementioned grip fighting, the “pre-game” of the jiu-jitsu encounter. If your opponent reaches out and grabs your sleeve, then his sleeve is now within reach for you to grab it in return. For every grip there is a “re-grip”.

Grip

Re-grip

This principle describes a broader strategy in jiu-jitsu. When your opponent makes a move, however, it may not always be obvious which response you should choose. For that, we have other principles to refer to.

Principle 4: Frame With Your Skeleton, Not Your Muscles

In jiu-jitsu we use our bodies to create structures that can maintain space and distance from our opponent. This is called framing. It is much more energy efficient to rely on your skeleton to make frames, rather than your muscles.

To illustrate this, imagine doing a plank pose. It is much easier to do the plank with your elbows posted on the floor than it is to do the plank with your hands on the floor. In the latter case, your muscles are doing more work. To make this even more apparent, imagine doing a push-up and stopping halfway down and holding it there. This requires a lot from your muscles and you won’t be able to hold it very long. Posting on the elbows or using straight arms are each a better use of your skeleton and rely less on your muscles than the bent-arm half-push-up position.

The same principle applies when creating a frame in jiu-jitsu. If you are supporting someone’s weight with your arms, it is much easier to do so if you prop them up on your elbows, or use a straight arm frame that relies on your skeleton, so that your muscles aren’t doing so much work.

This principle allows you to be more efficient, doing more with less energy, and therefore have greater stamina in a sparring situation.

Principle 5: Torque

This principle comes directly from physics and therefore is one that I’ve learned to apply to jiu-jitsu solely by thinking in terms of physics.

It’s commonly stated that leverage is fundamental in Brazilian Jiu-jitsu (as in other martial arts). To understand how to apply leverage, it’s useful to remind ourselves of what a lever is.

A lever has a fulcrum, which is the fixed center of rotation of the lever. The lever extends from the fulcrum to the point where force is applied. The length of the lever is the distance from the fulcrum to the point of force application.

When you apply force to a lever, you are creating a torque. A torque is a force that causes rotation. If you increase the length of the lever, you increase the torque. Or, to put this into terms more relevant to jiu-jitsu: if you increase the length of the lever, you can create the same torque while using less force.

Therefore, in jiu-jitsu it’s helpful to notice where the fulcrum is, as this allows you to adjust where you apply the force and therefore allows you to lengthen the lever as needed.

The principle of leverage is important when you are trying to turn or rotate some part of your opponent’s body. As discussed, a longer lever makes it easier to turn them, since it gives you the same torque (rotation) with less force applied.

Examples of this are everywhere. Common levers include: (in the lower body) hip-to-knee (e.g., in the scissor sweep), knee-to-ankle (e.g., dummy sweep), hip-to-ankle (e.g., tripod sweep); and, (in the upper body) elbow-to-wrist (e.g., the armbar; see photo), shoulder-to-elbow (e.g., turning their upper body; see below), and shoulder-to-wrist, just to name a few.

The armbar: an example of an elbow-to-wrist lever

As a specific example, when someone is passing your guard and attempting to get into top side control, if you can turn their upper body to face away from you then they cannot settle into a stable top position. Turning their upper body can be accomplished through the use of a lever, for instance the shoulder-to-elbow lever. The shoulder acts as the fulcrum. For this lever to create as much torque as possible, you should lengthen the lever as much as possible, and therefore you should push against the elbow, as far from the shoulder as possible.

Applying a torque to turn the upper body: short lever

Applying a torque to turn the upper body: longer lever

One might ask why not push against the wrist, since that would be even farther from the shoulder.  The issue there is that your opponent’s elbow will bend, effectively bending the lever. A bendy lever is usually not a very useful lever.

In many cases, you may even have a choice of where to place the fulcrum of the lever.

Aside for BJJ practitioners: The scissor sweep is a good example of this, since in the scissor sweep you create the fulcrum using your bottom leg and apply the force using your top leg, therefore you can choose both where to place the fulcrum and where to apply the force. The kimura (or anything utilizing a figure-4 “double wristlock” grip) is another example in which you determine the placement of the fulcrum.

Understanding the mechanics of torque and levers is very useful in Brazilian Jiu-jitsu.

“Give me a lever long enough and a place to stand, and I shall move the world.”

• –Aristotle

Aristotle’s quote is a combination of this torque principle and the “power comes from the mat” principle. Aristotle can move the Earth with a small force (small enough that he can generate the force himself) if his lever is long enough.  But Aristotle will need a platform from which to push, and in his hypothetical scenario that platform can’t be the Earth (as it is for us in jiu-jitsu) since the Earth is the thing he is trying to move.

Conclusion

The lesson that I’ve learned from my time in physics and education is this: focus on learning the principles and their connections. This is the road to expertise in any discipline. In this article I’ve provided a small sample of the types of principles one might utilize in Brazilian Jiu-jitsu.

In a future article I will enumerate more of the principles that I’ve discovered during my years studying BJJ, especially those involving physics. Make sure you don’t miss the next article — subscribe to my blog to be notified when it is released!