The Means vs The Ends

I have been thinking a lot recently about refinement and improvement; I have been brown belt for about 4 years and feel that while I know a lot of technique, I could stand to improve on a lot of it. The reason that I first got involved in Jiu Jitsu was a combination of looking for effective self defence and to find a “ground system” to compliment my existing stand up training. The initial goal of rolling in Jiu Jitsu was explained to me as “make the other person tap without getting tapped yourself”, which is I suppose a reasonably apt description.

However, as time went by I heard more and more people talking about technique and particularly “technique over strength”. So I started to get the idea that it wasn’t just getting the tap that mattered, it was getting it in such a way that didn’t rely on strength. So I soon discovered there were two ways to look at rolling, one where the tap was the ultimate goal and all that mattered, and the other where clean technique is what matters, regardless of the tap.

As a Brown Belt with 14 or so years of experience I am certainly no expert, but I have developed enough basic (and real world) skill that I don’t need to focus solely on the outcome of every roll. A roll is no longer just a means to an ends, if the ends is a tap, the means is now just as, if not more important.

I recently had a roll with a friend that I have not trained with for about 2 years. He trains in a different club, but he had some time so he called in to train and we a great session. As is often the case the fun bit was feeling out changes in each other’s games and working out how to deal with it. In this case my friend was working a transition from De La Riva to Single Leg X and I really had to use solid posture to keep from being swept. I nearly managed to pass, but my friend turtled, however my pass involved a collar grip that lead to an opportunity for the Clock Choke, however at the last second I decided not to go for it, because I sensed that my grip was too shallow and that I would need to, at least in part, muscle the technique. After the roll was finished my partner asked me why I didn’t go for the choke? because he felt sure that I would have tapped him. I replied that I am not interested in getting taps, just executing clean techniques; sometimes one leads to the other and sometimes not...

(and I do love me some clock chokes...)

I believe that this thought can probably be extended to competition. What I mean by this is that you can approach competition in two ways. The first being to use the best Jiu Jitsu you can in a challenging environment, with the possible outcome of winning, or the other is to win as your primary focus. Just to be clear I am not judging and don’t think that either position is better than the other, I just know my own motivations and reasons. The only thing I will say is that I believe that competing in any sport with the goal of winning placed higher than the goal of playing that sport for it’s own sake can lead to playing it the wrong way. For example if the goal of Jiu Jitsu is to use efficient technique over muscle and athleticism to submit your opponent, then winning solely by being the strongest may not be within that mindset. However who am I to judge someone else’s journey?

At the End of the day, for me is all about the Means….