When do you know that you are getting better at jiu-jitsu? Not many of us just starting BJJ know that answer.
I have been training for about 3 yrs and the answer came to me while playing ping pong one afternoon 2 weeks ago.
As I was walking around the Green Lake Table Tennis Center, I could immediately tell the difference between the white belts, purple belts, and black belts of ping pong. The difference was in movement.
You see, the people who were newer to the game required a lot more movement than those who were more experienced. More paddle movement, more arm, more side steps, and even more dives...lol. The more experienced players, for the most part, just stood in one spot and only moved when they absolutely needed too...which seemed to be never.
They were far more efficient.
Our progression in jiu-jitsu is directly correlated to our movement. White belts travel great distances to get from pass to submission, often times wasting valuable energy and time. This usually at some point causes their opponent to capitalize. My experience playing a 60 year-old man in ping pong left me tired, sweaty, and feeling like I was just crossed over by Allen Iverson, meanwhile he just stood there capitalizing on every volley until he scored.
We must learn to pair our movements down to only what is needed. Jiu-jitsu operates off the credo "maximum benefit, minimal effort" and in order to fully understand jiu-jitsu you have to abide by this. I often hear the excuse "I don't know what to do," but even in our infancy in this sport, we have at least five techniques we can put together to form the basis of our movement.
Minimize your movement, and learn jiu-jitsu.
