Studying athletes is an important part of your development. If you have been following along, you began this as a blue belt. Your task was to find small moments and dissect your subjects connections and angles as they executed techniques. You were looking for details that made things work that could shed light on the difference between the average student on the mat, and high level Jiu Jitsu. As a purple belt, you had a more difficult task. You were to identify decisions made within those strategies against different opponents.
In parallel, your development required you to build games, and then build better games as you advanced through the ranks. These ideas are all connected, and why it’s important to understand skill as progression. Skills often have components. Prerequisite skills that develop into more complex capabilities. Understanding this is important, and is why much of the advice here is ranked.
As your skills increase and games become more complex you have seen this progression. As a brown belt, you have likely experienced first hand the shifting relationship with techniques and positions as your Jiu Jitsu evolves. Techniques are used differently. In different places and with different partners. You move on, and come back with new perspective and appreciation. Hell, there is likely a lot you have forgotten as this point, tossed out of the memory banks as you have crammed in more knowledge and worked to conceptualize it all. Some of those spare parts you may have refound, and fit into a system.
This is a long run game about understanding progress. Now that you are a brown belt, your objective in studying athletes revolves around this progress. You are now tasked with studying a career to watch how the best athletes have evolved over time. See how they have grown, adapted, and overcome the challenges they have faced while developing the highest level games in the biz. Analyzing a career and taking note of someone else’s progress will shed light on how people adapt to their challenges, how quickly they progress, and what it all means to understand your own development.
Organize
This project is different. It requires more than pulling up free YouTube videos before bed and watching a match. You must prepare for research. To gather information and organize it all in a way that helps you digest and reflect. To take on this challenge, this is my suggestion to proceed.
First, create a tracking document in something like Excel or Google sheets. This is a chronological analysis, so time ascends down the rows. Across the columns are resources and notes. It would be worth organizing your notes. For example, one column for general notes, one for strategy notes, technique notes, etc…. This will make it easier for you to assess once you have built this document out.
Second, go find all the resources you can. Videos from FloGrappling, YouTube, Socials, etc… This should include interviews, third party commentary, instructional videos, and any other contemporary information that will help you assess what was happening at the time. If your athlete is young, this is fairly easy. You may have to scrape the bottom of the dark web to find early footage of the legends. Don’t watch all of this content just yet. For now, just organize. Drop all this information into your document in chronological order, to set yourself up for the work ahead. Protip: You can copy/paste match history from places like FloGrappling and BJJheroes. Some caution, these lists are often missing matches so do a little extra digging.
Third, make some starting assumptions. What questions should you be asking yourself as you review all this content? What is this athlete known for, and why? What are the known highs and lows in their career? Use these questions as a starting point, but don’t tunnel vision. Seek things you did not expect.
Get To Work
Now the fun part. Start watching your athlete from the beginning of their career, and any contemporary information (interviews, etc…) that may help you shed light on this athlete’s perspective. This work you have already been doing in your study, and establishes a baseline for which the athlete will develop from. Match this assessment up with your assumptions. Is their early game what you expected? Are there holes you did not expect? Take note of their successes and challenges, as a pending question during your future review.
Once you have established a baseline, note changes in your athlete’s game as time progresses. If there are benchmarks use them to create a timely narrative block. For example, if your athlete has won a major world championship, you can establish a game during a pre-championship era. If your athlete changed teams, define these time frames differently to assess how the change impacted their game and performance.
Take Your Time
This is a project, not a task. If you have to watch a single exchange 54 times to establish a gripping sequence, then do it. That is more valuable than running through 5 matches with no insight. This could take months. That’s ok, because you aren’t going anywhere. You are a martial artist and this is your life now.
Share
Share your breakdowns where you feel comfortable, and seek insight. Crowdsource this process to maximize perspective. This could even include reaching out to your athlete. They may ghost you. They may get on the phone with you. Just reach out and see what happens.
Internalize
How much of what you see can you incorporate into your game? What drew you to this athlete to begin with? Does this still hold? As you observe your athlete adjust and evolve, it’s important to note how these changes have impacted the rest of the game. If guard passing improvements lent to more top play, or leg attacks lent toward more guard play, these observations help inform how your athlete developed. This is the essence of the project. Not just to assess technique and strategy, but to assess the development process.
Find Understanding
Over the years you have felt yourself grow. You have experienced the pain of problems and the excitement of solving them. You have felt new skills change your game and become intimately acquainted with the emotional roller coaster ride of plateaus and progress. This experience has been the backbone of your Jiu Jitsu understanding. The way you view the exchange, progress, learning, and daily experience has taken place through your own personal lens. This lens makes you a high level athlete, yet it is simply a lens.
In this exercise, you are finding another lens. Another way to see the art and experience the development of a game. As the depth of your game expands, this is how you keep going deeper. Push yourself into new views and experiences and learn to internalize them into your own understanding.
As much as this is hard work, this is also prep work. As a brown belt you are staring down the path to black. That intimidating piece of cloth that comes with a dose of imposter syndrome and responsibility. Once there, we have lots to discuss. The backdrop of that conversation will be about sharing your knowledge and building the next generation of Jiu Jitsu practitioners.
That is why this exercise is so important. The more you understand, the more you can connect and give. The more you can serve your purpose and contribute to the art. Eventually, you shake off that imposter syndrome and learn that this was always the point. With the work you will have done you will have earned your spot. For now, you just have to get to work.