The Sports Gene

At the recommendation of Aiseop’s blog at http://throughjiujitsu.com/ I started reading and listening to The Sports Gene by David Epstein.

You can check out the book at

http://www.amazon.com/The-Sports-Gene-Extraordinary-Performance/dp/1591845114

The book goes into the factors of athletic performance. Both environmental and ,as the title would suggest, genetic factors. While the book doesn’t intend to debunk Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers, it definitely does try to show that there is more to performance than hard work alone.

While I would read the book at night or listen to it on audio while driving, I couldn’t help but think of the parallels to BJJ. In the book the author tells stories of certain athletes that “just got it” and the same is true for BJJ. I see students who all come in at the same time and are subjected to the same training. But each one grows in a different direction and some faster than others. There are also plenty of stories of popular BJJ players who were all said to have just picked up the art easily from the beginning. When he began to talk about the differences in body makeup which affect particular sports (i.e shorter legs, longer wingspan, lower leg thickness, etc), again, I couldn’t help but think of how this related to BJJ. For instance if you take a guy who has long spindly legs and put him into BJJ he is almost undoubtedly going to pick up the triangle. If a person has shorter / strong arms he will probably have a knack for kimuras. After reading the book I’m tempted to measure my student and record their favored positions and techniques and see if there are any correlates. 

If you have ever read Outliers or are interested in sports performance. This book is definitely worth a read. If you happen to have an Audible subscription it’s also an easy listen. Although if you do download the audio form be prepared for David Epstein’s attempt to replicate accents from various parts of the world when he reads quoted material.