This morning I woke up at 6:30am unable to go back to sleep. My body is not a fan of this not exercising stuff! So what do I do when I am unable to sleep and have no other obligations? Watch jiu-jitsu videos of course!

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ODpQvHE0Q9s&w=560&h=315]

During my search I found this one of Leandro Lo talking about training. Something jumped out at me while I was watching. Leandro talked about hard training, “at Circero’s light rolling doesn’t exist. There is only kill or be killed” and “Everybody spars regardless, that’s whats good about here.” If you watch the video you will see that he says this with a smile almost laughing.

Over the last year I’ve seen a sort of counter philosophy to the traditional work hard and train hard mentality pop up more and more. Some people seem to have become averse to rolling hard, in some cases almost implying that rolling hard makes you into some asshole or that it produces a sloppy technical by-product. I think this is nonsense. The textbook version of a technique often varies a bit when applied during the stress of a hard roll.

What hard rolling isn’t

Hard rolling is not freaking out on your partner, abandoning any type of technique and doing nasty things like digging your elbow into their throat in order to win.

What hard rolling is

Fun!

Hard rolling as I interpret it, is simply trying to execute your techniques with maximum effort in order to achieve a successful outcome. With success being relative to the intention of what you wish to accomplish from the training scenario or technique. It’s a game, it isn’t something to be avoided. Training hard is what improves our fitness, conditions our body and mind to deal with stress inoculation, it’s what allows us to test ourselves and it is what prepares us for competition. Hard rolling is the truth and it is part of what keeps our sport honest.  If you took rolling at full effort out of BJJ, it would end like many traditional martial arts. Full of hypothetical techniques forged in the mind of someone trying to make a name for themselves and with no easy way of testing their legitimacy. This happens on Youtube already. Like this guy!  Wing Tsun Defense to Takedown  This guy says he can defend my “Brazilian Jiu-jitsu takedown.” I’d bet my entire bank account that my takedown and black belt would trump his flurry of fists and orange jumpsuit.  

Its ok to not want to lose

Many people also act as if it’s wrong to not want to lose because they believe it will impede learning. I believe the contrary. Granted you can’t be afraid of losing nor can you let it frustrate you, but I believe you will be more likely to correct your mistakes and sharpen your game if you don’t want to lose. Here is a question for you. When you play a game with your friends, do you try to win? During the game (whether its a board game, video game or pick-up game of basketball) do you tone down your effort, or do you exert yourself fully in the pursuit of the W? If you’re like most people, you go after the win. I honestly don’t know anyone who enjoys losing, so why should someone have to expunge that competitive nature that is innate in most of us before we walk on the tatami?

It’s easy for black belts to be relaxed and playful

Last year one of my white belts stitched on a few “Keep it Playful” patches on his gis. When he came to class one evening I found myself rolling with him. He was your typical white belt. Spazzy. His movements were ridged, his breathing was sporadic if he even took a breath at all and he managed to elbow me at some point during the roll. You know. . . typical white belt stuff. The same stuff every white belt does. I include myself previous white belt self into this grouping. After the roll I started talking to him and I explained that as a newer white belt he didn’t know what it meant to keep it playful. Being a white belt isn’t about keeping it playful, it’s a fight to survive.  

I believe it’s easy for high level belts to tell their students to be relaxed, keep it playful or don’t roll so hard.  Their bodies are well acclimated to BJJ. Plus they’ve already climbed their way to a nice high seat on the gyms pecking order. The lower belts are still on the bottom doing their best to inch their way up. As they should! The picture below is a fun illustration.

There are pitfalls to avoid with hard rolling.    

When you roll hard you can’t have an ego and you must be free of any sort of must win attitude. Hard training doesn’t mean you have to win, it just means you’re going to try very hard to win. When you feel as if you must win, you’re doomed to be confined to using the techniques that fall within the perimeter of your comfort zone because you’ll be too afraid of losing to use anything else. Instead, training hard should be accompanied with an experiment, grow and do your best to win outlook. With this mentality you’re still able to give it your all, but you’re also able to play with new weapons and embrace failures as learning. Read my blog post (here) if you’d like to see more details about what it was like to be on the mats in a bad atmosphere and what it did to me personally.

Light rolling, flow rolling has its place

Light rolling does have its place. It’s a great warm up or a good alternative if you’re injured. It’s also helpful when rolling with lesser experienced BJJ players. You can go a bit lighter to allow them an opportunity to engage.

I can say that from my personal experience I’ve grown more as BJJ practitioner and learned more about myself after becoming immersed in a gym with an atmosphere that encouraged hard training, competition, experimentation in tandem with brotherhood, humility, and a drive to not only improve yourself but everyone on the mats. I’ve continued to keep this “train hard but with a smile on your face type of attitude” alive in my gym since I’ve been head instructor. So in my opinion, don’t be afraid to roll hard, embrace it.Just be sure to be humble and supportive towards your training partners. Also, keep in mind that training hard isn’t always winning and winning isn’t always training hard.

As always, thanks for reading!

Chewy