Being the obsessed dork I am, this weekend brought me to San Jose, California in search of more knowledge and principles that can add to my jiu jitsu game. I want to be looked at one day as someone who really has mastered jiu jitsu and I also hope that I never feel that way personally.
So the seminar was put on by my friend Mike Jen who introduced me to Muscle Balance and Function (MBF) over two years ago. MBF is basically the idea that your load bearing joints: the shoulders, hips, knees and ankles should be aligned on top of each other from the front and the side. If things are out of whack, which they are on almost everything, the MBF system has a series of exercises designed to put the body back in its natural alignment where it is strongest and functions at its best level. The exercises themselves and the sequences they're done in depends on what the indivual needs. This idea of "it depends on the situation" fit in nicely with the weekends events.
So Mike has taken the principles of alignment and plugged them into Brazilian Jiu Jitsu (BJJ). The basic mindset is have your body in as much alignment as possible (again shoulders, hips, knee and ankles) while misaligning your opponent as much as possible.
What's especially interested about this series is that it's all about being on the bottom in the side mount position, yet through keeping your body aligned, you are able to misalign your oppenent so much that it is too painful to want to do anything other than fall over.
But what's even more exciting to me (again obsessed nerd about such things) is that these principles can be applied to every aspect of jiu jitsu. An armlock from the guard becomes the bottom player misaligning the top guys neck to the side and up with his forearm, then his shoulders are misaligned with one leg and finally the neck is misaligned even further with the leg over the head. The armlock itself is almost secondary to the fact that he's so out of alignment that all he can really do to relieve the pressure is to fall over.
It's a very interesting way of looking at all of jiu jitsu and I see how I can plug in all the techniques I already know but have an overall concept (get in alignment and get the other guy out of alignment) that guides my every move. In addition it makes me look at all escapes, pins and submissions in this same way which should makes subltle adjustments that make everything much more effecient, effective and painful!
I'm really excited to try all this stuff and really continue to develop the sensitivity to make these techniques work as everything depends on the situation. Much like MBF exercises and order depends on what is misaligned, then MBF/BJJ combo is also very dependent on where the opponent's weight is and where your body needs to go in order to be in alignment.
Oh and I feel sorry for anyone not involved in either BJJ or MBF who had the misfortune to run into this blog. I promise future ones will be more interesting to normal people ;)
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