Photo source

I've had SOME experience training around Brazilian ju jitsu practitioners (or ju jitsu depending on who you ask) and I have been fortunate enough to have trained with some very insightful players. One such insight is very well captured in the video above. St. Pierre looks like he has Hardy certainly finished with a devastating armlock position but for whatever reason Pierre could not get a tap or a break (assuming at this level he would go for the break).

Hardy is reeling and flopping and twisting his arm but otherwise he seems to be ok and at least somewhat confident his arm won't snap.

This reminds me of a time I was rolling at my head instructors' (I don't really train anymore) dojo and I was getting “destroyed” one by one by each of his students. Some had lower belts than me and had clear advantage in technical knowledge, but I was on a training vacation and I didn't otherwise get to train at a school with a legit black belt instructor so I didn't feel too bad.

In fact I was quite happy to tap out constantly, which I was, and each time it felt like there was something I was learning. Each student had their own creative style and I was constantly getting caught sometimes in the same way and sometimes in different ways.

Eventually after quickly tapping me out 3 times successively one of the students stopped and asked

“Why are you tapping, I'm not going to break your arm?!”

No insight has hit me harder and faster since training in the sport. Of course in most schools the student won't actively hurt each other, but he really meant I have no reason to tap just because I am clearly caught.

He put me back in the same position we were in and has me work out of it. We get back to a neutral position and he gets me right back in the same position he previously tapped me out in and I spent some more time struggling and working through the position until time ran out.

Back in the day, at least when we trained, this was unheard of. Unnecessary. All learning was to come out of conflict and competition with my peers and at tournaments. Sure we talked about practicing in this way to some extent, but not when it was time to spar.

Since then I have taken this to the extreme. The players that train with me don't tap each other out. It's not the game we play. We basically dance in and out of different positions we are familiar or unfamiliar with.

Its never expected there will be any stopping because of a tap out, unless someone feels their body is in danger accidentally.

I think maybe St. Pierre doesn't train like this often. I think maybe when he gets an armlock on a student he often gets the tap right away. I think when someone gets an armlock on him he strives to get out as quickly as possible.

But if your partners refuse to hurt you and force you to tap you have more of an opportunity to spend time on the intricacies of each move WITHOUT endangering your partner or yourself.

Where I train the players are often in these types of riskier situations, but without the risk and for longer periods of the match. They spend time “playing” with different minute details of the body and of the techniques and I think overall this allows them to build their own overall larger picture of what Ju Jitsu is as well as to practice more of the detailed intricacies of the art that schools that don't spend a lot of focus on this type of practice don't ever or often get to play with.

Then depending on how the art is taught I think students will be able to form and understanding of Ju Jitsu that is not so systematic, possibly eventually releasing the practitioners to begin to understand Bruce Lees insights on martial arts training.