Using Your Size and Strength In a Fight

Training
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Now you’re just taking this personally and saying stupid shit. If you like neck cranking girls, then fine, you do what you want. I think it’s a weak move that won’t result in making me better.

What is rolling to you? A part of overall training which results in making you and your training partners better, or is it an opportunity to get people to tap and win some non existent award? I base how competitive I roll on who I’m rolling with. A woman? Yeah, that won’t bring out the competitor in me. I’m not a transgender.

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Dude, I’m not here to explain rolling to you. Its the same idea for me as every other person at that gym. I never mentioned it being a competition, you did. Watch the footage if you’re confused about my words. He’s even got some footage of me on his youtube page.

Now that we’re back on-topic, what little I saw of Eddie’s latest antics is not unlike some bar assaults I’ve seen or experienced. It is very, very hard to put someone much larger than you down with strikes or grappling if that size is supported by a good baseline of strength and coordinated movement. The subject of this thread is how to make use of those advantages of size, strength and athleticism, not how best to overcome them.

The Hall spectacle is certainly of more exaggerated proportions than any situation a typical t-nation forum reader might experience, but yeah. It is kind of like that in some cases. Hall is a good athlete but no world class martial artist. Hall is a guy who will be an absolute menace because of his attributes.

To put it back in bar bouncer terms, my team of cloned 38 year-old me’s would much rather have Royce rage out in the bar than Eddie Hall. Out in the wild, Eddie Hall is a very dangerous man.

To circle back to the original post, even if you know how to set up a Deashi Harai, it is sometimes more effective to just grab them by the belt or the fuck-you handle.

Always knock on the front door first.

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Applying pressure.

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That’s a good two word description of how rolling is different than drilling.

Some people are eager to experience an unfavorable size and strength disparity. Simply being an eager and willing disparity yielded over 100 private or small group sessions with my coach at home mats at no charge.

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It’s something I dig about my Tang Soo Do school. As much as I have feelings regarding traditional martial arts, my instructor LOVES the challenge I provide by simply being what I am, and he always tries to solve the riddle of me WITH Tang Soo Do. I’ve definitely had other instructors in other arts flat out say “Stop using your size and strength”, but here it’s “Oh hey, cool, keep that up and let me see what I can do”

It’s the right “warrior” mentality to have. We should WANT to seek out challenges and ways to overcome them.

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My mat nickname is “The Question”.

I never particularly liked it compared to other people’s much cooler mat nicknames, but I get it.

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But they can be overcome which is something to factor in. Which is part of the problem inherent in the question. How to make the best use of a perceived advantage assumes you know who you are facing and will be able to take advantage of the advantage.

When I face someone bigger and stronger, there’s a big difference when he knows what he’s doing and when he doesn’t. In some ways, someone who doesn’t know what he’s doing and is relying on physical advantages is easier than a smaller guy with skill. He will be predictable, for example, he will always try and grab the head.

Size and strength are advantages when you have the ability, based on your skill or your opponent’s lack thereof, to get into a position to use it.

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There is no absolute with this advice. When learning a technique, you should focus on executing it without using a crutch to make it work. The less strength you use, the more energy you conserve. What I tell people is once you can do the technique correctly without relying on physical attributes to complete it, then you can add strength to it if necessary. I see a difference between relying on strength and using strength.

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Well yeah

170

This thread makes me want to bulk up to 300lbs, collate all of the best tips from this thread, and fight @T3hPwnisher in the ring. Given that I have no training, apart from constantly fighting my brother growing up, I’d almost certainly get my ass kicked haha

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Exactly what I impart when teaching BJJ… when executed properly the move or technique should feel nearly effortless. Especially when sweeping larger or stronger opponents

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I guess I don’t understand why you’re even arguing here. I went out of my way to explain what we’re talking about in the original post two years ago. Since then, has anything I’ve ever written about grappling, bouncing or being big and strong ever given you the impression that I have bad mat etiquette? Did you somehow miss all of the times I’ve spoken about the importance of pursuing technical refinement with your mat time?

Cross face pressure with the forearm doesn’t even factor strength in, aside from what strength you need to maintain the position and bring your weight to bear on the face. You’re just loading more or less of your weight onto the person’s jawbone. More size means more weight to load. More skill means you’re loading it in better and better spots more and more of the time. The mechanics are similar with something like a kung fu choke aka paper cutter choke where you’re putting on neck pressure. There are many other examples across grappling as I’ve learned it where there can be pressure on the face and neck.

It also seems as if you’re assuming that the mats are somehow uncoached. You don’t get max pressure on day 1. You are told about tapping on day 1. The instructors there are very, very clear about the importance of both mat manners, hygiene and always being responsible for your own safety and others by tapping and respecting the tap.

I found it to be an incredibly well-run school and I’m proud to have trained under one of the instructors. I completely trust my body with any black or brown belt from that place, much more so than any other school I’ve trained at or with. Blues and purples are generally great too, and their white belts seem to pick up on the culture very fast.

Others find more success meeting their goals at other schools, and that’s great as well. Options are generally good to have.

It seems as though you took a post about perfectly pertinent way to use your size and strength in a fight and constructed some abusively violent training scenario in your head and decided that’s what we’re talking about.

The title of the thread is not “Using Your Size and Strength On The Mats”.

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Didn’t I originally respond to a different poster with regard to smashing someone in the face? Then you interjected. Since then that poster clarified what he meant.

Then wouldn’t that make it inappropriate for this thread?

I’m not the one who referred to it as a bully technique.

Anyway, I apologize for insulting your dojo and your sensei. I never should have said all the horrible things I didn’t say that hurt your feelings.

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I accept your apology, and it isn’t my dojo. My instructor still trains and coaches there but it is prohibitively far for me. The local mats are long gone. I’ve been to a few open mats and did a local men’s competition with little preparation in the interim, but no consistent BJJ training.

My competition wasn’t quite as wild as @T3hPwnisher 's grappling experiment, but it was a good systems check to see what I’d retained and could put into action with absolutely minimal preparation. Maybe 10 hours mat time in the two months prior. I was ridiculously out of shape at the time too. It was a four match draw with a really big guy and I was relieved when they didn’t make us go again. I was smoked.

In other words, my Fighter’s Fortitude was nearly depleted. Tank Abbot would not be proud.

I’m in my mid 40’s now. Kettlebells, Rogue Echo Bike, power walking a ridiculously lovable dog and occasional basement barbells are how I get after it nowadays.

I should probably step that up and get back to the mats if I plan on foolishly accepting a shift.

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I’m still up so let’s incorporate all of the latest talk into the thread subject.

Even if you are big, strong and fit, you have no idea if you have what it takes to prevail in a violent struggle unless you go find out somehow. You could accomplish this in a lot of different ways, but it’s probably best to start by showing up to a nearby gym, introducing yourself and asking to take a class.

If you are lucky enough to locate a gym that welcomes meatheads and what they bring out-of-the-box, you will surely find people who are just as curious about you as you are about them. My coach had plenty of selfish motivations for offering all of those home sessions, namely he got to tool on me extensively and further his goal of becoming a better coach and a better martial artist.

Plenty of serious martial artists want to answer “The Question” of whether or not they can make their stuff work on this goon with traps who just showed up. I think a lot of t-nation readers might find a similarly welcoming situation if they ran into someone carrying the same kind of torch my coach and his coach carry with their practice of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu.

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I’m going to interject an opinion here.

While not as experienced as it sounds like twojar is, I did wrestle competitively for years, spent the offseason between freestyle wrestling and grappling (pre-bjj, more like judo/wrestling with locks and chokes) and for fun am currently doing taekwondo with my daughter (which is a legit martial art with a need to gauge speed, distance, body position et cetera - for fun YouTube taekwondo knockouts. Brutal).

All of that to say that going half speed in sparring will teach nothing. Outside of drilling muscle memory on a new move, half ass sparring teaches false scenarios and waters down expectations. It’s “training down” as fighting is extremely dynamic and going half paced changes reaction time, opportunity availability, accuracy in reading opponent “tells”, momentum in general and does not create a ideal learning environment. Getting your ass kicked is the best way to learn what works and doesn’t, and you can’t fake it.

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I agree with the importance of hard sparring. It plays a massive role in developing your Fighter’s Fortitude and technical ability. In my opinion you cannot become a competent grappler without developing both. It is similar to takedowns, throws and other aspects of stand-up. It is a non-optional element of grappling competency. Putting these and other elements together in a methodical way isn’t something I imagined, I learned it from my coach and his coach.

There’s plenty to learn at all speeds, and a lot of my deeper understanding came from slower paced rolls where we’d hit the pause button frequently to better understand the situation.

These are an especially good use of time during a long open mat when you’re really tired by the end. Especially when your coach leads from the front, is a great athlete and can DO THE THING whether you’re going full speed or not, and he can do it 100 percent of the time. Especially when he trains in a room FULL of people at, near or above his level, all coaching people of all strengths, sizes, sexes, ages and ability levels.

I am lucky that a few years of that culture, methodology and people flowed to me, as if from a magic water fountain. Last year I was finally able to get his coach to accept money from me when he was in a coma due to being struck by a drunk driver who died from the collision. I did it anonymously to a go-fund me his wife approved. He would never accept cash from me for any class or open mat I attended.

He’s made an INCREDIBLE recovery from a near-death surgical miracle and is doing outstanding, getting under the bar and getting back to leading from the front.

That’s Fighter’s Fortitude. I’m sure Tank Abbot would agree. I’m sure those guys in the Hell’s Angels I met the other week would, too.

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My experience has been flow drills are superior for improving technique… and hard sparring for conditioning and mental toughness. When we’re sparring often we stick to what our strengths are to avoid being subbed and don’t take enough risks to learn from.

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I have never been big. Not to where I could out buffalo someone. I was trained in Haganah, never used it. Professional Assault Response Training, which the “team” basically turned into a weird martial art when taking out of control teens down.

The last official training was MANDT training. What a waste. “May I touch you?”. No? Well then feel free to throw that desk!

The Gaffer gave me the best instruction for self defense, for which I have fortunately not needed much. His advice and teaching for his undersized son? Throw your jab. Throw it well. Send in a combination (crosses or hooks), but jab and move.

Or run.

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Here’s the thing: when you were wrestling, you had seasons. This is like most sports. Also, regardless of how far you go in wrestling, there will be a day that you stop and even if you have a long career, you will still be relatively young. People train BJJ year round and if you train everyday as if you are in a fight camp or getting ready for an upcoming season, you will eventually break down. You can’t train as if you are peaking for competition year round. So you need to regulate how hard you go.

As a wrestler you were, I assume, training with other wrestlers who were around your age and male. You also have weight classes. I doubt, I could be wrong, HWs roll with bantamweights. When we are talking about BJJ we are talking about a club environment where you various range of sizes, ages, experience and even sexes. This thread was originally about using physical advantages in a fight, not training.

If I am rolling with a new person who is smaller, sparring hard will do nothing for him or me. The proper culture of a BJJ school is one where you accept the role of teacher, even training dummy, for someone you can tap out going 50%. If I roll with a child, I won’t make them tap. I’ll let them tap me as long as they’re using correct technique. If not, I will talk them through it and even use my hand to correct their grip or something. I want them to believe in the move and develop confidence. What’s the point in showing someone a technique and then, because of my experience and skill level, shutting them down when they try it? They will then think it doesn’t work. As they get better, then the resistance I give will go up.

If I’m trying to work on a new technique, I can’t worry about failing and perhaps ending up in a bad position or having to tap. If I go hard and focus on not “losing” I’ll never improve my ability to execute the technique. This is summed up here:

There is nothing wrong with sparring hard but it isn’t something you should do all the time. You also need to take into account who you are training with. Sparring hard can take various forms. It doesn’t need to mean being hard/rough. Sparring hard with a woman will look different than sparring hard with a man.

The thing about BJJ, given the training environment that already described, you can kick someone’s ass without kicking their ass.

From a wrestling perspective, if a good 135 pound wrestler goes against a good 240 pound wrestler, and gets destroyed easily, does it mean that whatever he was doing doesn’t work or that it doesn’t work when you are outweighed by 100 pounds? In BJJ, if a white belt fails to execute a technique against a black belt, is the move no good or is the gap in skill and experience the issue?