One of the most important things to understand as early as possible in your Jiu Jitsu career, is why techniques work, and not just how they work. If you want to deepen your understanding of how to control the human body whilst simultaneously learning everything about how your opponent is controlling you, then read on.
When I was coming through the ranks of Jiu Jitsu, I was also studying exercise science at university and one thing I was particularly interested in developing was an overlay of my knowledge in biomechanics to my approach to Jiu Jitsu. Now, don't get discouraged. You don't need to do years of university to understand Jiu Jitsu in the same way I've come to understand it. I'm just going to lay it all out for you down below. The first thing you need to understand is that Jiu Jitsu, and all martial arts really, are just systems for manipulating a human body. If you want to effectively manipulate another human's body, all the while ensuring they have a hard time doing the same to yours, a basic understanding of how the body works is crucial. Take a look at this picture below...
Here we have a depiction of a human body with a bunch of lines intersecting it. These lines aren't just positioned anywhere, they're positioned at the intersections of what we call freely moveable joints. That big one running down the centre of the body obviously traces the spine. The spine is made up of vertebrae which are classified as slightly moveable joints. We call this the centre line, and it's where our journey begins as the most important line for the majority of martial arts including Jiu Jitsu. The main thing you need to know about this line is that whatever position you're in, the closer you are to this line, the better your control over your opponent. As you gain control over your opponent that gets closer and closer to this line, you come closer to their centre of gravity. Now I don't want to complicate things too much, but it's important to know that the centre of gravity is the point in which the entire human body is perfectly balanced in relation to gravity. Any time we want to disrupt someone's balance, we're attempting to manipulate their centre of gravity. To off-balance someone we're trying to displace the center of gravity outside of the body we're manipulating, so you have to think of this point as always moving and shifting depending on how your opponent's body is positioned. If you're struggling to picture this, think about having a butterfly guard on someone and wanting to rock back in order to execute an elevator sweep with one of your hooks. There's a moment right before you fall backwards with your opponent where its important to shift your hips as close to your opponent's hips as possible. The whole point of this movement is setting you up to be positioned with complete control of your opponent's centre of gravity when you fall backward which makes their weight very light on your hook and allows you to lift it with ease sweeping your opponent in a grand display of biomechanical manipulation! How cool is science?
Practice time!
So, lets imagine you have control of your opponent's wrist with some kind of grip. You're both standing up, you try to displace your opponent's balance using only a single grip on their wrist. This is one of the furthest lines from our centre line, and thus, the centre of gravity. It's possible, but it takes a lot of effort or overly complex technique. There's got to be a way to gain more control so you can off-balance your opponent more easily, right? Of course you're right! Lets try moving to the next horizontal line from our graphic above, one line closer to the centre line. Now we are controlling our opponents elbow joint with some kind of grip, perhaps cupping your hand behind the elbow. If you're acting this out with a partner right now, you'll instinctively feel like your control is slightly better. Try tugging on their arm from the elbow joint now. It's a little easier to manipulate their body, isn't it? Great! Let's control the shoulder now.
You may have heard about the whizzer or a tight over-hook around the shoulder. Take one of these grips around your partner and try to unbalance them. Isn't this far easier then when you were trying to unbalance them with their wrist? It's because you have climbed through these horizontal lines along the arm coming closer and closer to the centre line. Remember, the more control we have over the centre line of our opponent, the more likely it is we'll be able to manipulate their centre of gravity which is the fancy way of saying, we're trying to unbalance them. When you're rolling in Jiu Jitsu, or trying to take someone down, a lot of the techniques you'll be using rely on this principle.
That's probably enough for today, but there so much more to learn! If you're interested in more posts on this topic, then please let us know! I'm more than happy to keep going into deeper detail!
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