In a recent interview, Rickson Gracie spoke at length about the different ways in which a jiu-jitsu move can surprise even him. Check out the second part of his thoughts below. And in case you need to get caught up, find part 1 here.
"So the submission can come, even though I'm in a perfect position, and you become very much new in your elaboration and surprise me; or because I was lacking posture, I was lacking attention, and you just pull my arm to here and lift my arm here and get what you want, because it was my mistake.
"So the submission can come, even though I'm in a perfect position, and you become very much new in your elaboration and surprise me; or because I was lacking posture, I was lacking attention, and you just pull my arm to here and lift my arm here and get what you want, because it was my mistake.
"So, the first important thing is to understand if the problem was the mistake of the victim or if it was super-well done by the attacker. Those are two different perspectives. The submission will happen anyway, but I have to understand if the attacker was perfect and his new mobility, like the guy is sitting in front of me, sitting, waiting for me in the guard, and I come and hold his wrist, and he jumps on a flying triangle and immediately gets the triangle.
"So this is amazing, requires a very important ability to do, and basically it was not a fault of the guy who's on the floor; it was a super-efficient and fast accomplishment with the guy's legs and the triangle choke. So that's one way. And if you wanna do what the guy just did, you have to be a super-athlete, training the jump, training the things; so that's something I have to feel like it's props to the champion, who really stressed himself in the training and practice to achieve that kind of jump, that kind of angle."
Comments
We don't rise to the levels of our expectations, we fall to the level of our preparedness #wakizashibjj
the transcriptions are great! I also like the idea of "mistake vs perfect attack". some people, even though I train for a long time, can still surprise me with their athleticism! I would take it very hard, but this is reassuring