Preparing BJJ students for the real world (part 2)

It is often asked of Rickson Gracie what he thinks a teacher should do to become great. The master can talk about this for days, of course, but the thing that's at the tip of his tongue shouldn't surprise you if you've been following his work. The first part of his answer went like this.

 

The second half went like this:

 

"As the guy starts to become proficient in the self-defense program, he starts engaging in the sportive aspect of it, so he's gonna start to become more comfortable to deal with passing the guard, to deal with keeping your position, to deal with taking advantage of an arm or a submission hold, or a choke, how to escape, how to control a collar. So this comes just after the first understanding of self-defense; and for the whole process of training, you should be always exposed to, sometimes, some self-defense. For example: I'm inside my student's guard; instead of trying to pass his guard, I'm gonna just try to put my hand on his face, and make sure he's capable of understanding that comfortably, and move their head, and deflect the energy, and be able to capitalize against my aggressiveness. 

 

"So I cannot be only a sportive jiu-jitsu guard; I will be jiu-jitsu guard plus a surprise, which can sometimes [?] and say 'Hey, I could not be here; I could get punched.' So the elements of surviving, the elements of self-defense, must always be slightly implemented in the reality of your daily practice, because you cannot just be a jiu-jitsu practitioner and think about sport only, berimbolo only. You'd lack self-defense, the ability to deal with your opponent from the first sight to the worst position in the alley."