Grappling Heuristics

I wanted to start a series talking about some things that helped me. Not necessarily specific techniques, but concepts or ways of thinking that can help organize things in you mind.

Heuristics?

I don't want people to think these are some immutable laws that always apply or can never be broken. These are more or less (hopefully) helpful shortcuts that you can use to improve yourself or teach others. For those that aren't familiar, a heuristic is

any approach to problem solving or self-discovery that employs a practical method that is not guaranteed to be optimal, perfect, or rational, but is nevertheless sufficient for reaching an immediate, short-term goal or approximation

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heuristic

Some might call it a rule of thumb. These are shortcuts that can make your life easier and can be used quickly and easily without wasting time. There are some rules in grappling that are never broken, but often there are things that are generally true with exceptions. These are the types of things I'd like to go over in this series.

When to use them?

Some of them can be used in the heat of battle, but many of them should be used when you're analyzing a technique or tactic. When I first started BJJ my instructor told me to move my hips no matter what I was doing. Moving your hips is a powerful heuristic in BJJ and about 50% of the time when something isn't working it's because you aren't moving your hips correctly. Do you want to improve some technique you use in BJJ? If you just think about how to use your hips more efficiently in that position, you'll make improvements about half of the time.

So with this I don't need to learn techniques?

You still need techniques, but heuristics can help improve those techniques. Sometimes a small tip can take a technique to the next level and there are some tips that can be used with multiple moves. Those are the types of things I want to over over in this series.

Reversal

Sometimes you can over think things and waste your time. It's easy to fall into the trap of looking for a silver bullet. There is no heuristic that can fix everything. Another danger is golden hammer syndrome. Not everything is a "nail" and it is often tempting to use a concept over and over again if it has worked for you we'll in the past. You might think you've found the secret to grappling, but relying on anything too much can be a mistake.

Conclusion

The main reason I did this was I wanted to try to consolidate some of this knowledge in 1 place. Often people will drop this knowledge randomly when teaching a move or coaching, but IMO these shouldn't be throw away tips. In some cases some of these heuristics have transformed my game, so hopefully someone else will benefit from them also.