How would you beat yourself?

They say that good fighters work on their strengths, but great fighters work on their weaknesses.

Here’s a hypothetical scenario. Imagine you were in a jiu-jitsu competition tomorrow. Let’s say you had an evil twin who knew everything about you and your jiu-jitsu. And let’s say this evil twin was meeting with your opponents tonight in order to tell them how to beat you. What would he tell them?

If you are honest with yourself, this will be a difficult exercise. But it will be very beneficial because it will quickly reveal the areas you need to work most on. No matter how sobering this is take heart. There is no perfect grappler, and we have holes in our games.

You could do the exercise in a general way:

“His balance while standing is not good – take him down.”
“His guard is weak, you can pass it easily.”
“He struggles in the side mount”

Or a specific way:

“Throw him using an osoto-gari/ouchi-gari combination.”
“Pass his guard using the stack pass.”
“Hold him in the side mount and block his hip with your hand”

You needn’t restrict it to technical aspects either. Have the evil twin tell your opponents about any physical and mental anspects of your game that are deficient too. e.g. “His cardio isn’t great, push the pace and he’ll gas after a couple of minutes.”

If you want to take it a step further, next time you are about to spar, tell your opponent how to beat you. For example, if you are vulnerable to armbars from the guard, mention it before you are about to roll. If you do this a few times per week, in a short space of time you will have eliminated that weakness and have improved as a fighter.

Let me know your thoughts.

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