Grappling also start standing... why negating the ground makes me a lesser grappler?

In BJJ I would say very few.

Possibly. However, I feel break falls are overlooked in BJJ. Many guys post the arm or try to get a leg planted underneath them to base themselves, and prevent a throw or slam. They also fail to tuck the chin to prevent the head from bouncing off the mat which will rattle the brain. The force from an insertion with the foot being planted, and the knee rotating has caused injuries. The knee isn't meant to be good at rotation. The knee is a hinge joint, meant to be good for flexion, and extension. It's susceptible to injury, and ligament tearing when the knee doesn't align forward over the toes.

Heavy contact sports such as football, and even judo are a common place for knee injuries because of the rapid change of direction, and acceleration. With the mats being considered, the actual knockouts would perhaps be less however I have no doubt that there would be a rise in injuries that would cause an inability to continue. If we need any evidence of this, we can look at the stand up injuries caused by judo. YouTube videos, and studies are available. I've known two people personally at the place I train at to be injured in competition from standing techniques: one with a dislocated shoulder, the other with cracked ribs. Both of them had to be sidelined.
 
I don't think there is much opportunity for lifting people super high with takedowns in BJJ. The rules against that aren't even written down in IBJJF.
 
Its sport specific. Few in wrestling or judo will say doing takedowns and regaining feet makes you a lesser judoka or wrestler. BJJ is based on ground work, so of course avoiding the ground will make you a lesser BJJ'er.

If you mean overall grappler, only people who are biased one way or the other will care - most will say that grappling involves both standing and ground work, and if you're good at either then you're by definition a good grappler.

If the standard to be a good grappler means being good on both the ground and standing then quite a few people who are usually considered to be good grapplers would fail - Rickson for instance was amazing on the ground but relatively poor on his feet, whereas Karelin was amazing at throws and ground control but lacked submissions. It'd be strange though to call either Rickson or Karelin a poor grappler - so long as you're good in either standing or ground you're a good grappler in the general sense.
 
Talking about grappling in general regardless of rule set seems super silly. Tons of skills only make sense in different rule sets. It's like being good at sport in general or in art.
 
been mentioned, but yeah context/rules is the first question. in mma/da street, i'd rather be the better stand up grappler, and throw someone on their head or stuff the takedown. but in self-defense, if you're absolutely sure it's one on one, let's say you're in an elevator or something, a 'ground grappler' pulling guard or even butt scooting should be ok
 
Its sport specific. Few in wrestling or judo will say doing takedowns and regaining feet makes you a lesser judoka or wrestler. BJJ is based on ground work, so of course avoiding the ground will make you a lesser BJJ'er.

If you mean overall grappler, only people who are biased one way or the other will care - most will say that grappling involves both standing and ground work, and if you're good at either then you're by definition a good grappler.

If the standard to be a good grappler means being good on both the ground and standing then quite a few people who are usually considered to be good grapplers would fail - Rickson for instance was amazing on the ground but relatively poor on his feet, whereas Karelin was amazing at throws and ground control but lacked submissions. It'd be strange though to call either Rickson or Karelin a poor grappler - so long as you're good in either standing or ground you're a good grappler in the general sense.

This is all more or less accurate, but if you don’t mind I’m going to use it as a launching pad to rant.

BJJ guys try to have their cake and eat it too when it comes to discussions of “grappling”. How many times do you see people proudly talk about how BJJ (or even ADCC) is the “most open” ruleset, where you can do anything you can do in Judo or wrestling and then some?

This is utter idiocy, of course, because the IBJJF (and ADCC) rulesets do not reward takedowns or throws or pins like any other grappling art in the world. In Judo you can win by a dominant throw OR a 20-second pin (past the guard only) OR a submission. In Sambo you can win by a super-dominant throw OR a point differential from takedowns, throws, and pins OR a submission. In wrestling you can win by a Pin, (sometimes you can win a period with a dominant throw), OR a point differential from takedowns and dominant ground work. In Catch you win by Pin OR Submission.

BJJ is the odd one out in their treatment of takedowns, throws, and pins. BJJ is the odd one out in only rewarding going from bottom side control to top side control if you arbitrarily happen to get your legs between the two of you for a millisecond. BJJ is the weird one that rewards a gentle ankle pick into someone’s guard, which you then pass after 3 minutes of struggling, more than a rib-creaking harai goshi directly into side control.

Imagine if there was an ADCC-caliber grappling tournament where takedowns could get you anywhere from 1-5 points or instantly win you the match, where if the top guy separated from the bottom guy on the ground the bottom guy had an obligation to stand and engage, guard pulling counted as a takedown for the other guy, being ahead by 12 points instantly won you the match by technical superiority, and submissions only got you 2 points and restarted to standing? But you could totally do everything you can in BJJ. Would we be saying that this is an open ruleset that BJJ guys should go into to prove that they’re really the best “grapplers”?

IBJJF BJJ is largely about how good at guard play and guard passing you are. That’s a fraction of what grappling is to the entire rest of the grappling world. They could rename it “guard grappling” and it’d be fine. When BJJ guys say “best grappler” and use it to refer to someone who has no takedowns they should be aware that there are a ton of unspoken conditionals around that phrase.
 
When BJJ guys say “best grappler” and use it to refer to someone who has no takedowns they should be aware that there are a ton of unspoken conditionals aroundtt that phrase.

Do wrestlers and judo players even refer to themselves as grapplers? Anyway the whole who is the best across a bunch of sport that have often disjoint rules is super silly.
 
This is all more or less accurate, but if you don’t mind I’m going to use it as a launching pad to rant.

BJJ guys try to have their cake and eat it too when it comes to discussions of “grappling”. How many times do you see people proudly talk about how BJJ (or even ADCC) is the “most open” ruleset, where you can do anything you can do in Judo or wrestling and then some?

This is utter idiocy, of course, because the IBJJF (and ADCC) rulesets do not reward takedowns or throws or pins like any other grappling art in the world. In Judo you can win by a dominant throw OR a 20-second pin (past the guard only) OR a submission. In Sambo you can win by a super-dominant throw OR a point differential from takedowns, throws, and pins OR a submission. In wrestling you can win by a Pin, (sometimes you can win a period with a dominant throw), OR a point differential from takedowns and dominant ground work. In Catch you win by Pin OR Submission.

BJJ is the odd one out in their treatment of takedowns, throws, and pins. BJJ is the odd one out in only rewarding going from bottom side control to top side control if you arbitrarily happen to get your legs between the two of you for a millisecond. BJJ is the weird one that rewards a gentle ankle pick into someone’s guard, which you then pass after 3 minutes of struggling, more than a rib-creaking harai goshi directly into side control.

Imagine if there was an ADCC-caliber grappling tournament where takedowns could get you anywhere from 1-5 points or instantly win you the match, where if the top guy separated from the bottom guy on the ground the bottom guy had an obligation to stand and engage, guard pulling counted as a takedown for the other guy, being ahead by 12 points instantly won you the match by technical superiority, and submissions only got you 2 points and restarted to standing? But you could totally do everything you can in BJJ. Would we be saying that this is an open ruleset that BJJ guys should go into to prove that they’re really the best “grapplers”?

IBJJF BJJ is largely about how good at guard play and guard passing you are. That’s a fraction of what grappling is to the entire rest of the grappling world. They could rename it “guard grappling” and it’d be fine. When BJJ guys say “best grappler” and use it to refer to someone who has no takedowns they should be aware that there are a ton of unspoken conditionals around that phrase.

Going to preface this by saying I agree 100% now. I used to be the guy you complain about though. Maybe even worse. How was I rehabilitated, you may ask yourself? Let me tell you.

I remember those early days wistfully, when I first drank the acai and said "BJJ wins again," all the time. I was a young teen, so it was even worse, because I thought I knew everything. I did BJJ, and so of course I had the "it's all that I do so it has to be the best otherwise I'm not doing the best" mentality that sparks console wars over video game systems, but lacked the self-awareness to see it. My thought process was that BJJ focused on submissions, i.e., fight enders. Breaking joints or choking people out. A pin seemed less Xtreme to me, because it didn't finish anything as authoritatively as a submission. So wrestling was clearly inferior. Judo/Sambo were less inferior than wrestling, since you could still submit, but the win by ippon didn't make any sense. "So what," I said to myself, "if their shoulders touch the floor? If you throw me down I can still choke you out!!" (Operationally defining submission still as "the only authoritative way to win.") Vale Tudo and MMA were cherry picked for confirmation bias. "Ha!" I would say to myself. "Your pin is worthless; I'll eventually escape, and then choke you out!!" If someone got ground & pounded, it's because their jiu jitsu wasn't good enough (closed guard was the answer to stopping ground and pound, in my adolescent mind; people who got ground & pounded needed to work on their guard/guard recovery clearly. If they had, well, they would've been able to stop the GnP, and then choke the guy out!!).

It's important to point out, too, that I knew functionally nothing about wrestling, Judo, or any other non-BJJ grappling art. My knowledge of takedowns was limited to the bi-annual "takedown day" at class, which I dreaded, because it was tiring, and besides, getting taken down was a mistake that could be remedied. Remedied by choking you out. Not to mention everyone knew wrestling was just about who was stronger or better conditioned; there was no technique to that. At most, all I needed was the concept of what a sprawl was. At worst, a better guard. End of story. I could put stand up guys to sleep, but they couldn't make me stand up. I continued being an awful human for quite a while, as most teens do. I competed; sometimes I won, sometimes I lost. I got my blue belt at 16, became even more obnoxious because I felt I had authority now.

I'm pretty sure the seed that would cause my creonte'ism occurred around 17 or so. I wanted to start doing leg locks because of Genki Sudo, because he was so fucking cool. I mean, fuck me, who doesn't want to be like Genki Sudo? It was during his heydey too, so I was totally entranced. My teammates hated me for it, but I became the leg lock blue belt; the guy who sacrificed learning anything related to guard passing or guard play so I could skyrocket to mediocrity. It worked. I was a leg locking fool, tapping people I had no real right to tap (and in fact couldn't tap without leg locks). Leg locks from bottom were tough. I didn't really understand butterfly guard beyond leg lock entries, but I could make it work sometimes. The real prize, though, was being on top. All the guards people played were totally naive to my leg attacks. I knew if I was in their guard, I could find my way to a leg lock. It was here that a connection was made in my mind: being on top was better than being on bottom, even if I'm in their guard.

Throughout my blue belt, I put this theory to the test, and found that being on top was actually pretty great. It was a better game plan to just be on top, leg lock a guard, or get to side control/mount and submit. Submissions though, were still king. I just figured out that it was easier to do them from on top than from on bottom. At least less exhausting. I stopped competing for a bit during this period because other things came up (actually getting dates, jobs, being a teenager, etc.), and leg lock rules were bullshit. But eventually I crafted my own (horrible) game plan, and on the day after I got my purple belt, I went to compete (the leg lock rules were better than blue belt, after all).

I went into my first match, my opponent pulled guard, I leg locked, I won. Validation. So sweet.

Match 2. I am immediately taken down. Because of my non-existent guard game (other than random leg entries from the bottom), my game plan was to simply stand up and try to spam more standing leg entries, or hope my opponent pulled guard out of intimidation. I did, to my credit, manage to scramble up to my feet through a working knowledge of butterfly guard. Taken down again. I think at this point he saw that I was just going to keep standing up rather than play a guard I didn't have, so he let me stand up again. I try to get head and arm control to slide into a leg lock. I get taken down again. Jesus christ this is exhausting. I think the final score ended up being 8-0, all takedown points. My mom was video taping my matches so I could review later (that's a lie, I was hoping to make a highlight reel), and when I watched it again, I heard her say, "is he dumb or something? why does he keep standing up? there he goes, down again."

For better or worse, I signed up for the nogi division too. My first opponent went for a single, and I had a flash of rememberance, of a Genki Sudo highlight reel where he did a backwards roll to counter a single, so I did it and somehow ended up in this guy's half guard. By the grace of god I got two points. I desperately try to pass, but can't keep him down. He gets back up, takes me down twice, and I lose again.

I was shocked. SHOCKED. Everything I knew was a lie. Top was better than bottom, undeniably. Just look at the bjj point system. You dont give 4 points for achieving work guard. Being on top was easier on my cardio (which sucked) and gave me better leg attacks. I briefly even consided learning guard passing, but itd be a year or two. Til I actually focused.

All I knew was that top was good, and takedowns controlled who was on top. Ergo, takedowns were important. Purple belt I acknowledged i used leglocks as a crutch and retooled my game (but still leg locked). I needed to pass in situations where there were no leg locks. Still no guard at this point (duh I'm gonna take you down), but that was when stand up was valued. When I learned it controlled who got to play what game in bjj.

I was lucky enough to go to a reilly bodycomb camp where he showed suplexes. He made a point that there was a method of throwing people so they can land safely. I Inverted that concept and said to myself, are you telling me you can choose how they land? That you could dump someone on their head and KO them, and never allow a submission attempt?

I started working takedowns, passing, and guardplay all at the same time. I was missing literally the most fundamental bits of grappling. I've taken this integrated approach that "grappling" is controlling your opponent, without strikes (as opposed to just choking you outtt!) and ran with it ever since. I've trained multiple reilly camps, judo, wrestling, but newly have fallen in love with sumo. What can I say, I'm a weirdo. Im a first degree black belt now, and I feel like I have more to learn about grappling than ever before. Both standing and on the ground, and the relationship between the two is going to lead to a supermassive meta shift once the bjj community embrace takedowns like they do leglocks. What a time to be alive.
 
Both standing and on the ground, and the relationship between the two is going to lead to a supermassive meta shift once the bjj community embrace takedowns like they do leglocks. What a time to be alive.[/QUOTE

The leg lock shift is super dependent on the rule set, heel hooks are fundamental in sub only but under IBJJF rules leg locks are a minor part of the game.
Mixing wrestling and half guard (or takedowns and passing especially for heavier plays) works in IBJJF but it's not a good strategy for sub only.
 
The leg lock shift is super dependent on the rule set, heel hooks are fundamental in sub only but under IBJJF rules leg locks are a minor part of the game.
Mixing wrestling and half guard (or takedowns and passing especially for heavier plays) works in IBJJF but it's not a good strategy for sub only.
Valid point. Natural selection of the meta like I described is going to be trumped by the artificial selection of rules. My meta predictions are certainly the most optimistic, but ebi over time rules are going to slow down the sub/pass meta, and IBJJF doesn't even allow heelhooks. I pin my hope's on the adcc events, which aren't nearly as frequent either. This could all be 10+ years down the road. Luckily I'm a patient man!
 
Going to preface this by saying I agree 100% now. I used to be the guy you complain about though. Maybe even worse. How was I rehabilitated, you may ask yourself? Let me tell you.

I remember those early days wistfully, when I first drank the acai and said "BJJ wins again," all the time. I was a young teen, so it was even worse, because I thought I knew everything. I did BJJ, and so of course I had the "it's all that I do so it has to be the best otherwise I'm not doing the best" mentality that sparks console wars over video game systems, but lacked the self-awareness to see it. My thought process was that BJJ focused on submissions, i.e., fight enders. Breaking joints or choking people out. A pin seemed less Xtreme to me, because it didn't finish anything as authoritatively as a submission. So wrestling was clearly inferior. Judo/Sambo were less inferior than wrestling, since you could still submit, but the win by ippon didn't make any sense. "So what," I said to myself, "if their shoulders touch the floor? If you throw me down I can still choke you out!!" (Operationally defining submission still as "the only authoritative way to win.") Vale Tudo and MMA were cherry picked for confirmation bias. "Ha!" I would say to myself. "Your pin is worthless; I'll eventually escape, and then choke you out!!" If someone got ground & pounded, it's because their jiu jitsu wasn't good enough (closed guard was the answer to stopping ground and pound, in my adolescent mind; people who got ground & pounded needed to work on their guard/guard recovery clearly. If they had, well, they would've been able to stop the GnP, and then choke the guy out!!).

It's important to point out, too, that I knew functionally nothing about wrestling, Judo, or any other non-BJJ grappling art. My knowledge of takedowns was limited to the bi-annual "takedown day" at class, which I dreaded, because it was tiring, and besides, getting taken down was a mistake that could be remedied. Remedied by choking you out. Not to mention everyone knew wrestling was just about who was stronger or better conditioned; there was no technique to that. At most, all I needed was the concept of what a sprawl was. At worst, a better guard. End of story. I could put stand up guys to sleep, but they couldn't make me stand up. I continued being an awful human for quite a while, as most teens do. I competed; sometimes I won, sometimes I lost. I got my blue belt at 16, became even more obnoxious because I felt I had authority now.

I'm pretty sure the seed that would cause my creonte'ism occurred around 17 or so. I wanted to start doing leg locks because of Genki Sudo, because he was so fucking cool. I mean, fuck me, who doesn't want to be like Genki Sudo? It was during his heydey too, so I was totally entranced. My teammates hated me for it, but I became the leg lock blue belt; the guy who sacrificed learning anything related to guard passing or guard play so I could skyrocket to mediocrity. It worked. I was a leg locking fool, tapping people I had no real right to tap (and in fact couldn't tap without leg locks). Leg locks from bottom were tough. I didn't really understand butterfly guard beyond leg lock entries, but I could make it work sometimes. The real prize, though, was being on top. All the guards people played were totally naive to my leg attacks. I knew if I was in their guard, I could find my way to a leg lock. It was here that a connection was made in my mind: being on top was better than being on bottom, even if I'm in their guard.

Throughout my blue belt, I put this theory to the test, and found that being on top was actually pretty great. It was a better game plan to just be on top, leg lock a guard, or get to side control/mount and submit. Submissions though, were still king. I just figured out that it was easier to do them from on top than from on bottom. At least less exhausting. I stopped competing for a bit during this period because other things came up (actually getting dates, jobs, being a teenager, etc.), and leg lock rules were bullshit. But eventually I crafted my own (horrible) game plan, and on the day after I got my purple belt, I went to compete (the leg lock rules were better than blue belt, after all).

I went into my first match, my opponent pulled guard, I leg locked, I won. Validation. So sweet.

Match 2. I am immediately taken down. Because of my non-existent guard game (other than random leg entries from the bottom), my game plan was to simply stand up and try to spam more standing leg entries, or hope my opponent pulled guard out of intimidation. I did, to my credit, manage to scramble up to my feet through a working knowledge of butterfly guard. Taken down again. I think at this point he saw that I was just going to keep standing up rather than play a guard I didn't have, so he let me stand up again. I try to get head and arm control to slide into a leg lock. I get taken down again. Jesus christ this is exhausting. I think the final score ended up being 8-0, all takedown points. My mom was video taping my matches so I could review later (that's a lie, I was hoping to make a highlight reel), and when I watched it again, I heard her say, "is he dumb or something? why does he keep standing up? there he goes, down again."

For better or worse, I signed up for the nogi division too. My first opponent went for a single, and I had a flash of rememberance, of a Genki Sudo highlight reel where he did a backwards roll to counter a single, so I did it and somehow ended up in this guy's half guard. By the grace of god I got two points. I desperately try to pass, but can't keep him down. He gets back up, takes me down twice, and I lose again.

I was shocked. SHOCKED. Everything I knew was a lie. Top was better than bottom, undeniably. Just look at the bjj point system. You dont give 4 points for achieving work guard. Being on top was easier on my cardio (which sucked) and gave me better leg attacks. I briefly even consided learning guard passing, but itd be a year or two. Til I actually focused.

All I knew was that top was good, and takedowns controlled who was on top. Ergo, takedowns were important. Purple belt I acknowledged i used leglocks as a crutch and retooled my game (but still leg locked). I needed to pass in situations where there were no leg locks. Still no guard at this point (duh I'm gonna take you down), but that was when stand up was valued. When I learned it controlled who got to play what game in bjj.

I was lucky enough to go to a reilly bodycomb camp where he showed suplexes. He made a point that there was a method of throwing people so they can land safely. I Inverted that concept and said to myself, are you telling me you can choose how they land? That you could dump someone on their head and KO them, and never allow a submission attempt?

I started working takedowns, passing, and guardplay all at the same time. I was missing literally the most fundamental bits of grappling. I've taken this integrated approach that "grappling" is controlling your opponent, without strikes (as opposed to just choking you outtt!) and ran with it ever since. I've trained multiple reilly camps, judo, wrestling, but newly have fallen in love with sumo. What can I say, I'm a weirdo. Im a first degree black belt now, and I feel like I have more to learn about grappling than ever before. Both standing and on the ground, and the relationship between the two is going to lead to a supermassive meta shift once the bjj community embrace takedowns like they do leglocks. What a time to be alive.
Awesome read yo, I never read anything that long on Sherdog!

That was actually good, you should write some shit!

Yeah, I'm 1 of those guys on here that always screams "JUDO"

I suck at BJJ ruleset but I can almost always control how we go to the ground so I can force them to grind out an exhausting sub and go for tons more rolls...

I do have to train to actually submit good guys someday, but pinning you down is super frustrating if you are obsessed with the sub.
 
My old man used to be a wrestler and then work as a guard in his young years. He was a pretty impressive beast but then quit and started working legal stuff.

Point is I have seen him bar fight ones and all he did was throws and suplexes and people falling on the ground and never getting up, especially after suplex.
 
The meta is a product off the rules.

Meta, in the context I use it, means "most popular moves or gameplans." Or the current fad in jiu jitsu. To use Magic the Gathering as an example, there are certain decks that are incredibly popular, because they're pretty good. So you can make a deck and potentially steal a tournament victory with a deck that is not that great in a vacuum, if it is incredibly strong against the popular decks, that is taking advantage of the popular deck's shared weaknesses. That's meta-gaming; creating your BJJ game based exploiting the weaknesses of the current BJJ games.

This is what I would describe as natural evolution; moves and gameplans change and adapt to be the best fit for its environment. What you're describing, where rule sets change the metagames, is artificial selection; making specific choices to make grappling look a certain way. Best example I can think of is Judo. The IJF blasted apart the Judo meta with the leg grabbing rules, so everyone had to scramble to figure out what was optimal under the rules. Then people reacted based on those gameplans, and natural selection continued (and still continues) to this day in Judo. Paying close attention to the meta let's you try to create a gameplan that exploits a common weakness in the top competitors, and making that your strength. This is exactly what happened with leg locks in ADCC and sub only events.

Theoretically rules should create "best practices" for grapplers that mimic the intent of how the sport should evolve, but gamesmanship of the rules negates this concept. I.e., being gifted back control in overtime against a competitor who would never have given up his back, or creating strange metas based on being able to reliably and safely accumulate advantages for a victory (the 50/50 craze).

I disagree that heel hooks are dependent in sub only; heel hooks are predominant in any format that allows heel hooks. EBI is full of leg attacks, but it doesn't necessarily make it an incentive to transition to a pass from a leg attack (because after all, giving up the pass doesn't matter, and you get one of the best positions in grappling automatically if you can stall it out). Combat JJ kind of makes it an incentive not to be on bottom, as you're gonna get a slappin, but I don't really know if that's going to be a popular enough ruleset to make a difference to be worth developing detailed game plans or tactics for.

The tournament you're ignoring is the ADCC. It is probably the best place that the kind of meta I described is going to grow. Heel hooks were

Collectively, heel hooks, toe holds, and kneebars outnumbered upper body submissions in 2017 (heel hooks were 1 off from RNC's, which is crazy). In 2015, there were more heel hooks than armbars, second only to the RNC. Heel hooks are continuously trending upwards.

Heel hooks are something that should be here to stay. Which is why if you want to compete in ADCC 2019, as a competitor, you NEED to have knowledge of leg entanglements and how to escape or submit. There's no question about it. There's no question about it. It's as important as knowing how not to get RNC'ed, and more important than not getting armbarred.

So, you're a competitor preparing and planning for a prestigious nogi tournament that has a great cash payout. How do you prepare knowing the above?

ADCC 2019 is either going to be heel hooks galore again, with possibly higher numbers than 2017 because everyone will have learned the leg lock "fad", or heel hooks are going to be way, way lower on the list, as people understand how to navigate entanglements and defend heel hooks. It'll be either be fantastic or depressing, as a personal fan of leg spaghetti.

This will either lead to heel hook extinction (unlikely, as its a powerful submission, and the people who invested so much time in that skill will want to put it to use), or drive the necessity to have a Plan B that either A) puts you in a neutral position after your failed attempt, or B) puts you in a better position after your failed attempt. If you were trying to figure out how to spend your BJJ R&D time, how would you spend it?

There were some top talents missing from 2017 ADCC, and that's a trend I hope goes away. I also am slowly getting fed up with the EBI ruleset. Polaris is super fights only, as opposed to a tournament format, so the concept of "metagaming" goes away and it becomes more of training for a fight. Submission underground is pretty much EBI jr., so it has the same issues.

What needs to happen is someone is the IBJJF allows reaping and heel hooks in their no gi tournaments. Between that and the ADCC, you'd have the top talent (people most likely to bring new ideas to the table), in tournament style events (which allows meta games), where heel hooks are prevalent, and we get the evolution I was talking about earlier.
 
Meta, in the context I use it, means "most popular moves or gameplans." Or the current fad in jiu jitsu..

What I mean is that there is a different meta for each rule set.
Wrestling is important in ADCC as you can't pull guard in overtimes there, for sub only where being on top isn't important it's mostly useful for making things more scrambly.
 
What I mean is that there is a different meta for each rule set.
Wrestling is important in ADCC as you can't pull guard in overtimes there, for sub only where being on top isn't important it's mostly useful for making things more scrambly.

I misunderstood your point then. I agree completely that different rules have different metas. However, I was referring to the evolution of metas in static rulesets. I also have a bias that adcc has the best ruleset currently, and therefore should dictate how BJJ should evolve. So all my meta evolution talk was from that perspective. Unless the IBJJF gets their shit together and start allowing nogi heelhooks.
 
Wrestling is already a huge part of ADCC.
I assume a lot of top competitors are trying to adapt their jiu jitsu games to fit the ADCC rule set instead of focusing 100% on it.
 
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meta shift once the bjj community embrace takedowns like they do leglocks. What a time to be alive.
Or combat wrestling takes off. Im praying for the day. Best rule set for all around grappling probably ever. There is no where to even practice it in AZ if you dont have wrestler/jj friends and a mat.
 
Or combat wrestling takes off. Im praying for the day. Best rule set for all around grappling probably ever. There is no where to even practice it in AZ if you dont have wrestler/jj friends and a mat.

Problem is, its just another rules set. I think the reality is that effective grappling doesn't really equate to visually exiting contests (especially so for non-grapplers), so if you go for one, you lose out on another.
Why are contests restarted on the feet if no action happening on the ground? Why no points for back mount? what does a pin actually represent?
 
Problem is, its just another rules set. I think the reality is that effective grappling doesn't really equate to visually exiting contests (especially so for non-grapplers), so if you go for one, you lose out on another.
Why are contests restarted on the feet if no action happening on the ground? Why no points for back mount? what does a pin actually represent?
While I agree its not perfect it breaks my heart to see slap jiu jitsu getting so much love when it adds next to nothing to submission grappling. I feel like combat wrestling is designed to score grappling prowess regardless of how the match goes. Being on top is important, take downs are important, a pin is control ie cooking the beans, submissions are still check mate. I don't think it gets any better but Im sure my wrestling biased is showing.
 
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