your thoughts on 10th planet

[Dogstarman]

I don't know if I'd call it fundamentals per se, but what the 10th Planet guys seem to lack is much connective tissue in their games. They have a whole bunch of moves, some of which are pretty cool and innovative, but none of them seem very good at managing the transition between positions in a controlled fashion. They end up creating scrambles when they don't need to, when they'd be better served by slowly controlling and advancing position, and they rely a great deal on 'catching' people rather than setting subs up. At least that's my impression from watching and rolling with them. The best 10th Planet guys I know have all trained traditional BJJ as well and are able to fuse the funky angles and strategies from Eddie with standard positionally controlling games. Though not for any of them is passing their forte.

You might have a point. I remember hearing years ago (I don’t remember where I heard that, though) that Eddie believed that you need to learn fundamentals somewhere else then tenth planet will be of benefit to you. On the other hand, I heard him recently say that coming from traditional jiu jitsu might be a hindrance. So I don’t know how to think about that right now.

I’ve rolled with a few guys from tenth planet some were pretty good (ex wrestlers, mma types) some maybe lacked something in their game like you said. I am really interested in their closed guard game right now and have been reading up and studying rubber guard. It’s interesting how he sets it up and gets to it. I know guys think it’s a shitty system but I don’t think it’s that bad in theory. Right now, I am starting to experiment with it and see how it goes. If it’s total shit I’ll stop using it. I did roll against a brown belt recently, though that had a pretty good rubber guard and finish some funky gogoplata on me. It’s interesting to me.

 

[Uchi Mata]

Therein lies the disconnect. From an external point of view, the 10P warmups are designed to build exactly that kind of "connective tissue", emphasizing reactions and controlled transitions between positions. Is it the moves in the sequence preventing real positional awareness being built? Maybe. But most of the movements in the warmup are very simple; they are just strung together in nontraditional ways. Is it the overall 10P culture that encourages the more scrambly training that Uchi describes? That would be my guess.

I think it's the culture too, as well as the moves that are emphasized. If your focus isn't on passing guard or sweeping but rather going directly to the sub from any position, you're going to end up with a scrambly, catchy style just because you'll be constantly diving on every opportunity rather than slowly advancing your position.

 

[Dogstarman]

I think it's the culture too, as well as the moves that are emphasized. If your focus isn't on passing guard or sweeping but rather going directly to the sub from any position, you're going to end up with a scrambly, catchy style just because you'll be constantly diving on every opportunity rather than slowly advancing your position.

I’m not sure 10th planet guys are just diving for subs. As I said, I haven’t been to headquarters and have visited just a couple of 10th planet gyms. None of the guys where I visited at were diving for subs. The guys were attacking my legs and doing more wrestling type stuff, e.g. sit outs, front headlocks and some scrambling. To me it felt like I was rolling in a regular no gi class. I don’t know though. I want to visit 10th planet hq to really feel how those guys train.

 

[Uchi Mata]

I’m not sure 10th planet guys are just diving for subs. As I said, I haven’t been to headquarters and have visited just a couple of 10th planet gyms. None of the guys where I visited at were diving for subs. The guys were attacking my legs and doing more wrestling type stuff, e.g. sit outs, front headlocks and some scrambling. To me it felt like I was rolling in a regular no gi class. I don’t know though. I want to visit 10th planet hq to really feel how those guys train.

'Diving' is probably the wrong word. It's not like the 10th Planet guys I've trained with were unskilled or just went for stupid stuff all the time. But the ones who were pure 10P, they did have a strong tendency to start attacking subs rather than consolidating position and it made their games a lot looser than they really needed to be. So for example, they'd get halfway through a knee slice and instead of finishing the pass and settling in side control before trying to isolate an arm or whatever they'd shoot a Darce as they finished the pass going straight to the sub. Now there's nothing wrong with Darcing off a knee slice, but if that's what you always do you're going to give the bottom guy many more chances to scramble out, reguard, or get back to his feet than you otherwise would. 'Position before submission' is cliched and definitely not as universally true as old school guys would have you believe, but there's a grain of truth there: if you never establish strong position before you start working for a sub you're going to have a really hard time keeping control of the flow of a match and reducing the other guy's chances. It would be like playing chess without paying attention to the other guy's moves. You might sometimes win with some big attack, but at the same time you're also a lot more vulnerable if someone can kill your activity and you don't have a solid positional base to fall back on.

 

[Dogstarman]

'Diving' is probably the wrong word. It's not like the 10th Planet guys I've trained with were unskilled or just went for stupid stuff all the time. But the ones who were pure 10P, they did have a strong tendency to start attacking subs rather than consolidating position and it made their games a lot looser than they really needed to be. So for example, they'd get halfway through a knee slice and instead of finishing the pass and settling in side control before trying to isolate an arm or whatever they'd shoot a Darce as they finished the pass going straight to the sub. Now there's nothing wrong with Darcing off a knee slice, but if that's what you always do you're going to give the bottom guy many more chances to scramble out, reguard, or get back to his feet than you otherwise would. 'Position before submission' is cliched and definitely not as universally true as old school guys would have you believe, but there's a grain of truth there: if you never establish strong position before you start working for a sub you're going to have a really hard time keeping control of the flow of a match and reducing the other guy's chances. It would be like playing chess without paying attention to the other guy's moves. You might sometimes win with some big attack, but at the same time you're also a lot more vulnerable if someone can kill your activity and you don't have a solid positional base to fall back on.

Fair enough. I didn’t experience that but as I said I haven’t trained with a whole lot of 10th planet guys. I really want to though, just to really feel their game.

 

[shunyata]

The Diving comments are funny to me, because one can tell by listening to Eddie for more than a few minutes this is how his brain works. He's thinking faster than he can talk, and some times tangents will pop up and he's already a mile down that road in his brain by the time he gives verbal life to the tangent which no longer seems very connected to his core topic. He'll jump on things and ride them off in a different direction. Maybe he loops back around, maybe he chases the tangent until another tangent takes him off in a different direction.

There's a chaos which can be powerful but also disorganized. Eddie is pretty much always brainstorming when I've seen him speak about jiu jitsu.

 

[Mr Rick]

There's a chaos which can be powerful but also disorganized. Eddie is pretty much always brainstorming when I've seen him speak about jiu jitsu.

Or when he’s talking about anything! It’s his gift and curse! It’s why he is so good at thinking outside the box and innovating and also why he bangs on about tower 7 and other conspiracies.

 

[ens189]

I'm just saying look into it.

 

[Dogstarman]

Or when he’s talking about anything! It’s his gift and curse! It’s why he is so good at thinking outside the box and innovating and also why he bangs on about tower 7 and other conspiracies.

I find this as well. He is a genius in a way. He always tries to come at stuff in a different direction.
I love hearing him talk about jiu jitsu. He has a really cool outlook on it and I turn in to hear him talk about those things. He is really clear on what he wants for 10th planet and how he thinks it’s still effective for MMA.

On the other hand, when he starts ranting about his conspiracy theories and chem trails and some other nutty shit I can’t stand it. I like following him but he is so eccentric as well. I mean when he starts with his flat earth shit I’m like:

And then I just turn it off.

 

[nefti]

My teammate is one of Eddie's first black belts. His game is what you expect from his body type. What he said was that most 10th planet black belts roll like most other no gi guys.

It's the guys who are affiliates who cling on to things like rubber guard. Not the actual guys at 10th planet hq.

 

[Dogstarman]

My teammate is one of Eddie's first black belts. His game is what you expect from his body type. What he said was that most 10th planet black belts roll like most other no gi guys.

It's the guys who are affiliates who cling on to things like rubber guard. Not the actual guys at 10th planet hq.

That was my experience at the couple of 10th planets I’ve been too. It just felt like a no gi class. As a matter of fact they were working some wrestling technique at the time. When we rolled it just felt like no gi class.

 

[nefti]

That was my experience at the couple of 10th planets I’ve been too. It just felt like a no gi class. As a matter of fact they were working some wrestling technique at the time. When we rolled it just felt like no gi class.

Most of the noise is caused by peripheral schools and online fans imho.

 

[trustdoesntrust]

Or when he’s talking about anything! It’s his gift and curse! It’s why he is so good at thinking outside the box and innovating and also why he bangs on about tower 7 and other conspiracies.

I genuinely think, not joking, that Eddie is showing the long-term effects of too much marijuana consumption. As any weed smoker knows, one of the most common effects of being high is a certain circular thinking (aka "stoner thoughts"), where your mind flows between tangents, often grasping the meaning of something but struggling to ground it. While this is perhaps one of the benefits of weed in the "you introduced me to my mind" sense, it is not a place you want to be all the time.

 

[Dogstarman]

I genuinely think, not joking, that Eddie is showing the long-term effects of too much marijuana consumption. As any weed smoker knows, one of the most common effects of being high is a certain circular thinking (aka "stoner thoughts"), where your mind flows between tangents, often grasping the meaning of something but struggling to ground it. While this is perhaps one of the benefits of weed in the "you introduced me to my mind" sense, it is not a place you want to be all the time.

You think he is there all the time? I know some engineers that are stoned all the time and they don’t have those weird thoughts. You might be right though.

 

[trustdoesntrust]

You think he is there all the time? I know some engineers that are stoned all the time and they don’t have those weird thoughts. You might be right though.

I do think he's there all the time. You listen to any interview and he has this rambling, slightly paranoid way of speaking where his thoughts envelop on top of each other. Reminds me a lot of this old weed dealer friend of mine who got stoned all day, and after a while got into conspiratorial thinking and just couldn't shut it down. He had that same excited but slightly agitated tone, even when talking about benign things.

 

[GKY]

I subscribed to the 10th planet site for a few months to see what they're doing with leg locks. I saw some of their other techniques, and I honestly just don't think the teaching is that great.

Eddie talks too much about "squeezing" and "battles" which I think creates a mindset of just using more strength or working harder instead of using proper positioning. I think that's partially because he plays so much lockdown and quarter guard where you have to fight and struggle for every inch because you're working out of what I believe to be inferior positioning.

He also doesn't show a lot of good details in my opinion. For example I saw him teaching a triangle on his site and his answer to people posturing is that you have to have it fully locked as soon as you catch it instead of showing how to break your opponent down after you've isolated an arm and working to a perpendicular angle. This is sympamatic of his whole approach, he uses attributes (in this case flexibility) to make the technique work instead of learning to move your hips and slowly adjust your angle while controlling your opponent.

Another obviously example is how he talks about developing a squeeze on your chokes. All good chokes to my understanding are about blocking both carotid arteries and having a backstop to prevent escape. Teaching people to adjust grips to better occlude the arteries would be a better answer than just saying "squeeze harder" which is again using an attribute (strength) to compensate for technique.

He's also a technique collector which isn't the best mindset for JJ. I think it's better to master 10 moves than know 100 at a so so level. If you just keep acquiring moves you stop worrying about positioning and start looking for "tricks" to get out of bad positions. This doesn't really work at the highest levels.

It's not to say his teaching is all bad. I like that he really believes in drilling, and students should learn that attributes matter as well as technique. It's also great that he's so open minded and willing to emulate the best guys in the world. I also think some of the recent rubber guard stuff could be effective at the black belt level.

This criticism doesn't necessarily apply to all 10th planet schools, just what I've seen from their site subscription site and Eddie himself.

 

[Foppa21]

I'm have mixed feelings on 10th planet. I think a lot of their technique is reserved for the upper echelon 10th planet grapplers. seems like a lot of the techniques are too flashy for the white/blue/purple level folks to pull off in an effective manner. and lets face it, a lot of us aren't flexible enough to do his rubber guard stuff. buuuuuut I also use some 10th planet stuff and it's worked. for me. so like most bjj, I like to try it all out and see what works for my game. some of it does. some is quite innovative.

I tell all students "There's numerous ways to skin a cat. There will be some techniques that you may find easier or harder to do and it's usually all down to physical attributes (size, length of limbs, body type, flexibility. Try it, because at worst, when someone tries it on you, you know what to block. If you like it, learn to adapt the technique for you"

For eg, way back when I was working with who is now a high level MMA fighter. He'd just started BJJ and always had a open mind and of course being newer at the time, he was absorbing everything and anything. This guys's also super tall, long limbed and a freak athlete. He was telling me that because of the length of his legs, even with his flexibility he would never hit the "jail break" (it was big at that time). So he showed me. I talked to him about adapting it to his body type and it was a fairly simple fix. He had to bridge and hip out a bit before to make space to his leg and foot to slide in (as opposed to me being a midget). We did have to talk about the downsides of this adaption though:

• If he pushes with his hands in the hip like he used to, he was going to get crossfaced
• Because he had to hip away, if he wanted to chain it into a butterfly sweep he would have to keep it mind he would have to adjust a little bit more because with the extra space, the fulcrum for the sweep was further away from uke's centre of gravity

Yeah long winded response/example, but don't write it off as it doesn't work because we've seen all sorts of weird stuff work

 

[Foppa21]

You might have a point. I remember hearing years ago (I don’t remember where I heard that, though) that Eddie believed that you need to learn fundamentals somewhere else then tenth planet will be of benefit to you. On the other hand, I heard him recently say that coming from traditional jiu jitsu might be a hindrance. So I don’t know how to think about that right now.

/snip

That sounds pretty daft IMO. You put up a pretty high barrier to entry for newbies (who let's be honest, are usually the cash cows). If they go elsewhere to learn their fundamentals, why don't they just stay at wherever they're at?

 

[Dogstarman]

That sounds pretty daft IMO. You put up a pretty high barrier to entry for newbies (who let's be honest, are usually the cash cows). If they go elsewhere to learn their fundamentals, why don't they just stay at wherever they're at?

As I said, that was his old way of thinking. If you read his first book he mentions that there are a number of books and resouces available to learn fundamentals.

Recently, during an interview he said that he likes to teach his students fundamentals his way because they won’t develop habits.

 

[Foppa21]

Zahabi’s approach is great. I have never liked the spider web by contrast, but to each his own. Some people don’t like the kimura grip, a view which I consider the darkest form of heresy.

To each their own. I personally don't see any issues with any of the controls describe. Go with what you're comfortable with. Just bear in mind, that whatever control you use is usually to counter a technique your uke is trying. Learn to switch around