Fighter

Welcome to the second edition of the Fighters Market Breakdown series, brought to you by your favorite social scientist black belt.

As I mentioned in the first edition – The Complete Armbar Breakdown – despite the impressive, and sometimes overwhelming, body of techniques in modern jiu-jitsu, there are just a handful of core principles that underlie them all. Some of these apply to Brazilian-jiu-jitsu in general, and some apply specifically to certain submissions and positions. 

Let’s examine every lanky BJJ practitioner’s favorite: the triangle. 

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It’s that time of year again… Spring cleaning.

Most people dread it, some look forward to it, but regardless, it’s a necessary part of offloading all that crap from the past year – or, hey, years… COVID, am I right?. Can I still use that as an excuse? Meh. I’ll do it anyway.

While spring cleaning for your home and personal wardrobe is a no-brainer, have you thought about spring cleaning your BJJ game? If you’re spring cleaning one part of your life, why not all parts of your life?

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The greatest creation of the internet was not the internet itself… it was the meme. These innocuous-looking combinations of random images and text are jam-packed with cultural nuance and cleverly crafted humor.

They have brought so much joy, worldwide, and within every discipline and social group imaginable. Yes, some are terrible, but others have the power to pull a laugh from the depths of your soul while you sit on the toilet. 

So, I’ve decided to do all the heavy lifting – you’re welcome, it was quite the sacrifice – and select the best 20 BJJ Memes of all time...

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The beauty about Brazilian jiu-jitsu is that anyone can do it. And everyone who does it finds their own style, their own game, and becomes proficient at their own set of submissions. This is absolutely beautiful.

However, cool as it is to see this or that jiu-jitsu athlete doing some unorthodox submission time and again to his or her hapless opponents… I’m looking at you Ruotolo Brothers… there’s no denying that there are a handful of submissions that you tend to see the most.

These are what I consider the “highest percentage” BJJ submissions...

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Did you see what I did there? Armbar… “break”down…

Aside having puns for days, as both a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu black belt and a social scientist, I’ve made it my mission to study the art of jiu-jitsu and all the systems within it. One thing that I’ve found is that there are a handful core principles underlying jiu-jitsu generally, as well as every submission and position individually.

Check out how this applies to an armbar...

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