Those who give, shall receive: Very often I see students fight for every inch of ground in a match. The moment contact is made there is a furious fight for grips and every part of the match is tightly contested. Often this is a sound approach – but it is important to understand that it is not the only way to engage your opponent. Too often this approach leads to a result where the two athletes never get to finishing positions because they never get past the battle for initial grips and positions. Very often you will get better results by giving something to your opponent. The key is TO CONTROL HOW MUCH YOU GIVE AND THE AFTERMATH. If you give an opening to a talented opponent without a plan, he will quickly take advantage and score on you. However, if you do so with a sound plan and the skills to enact it, your opponent will often be caught as he moves into what he perceived as an advantage. So for example, you can let an elbow drift surreptitiously away from your torso to draw your opponent into an underhook, all the while waiting for this occur so that your pre-planned attack off the overhook can come into play. Jiu jitsu is absolutely full of possibilities for this kind of approach. We all have a good idea of what is desirable for both athletes as we spar, so often the act of giving will provide the perfect set up on an over extended opponent as the trap is sprung. This approach requires subterfuge and subtlety along with the skills to recover if your gambit fails and to score if it succeeds – all this is good for your development. Ultimately our sport REQUIRES FREE movement AND EXTENSION OF THE LIMBS IF FINISHES ARE TO OCCUR. If neither player will engage past initial grips this is unlikely to occur – hence the occasional need to offer INCENTIVES TO MOVEMENT AND EXTENSION THAT CAN CREATE THE CONDITIONS NEEDED FOR VICTORY. Here Garry Tonon offers both partial back exposure and a partial ashi garami entanglement as a means of getting into his opponents hips and legs and into a potentially winning position with the least effort and energy expenditure.
