In Jiu jitsu – you don't have to be the fastest athlete – you just have to be the athlete who gets to the finish line first: Speed is a wonderful thing in combat sports, but not all of us are born fast and even those who are born fast lose speed over the course of a lifetime. The idea is not to value raw speed so much as the ability to get to a goal before your opponent – and there are many ways to do that that don't involve speed. One way to create the illusion of speed is to travel less distance in the same time. For example – the basic juji gatame arm bar from guard. If You begin the move with your feet locked at my opponents lower back, that's a considerable distance to move your legs and feet all the way up to the head to perform the move. If instead you slide your locked legs up to your opponents shoulder, then the distance required to transition to the arm bar is massively shortened – creating a much quicker performance of the arm bar even though you are moving at the same speed. In everything you do in Jiu jitsu, ask yourself – is there a way to speed up my performance of this move without speeding up the movements of my body? In most cases the answer is YES. And the act of researching how to do this will make you a better student of the sport.
