If you could have a superpower…Imagine God came to you one night and declared that he wants to give you an entry level super power – not a crazy super power like Thanos or Superman that makes you into a God – but a genuine human level superpower. He gives you a choice. You either choose the ability to make yourself massively stronger than everyone else on the planet, or you can make everyone else on the planet massively weaker than yourself (so you aren't any stronger, but you can make anyone in front of much much weaker). Which would you choose? There is definitely a sense in which the first choice is smarter, since if you become much stronger you can apply that new strength to anything – you could use it to fight humans or lift cars or perform tasks that no one else can. The second choice only applies to humans and so would only have value when trying to overcome someone in a match. So in a fantasy world the first option makes more sense. But what about the real world of Jiu jitsu? Is it smarter for us to focus on greater ourselves stronger? Or making our opponents weaker? Well, I strongly urge you to work on both. As athletes we all have a responsibility to try to improve every aspect of our physicality – it's an important part of performance in Jiu jitsu. However, in the real world there are definite limits on what can be done to improve your strength, speed and stamina. Once you get to a certain level you start to experience diminishing returns on the time invested in training. There is no great difference in sparring against someone who bench presses 400 pounds versus someone who presses 550 pounds in Jiu jitsu. They both feel strong – yet the amount of time and effort it takes to get from 400 to 550 pounds on the bench is very considerable. When it comes to making people weaker however, there are virtually no limits. Small improvements in position, angle, biomechanics,
can severely degrade an opponents strength and overall athleticism and you can keep making improvements forever. We all have a responsibility to make ourselves as strong as we can – BUT JIU JITSU IS MUCH MORE ABOUT MAKING THE OTHER FELLOW WEAKER THAN IT IS ABOUT MAKING OURSELVES STRONGER
