Oooo….them’s fightin’ words.
If you think back to our last post on examining our practice through the lens of efficiency, not framing will make total sense after our conversation here.
Thing One – How long do you think you can hold somebody up? That’s what you’re doing with frames, especially as a beginner. The ultimate expression of jiu-jitsu is an unarmed combat scenario where there are no rules, no weight classes, and no time limits. The no time limit thing becomes important when we’re talking about frames, because how long can you hold a body up? There are lots of people who are in amazing physical condition who could hold up a barbell loaded with 135 pounds for a relatively long time. The problems start when that bar starts moving around. When supporting live weight with frames, strength is gonna go away really quickly.
Replay your last few grappling sessions. How often were you in a bottom position with your arms stretched out? Even if you’re framing with bent elbows, it’s only marginally better, and that’s still not a recipe for success.
2nd Problem – If you’re framing – You can’t attack, you can’t defend, you can’t sweep, and you can’t transition. All you can do is hold your opponent up.
Doesn’t sound too much like “Results with as little effort as possible” to me.
I get it. You’re getting smashed. You’re tired. It’s hard to breathe, and you just want some space. Thing is….your problem isn’t what’s happening to you right now. It started with whatever happened that got you there, but that’s another post. Let’s fix what’s happening now.
Problem Tres – If you’re framing – Your elbows are away from your sides. Ever heard “keep your friends close, and your elbows closer”? You have now. Detached elbows are the spaces where underhooks are born. As the person on bottom, this is bad. Elbow control is a big deal for the person on top. Don’t help them with that by purposefully taking your elbows away from your sides.
Problem 4 – Frames are really strong…in one direction. Think about a knee shield from guard. If your opponent is driving toward your chest, and you’ve got your knee in their chest, you can hold them back with zero problems. It’s incredibly strong. BUT, if I were to put even a few pounds of pressure on the *side* of your knee from the same position, it’d fold right up, opening the way for the pass. You don’t even have to go to the ground for a demonstration. Hold an arm straight out in front of you and have someone press their weight directly into that arm. You can do a pretty good job of keeping them away. Now hold up your arm and have them press your hand toward the floor. Takes significantly less pressure. A small child could probably pull your arm down. If the person on top of you in grappling scenario knows what they’re doing, they’re going to exploit that.
What to do then?
Try to investigate countering movements instead of framing. When your guard’s being passed, keep those elbows down and start turning either towards or away from the passer. You’ll be significantly harder to hold down if you don’t give them ways to hold you. Which, in this case, would be an underhook. What that does is, instead of staying in place and getting ready to accept their weight on your frames, you’re already leaving the position before they can establish chest-to-chest contact. It’s typically the case that if you are waiting for your opponent to get close to you so that you can use your frames, you are going to be late, and being late leads to feeling the need to rush.. According to Matt Thornton, who I tend to agree with , there’s no such thing as being on time. You’re either early or some form of late. If you can reframe your training habits around being early, then you can start your escapes or transitions sooner so that you don’t have to rely on becoming faster or stronger. Not relying on physical attributes like speed or strength is what sets jiu-jitsu apart from other grappling arts. It’s the thing that makes jiu-jitsu jiu-jitsu.
Also – Re-guard? Why? They clearly know how to pass. Why not just get on top? That’s a topic for another post.
Spend some time untraining 95% your framing habits and see where it takes you.
