How many do you need... In order to be competitive I'd say you only really NEED 3 things for each problem/situation. Make sure they are ALL things you like and then drill the shit out of them (even better if they link nicely to each other) then gun for them in sparring making sure to be conscious in there execution especially when they DON'T work this is where you'll figure out most of the problems. Example: Personally I only have about 3 things I'll do from 1/2 guard, live half guard and found myself snagging it before I even knew what it was as a white belt. Drilled it to the point of insanity (nearly have up BJJ in frustration of not making this work) now I know I can make one of this 3 moves work on almost anyone, even those better than me. I refer to 1/2 guard as my 'happy place' even though realistically I only 'know' 3 things from it, I just know them well. This is for competition just to be clear, I fully advocate exposing yourself to new things and learning as much stuff as possible to be as well rounded as possible. I would say by doing this you will be better prepared for escape and such e.g. If you've never seen DLR you probably won't be able to dismantle it, pass it and then make your game work. My thoughts... Its like higher level judo guys (as explained to me by a judo black belt) they only practise maybe 5 throws, competitively speaking.

well depends highly on the situation and opponent im very easygoing even when i compete, sometimes i literally make something up while i compete and it even works so you can guess i use alot of different moves but lets say i face someone who i know is better, stronger, faster, heavier, more experieced etc. than me and has the edge over me in all aspects. probably i would only do 3 things: 1. get to closed guard 2. Triangle 3. Armbar and i would hope for my luck since after all hes still better than all i got or someone would tell me he would shoot me if i dont tap someone else in 15 sec. theres only one choice: flying armbar from hell those are slightly exaggerated situations but thats what it comes down to it really depends alot on your opponent and situation but i can say for sure during the first years dont focus too much on doing too many things you gonna be just shitty at alot of things, better focus on what you like most the latest moment you should start expanding your game is when you feel no progress and your favourite moves start being boring, actually thats even a bit late. once you feel the slightest bit of too much repetition thats when you need to add new stuff as for your list its ok. i would down the passes and up the sweeps a bit, and maybe more escapes and slightly less subs but thats just personal preference as for leglocks do them, getting started early is good. as long as your head is cool enough to not confuse it and do in comp whats not allowed

This is the thing, it can get as complex as you like or you can keep it simple. I like things simple. As I said I have, on average, 3 things for all my major problems/situations e.g. 3 side control escapes, 3 mount escapes the 3 submissions from side control and 3 submissions for mount ect. for what I find myself in; side-top mount, back control, leg entanglement and so on... Know these intimately and be confident in them. In doing this I've found that even if I come across a position in not familiar with or comfortable in I either end up in or can make it into one of the positions I do know. Another thing: Instead of having 12 submissions from one position... Mount for example, get annoyingly good at maintaining, transitioning to and circling back to the position then you can take a long as you like cycling through the 3 complimentary submissions you know from there until one sticks... I know a guy who hates guard passing, no shit he falls over and pulls people onto Mount just to do his favorite mount escape... and nobody can stop him. 'Don't fear the man who knows 10,000 kicks, fear the man who's done 1 kick 10,000 times'.

Honestly if everything goes well I use 3 techniques the entire match. lol 1. Hook Sweep. 2. Knee Slice Pass. 3. North South Kimura I have won over 20 matches just using those 3 techniques. Even 3 matches against blue belts. Sure maybe I had to do 2 hook sweeps instead of 1 and play some guard but really that's all I did. Normally what happens at white and blue belt is whoever has the best A game and or aggression wins. I think around Purple belt is when you really need to have that variety and depth to your plan B/C games. I do think that a blue belt should have at least 2 or 3 things to do from every position...but are they going to do them? no probably not. They are just going to try to force their A game. But being able to use that plan B and C from every position to deceive and manipulate until your able to snap back into that plan A is where it's at. Tricking your opponent that your doing something else just so you can do what you wanted to do to begin with. Example: Faking a kimura from close guard just to get a hip bump sweep...then still having the kimura that you really wanted all along. If things do not go as planned then it becomes more conceptual and strategy based, not really on a set of techniques but more on movements to create and remove space and to distract and deceive until I am able to use the techniques that I wanted to use anyways. Playing the chess game. Not checkers. I feel like slowly focusing on a few techniques for a month or more at a time is better in the long run then trying to learn a bunch all at once. I feel like I am really good at maybe 3 techniques, Hook Sweep, Scissor Sweeps and Kimura. And maybe good at Knee Slice Pass but not really good yet and I am still 6-5 vs blue belts only being good at 3 techniques. I don't really count guard as a technique more of a concept of distance management and space but having a good guard and being able to pass guard is the most important thing. #1. Can you stop someone from passing your guard? #2. Can you pass their guard? #3. Can you finish them with a submission? To me that's all that ends up mattering.

well depends highly on the situation and opponent im very easygoing even when i compete, sometimes i literally make something up while i compete and it even works so you can guess i use alot of different moves but lets say i face someone who i know is better, stronger, faster, heavier, more experieced etc. than me and has the edge over me in all aspects. probably i would only do 3 things: 1. get to closed guard 2. Triangle 3. Armbar and i would hope for my luck since after all hes still better than all i got or someone would tell me he would shoot me if i dont tap someone else in 15 sec. theres only one choice: flying armbar from hell those are slightly exaggerated situations but thats what it comes down to it really depends alot on your opponent and situation but i can say for sure during the first years dont focus too much on doing too many things you gonna be just shitty at alot of things, better focus on what you like most the latest moment you should start expanding your game is when you feel no progress and your favourite moves start being boring, actually thats even a bit late. once you feel the slightest bit of too much repetition thats when you need to add new stuff as for your list its ok. i would down the passes and up the sweeps a bit, and maybe more escapes and slightly less subs but thats just personal preference as for leglocks do them, getting started early is good. as long as your head is cool enough to not confuse it and do in comp whats not allowed

This if I'm controlling from the bottom> 3 things: 1. get to closed guard 2. Triangle 3. Armbar This if I'm being controlled from the bottom> 3 things: 1. kneel to posture 2. back up and keep moving to the sides, avoiding the legs/guard to pass This if I'm controlling from the top> 3 things: 1. get to side control /cross sides 2. Choke This if I'm being controlled from the top> 3 things: 1. get to my side/running man 2. transition to sitting

Conceptually I see 6 possible ways a match can start: 1 & 2: you sit down and start to butt scoot / they sit down and start to butt scoot 2 & 4: one of you pulls guard 5 & 6: one of you gets a takedown I wrote those in the order of difficulty they are to stop. So there are some devastating fast ways to win in BJJ, i'd wager you could win a lot of intermediate NoGi matches just by sitting down, going shin to shin guard, ashi and then finish with a footlock. The thing is that since I want to compete for takedown, quite irrationally in BJJ terms, so i have to be able to deal with the butt scoot and the guard pull threats which adds a bunch of techniques I need to be good at before I can start my top game.

Which choke are we talking in the 3rd case?

Even though I always pull guard...I would love it for my opponent to pull guard first because I feel very comfortable passing the guard or just hanging out in half guard wearing them down especially in gi being able to get a cross colar choke grip from 1/2 guard and finishing the pass. I just don't want to waste all my energy trying to take them down and then be exhausted for my next matches. As long as I have one leg pinned down and control the other leg so it's not able to get any inside hooks I feel very comfortable. If your already good at takedowns and wrestling I would just practice passing the guard and knee slice passes, and getting very comfortable in 1/2 guard from the top position because you can force that top 1/2 guard position and transition from there. I spent a few months just forcing top 1/2 guard and working in and out and transitioning all around that position and helped me feel very comfortable against good guard players being able to pass the 1/2 guard and not feeling defeated if I get knocked back into it after passing, just keeping the pressure with good posture/balance to make sure not to get swept. It's like a dance of figuring out and knowing when to move each piece of the puzzle (your arms, legs, knees) when they move a certain way to counter balance your posture so your not vulnerable to a sweep or kimura and knowing when to back out and reset. It's like a fun mini-game. lol

Technique: Any choke that I can capitalize one Strategy: Misdirection and/or make the bottom person over commit/over extend their defense. The *most* difficult type of defender is one that doesn't want to move and stall - in my mind then, if it was a fight situation, the bottom person can be 'opened up' with strikes which means they will try to defend strikes by moving their head away in conjunction with extending their arms to some degree, thereby opening up an opportunity for a choke. If purely grappling then it will be the use of me repositioning, using pressure and timing for them to want to move as I will want to put as much pressure as possible - constricting pressure if you like

Alex I hope you archive all your posts. Some of them you'll find hilarious about 5-10 years from now if you'll keep doing this sport as enthusiastically as you are now.

Which choke are we talking in the 3rd case?

Alex I hope you archive all your posts. Some of them you'll find hilarious about 5-10 years from now if you'll keep doing this sport as enthusiastically as you are now.

So many times I have said things that I thought were smart to realize 3 months later I was an idiot. And I am sure I am still doing it now and will keep doing it. lol

Number of techniques? I hove no idea. I have a few core concepts I keep in my head when rolling. Stuff (the techniques) springs from applying these concepts. 0) Keep people out of my 'inner space' by any means possible. 'inner space' for me is the space between my neck and my knees - I always want my own arms and legs occupying this space. Doesn't matter what position I'm in, If my opponent gets ANYTHING in that space, I immediately stop what I'm doing and try to get them out. 1) Constantly attacking their base by and means possible. A little push or pull here right when I feel them move. There's a timing element to this. You also need good grip strategy. I don't attack arms/legs/necks/etc anymore, but rather, I attack base and balance and I've found that the opportunities to attack those target present themselves. I've heard this called 'kuzushi' before. As far as the number of techniques you should be good at? 51 might be a bit much. Roger Gracie says you only need about 10 (1, preferably 2 from each position so you can toggle back and forth) and I would agree and maybe make the argument that it's even less than that, but who am I to question him. ‎”I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times.” - Bruce Lee

I think it depends what we're defining as a 'technique'. I've got 4 guard varieties that you can't really avoid and so each one needs a pass and a sweep or submission, which gets you to 8 'techniques' before we even start doing takedowns.

You could distill that down because with all those guard variations, you still have to accomplish the same single goal - get past the legs initially. You could have two passes (maybe even one), get really proficient with them and funnel your opponent into that game. That's why I admire Roger Gracie so much as he's able to employ a handful of white belt techniques on high level black belts at will.

Yeah i'm just making a distinction between what i'm calling 'techniques' and 'concepts'. Conceptually my defence is that i 'never allow my opponent to occupy the space between my armpit and my knee'. However, there are specific techniques that sit under that because sometimes they are going to get in that space and some ways of recovering are better than others. As a black belt, you probably do the better ones without realising it. But i remember i was trying to escape north-south once, i felt some space which seemed like it would be a good idea to move towards and I essentially put myself in an arm bar. Even before the arm bar was applied i knew i'd messed up.

Coronavirus has forced me to take a break from competing and i've been using that time to really think about the basics of how I want to fight. I've been looking for low percentage stuff I need to stop doing and and high percentage stuff i'm not doing. That led me to a thought - how many techniques do you really do when you care about winning? I'm not talking about how many you know or what you do opportunistically in training. But when you're rolling and you actually care about winning, how many techniques do you really have in your arsenal? After re-thinking how i do some things, my current target is an aspiration to get good at 51 techniques: 20 submissions (of which 5 are leg locks) 10 escapes 9 guard passes 5 takedowns 3 Back takes 2 sweeps and 2 'other' My short-term goal is to get competitive at Blue Belt level, i'd consider myself at that level for 22/51 of the techniques (43%). 12 of the things on my list relate to leg attacks (23%) which i've been shielded from so far because of the ruleset competing as a white belt / beginner.