Ryan Hall: Principles of Jiu Jitsu | Take It Uneasy Podcast
00:00:00.000 | In class you emphasized that we're working with basic laws of physics.
00:00:04.800 | So I just read Einstein's biography.
00:00:07.800 | He was obsessed with finding a single theory that would unify all the
00:00:11.960 | fundamental forces of nature.
00:00:13.360 | Wow.
00:00:13.840 | Do you think there exists a unified theory of grappling where you can boil
00:00:16.920 | everything down to just a few principles?
00:00:18.720 | Well, first off, if Einstein wasn't able to come up with the unified theory, I
00:00:25.480 | would sincerely question my ability to go that way.
00:00:28.960 | But do I believe that something like that could potentially exist?
00:00:31.440 | Absolutely.
00:00:32.040 | And I think that even if it doesn't, a belief in the possibility of it and the
00:00:36.840 | search for it would leave you better off than where you started.
00:00:41.080 | Whereas if I was, "Ah, no, no, that's bullshit.
00:00:43.200 | That would never..."
00:00:43.640 | And then I don't look.
00:00:44.560 | Even if I'm right, because I didn't look, there's certain things I won't learn.
00:00:47.880 | So I think, you know, a lot of times just, let's say alchemy, the idea that
00:00:53.240 | you're going to turn lead to gold.
00:00:54.560 | All right.
00:00:54.760 | Well, that's a little bit nuts.
00:00:56.000 | But who knows, maybe that's that kind of nutty and, you know, highly unlikely,
00:01:01.640 | highly unlikely probability of success pursuit yielded scientific progress
00:01:06.320 | elsewhere in the search for that.
00:01:07.920 | Even though, again, someone would look back and say, "Oh, that's stupid.
00:01:10.720 | Who would do that?"
00:01:11.960 | Well, if you spent years trying to figure it out, I guarantee you're going
00:01:14.440 | to learn some other things as well.
00:01:15.680 | So I think that there at the very least, a principle-based approach to
00:01:19.520 | grappling is incredibly important.
00:01:21.040 | So what's your process like for learning new details and understanding the
00:01:23.840 | principles behind techniques?
00:01:26.480 | I certainly don't believe that I have like a singular or perfect approach by
00:01:30.800 | any stretch of the imagination.
00:01:31.960 | But, you know, I guess what I try to do is block out extraneous nonsense.
00:01:36.000 | Like for instance, a lot of people want to talk about 55 details and reasons for
00:01:41.280 | something that's going on.
00:01:42.120 | And the reality is, is that you're clouding your thought process.
00:01:44.320 | For instance, there was a recent, not to get too political, but there was a recent
00:01:47.840 | issue where I remember an inmate was executed and they used a new drug and it
00:01:53.360 | was painful and, oh my God, and he died.
00:01:55.320 | It was horrible.
00:01:56.000 | Again, that's whether you believe that capital punishment is valid or not, I
00:01:59.560 | think there's plenty of arguments against it.
00:02:01.360 | In fact, I think most of the arguments that make sense are against it.
00:02:04.600 | But pain has fuck all to do with it.
00:02:07.680 | You know, I don't care.
00:02:09.000 | That's like, "Hey Lex, I'm going to kill you, but don't worry, it's not going to
00:02:13.280 | hurt."
00:02:13.720 | I mean, don't get me wrong.
00:02:15.480 | No, that's okay then.
00:02:15.880 | Yeah.
00:02:16.200 | It's like, that doesn't make it okay.
00:02:17.520 | It's like, believe me, I prefer, again, if you're going to kill me, I prefer this.
00:02:20.040 | You don't burn me at the stake.
00:02:21.560 | But if someone was like, "Don't worry, it's not even going to sting.
00:02:24.120 | I'm still going to try to fight you to the death.
00:02:25.960 | I'm absolutely not allowing this to happen."
00:02:27.800 | If someone wants to say, "Oh, okay, hold on.
00:02:29.640 | Let's cut the bullshit, like, feely feelings out of here and say, look, forget
00:02:33.920 | the pain.
00:02:34.320 | Does this person deserve it?
00:02:35.720 | Ah, well, let's step that back again.
00:02:37.720 | Is there a potential for human error?
00:02:39.520 | Is there potential for someone having this guy behind bars for political gain?"
00:02:43.360 | Like, okay, these are the real reasons that you say, "Hey, no way on the death
00:02:46.200 | penalty."
00:02:46.600 | It has nothing to do with, does it hurt?
00:02:48.640 | Or which drug is it?
00:02:50.160 | Or blah-de-blah.
00:02:50.800 | Or is it inhumane?
00:02:51.720 | It's like, none of that.
00:02:52.320 | If, hey, we're focusing on the wrong thing.
00:02:55.880 | So it reminds me of jujitsu in the same sense.
00:02:57.880 | And again, we're fighting, we're generally speaking, in my opinion, debates that
00:03:00.600 | happen in the public, you know, arena, they always focus on the wrong dang thing
00:03:04.840 | and always focus on the wrong aspect.
00:03:06.480 | Again, there's 25 good reasons or bad reasons to do almost anything.
00:03:09.840 | But generally speaking, people will focus on the hundred other ones that are
00:03:14.040 | extraneous and retarded.
00:03:15.000 | So what I want, I guess what I would say is it reminds me of jujitsu or striking.
00:03:18.800 | Like, oh man, Floyd likes to hold his hand this way or that way or the other way.
00:03:22.480 | And this guy likes to jab like this.
00:03:24.800 | And it's really important.
00:03:25.680 | This person says you land with this knuckle and that person says you land
00:03:27.960 | with that knuckle.
00:03:28.560 | And in jujitsu, it's very, very important that you grip three inches up on the
00:03:31.880 | lapel and two to the right.
00:03:33.160 | But Roger Gracie does it like this, but Cabrini says it like this.
00:03:36.360 | Clearly they all work under the right circumstances and don't work under the
00:03:41.240 | wrong ones.
00:03:41.680 | And it has nothing to do or very little to do with these other things.
00:03:45.360 | Like, hey, does it matter?
00:03:46.480 | Again, I'm going to kill you.
00:03:48.200 | Would you prefer for it to be painless or horrifically painful?
00:03:50.840 | Okay.
00:03:51.240 | If it's already a foregone conclusion, death.
00:03:53.840 | All right.
00:03:54.360 | Yeah.
00:03:54.520 | Now we'll start to talk about the, the extreme, like whether or not it's going
00:03:57.440 | to sting, but until we get to that point, Hey, let's focus on the, do we, is it
00:04:02.000 | even right?
00:04:02.480 | Or do I have the ability or the capacity to do this justifiably?
00:04:05.360 | Okay.
00:04:05.880 | So that's where you come down to the principles in my opinion and say, all
00:04:09.280 | right, yeah.
00:04:10.000 | Does it matter which knuckle you land with?
00:04:11.640 | Yeah, I'm sure it does, but it's a hell of a lot less important than 25 other
00:04:16.280 | little things that make all of the difference.
00:04:18.000 | And in my experience, a lot of coaches and a lot of people, particularly guys
00:04:21.640 | that are trying to bullshit you, um, we'll focus on 45 little details and,
00:04:25.720 | oh, it's there's 15 details to this technique.
00:04:28.040 | Okay.
00:04:29.320 | That's true.
00:04:29.840 | But what are the two most important ones?
00:04:32.160 | Because, Hey, don't get me wrong.
00:04:33.560 | I'm not saying that these details don't matter, but just like anything else in
00:04:36.920 | life, there's a hierarchy, right?
00:04:38.560 | Because would you say that, would you say that happiness and self-actualization
00:04:42.080 | is a valuable thing in life?
00:04:43.280 | Yes.
00:04:43.800 | I would as well.
00:04:45.160 | And you know what?
00:04:45.880 | We have the luxury of saying that type of thing because we're sitting at 50, 50
00:04:49.480 | jiu jitsu in Falls Church, Virginia, and there's no one trying to kill us, rape
00:04:52.680 | us, and we are also, I know where food is tonight.
00:04:56.040 | Yeah.
00:04:56.560 | If you were to walk down, if you were to talk to someone like 2000 years ago,
00:04:59.760 | I'll be like, how are you feeling?
00:05:01.000 | They would stare at you like, what are you fucking retarded?
00:05:04.160 | I'm starving.
00:05:04.840 | I'm hungry.
00:05:05.920 | That's my issue.
00:05:06.640 | Are you, are you satisfied in your life?
00:05:08.760 | It's like, I'll be satisfied when you get out of my way so I can find some food.
00:05:11.480 | So that's even the deeper question is, are you eating something tonight?
00:05:15.560 | Right.
00:05:15.920 | And so it's Maslow's hierarchy of needs.
00:05:17.840 | When we take care of the base needs first, then we start to work our way up
00:05:20.720 | towards self-actualization and this and that.
00:05:22.920 | And, but until you've got your food, water, shelter, don't tell me about
00:05:26.120 | where you're placing your grip.
00:05:27.400 | It's like, you're all leaning out and you're, you know, your posture is poor
00:05:31.040 | and you're out of balance and you want to tell me your grip, that's like, I'm
00:05:33.920 | starving to death.
00:05:34.840 | The, you know, the barbarians are at the gates, but I'm sitting here
00:05:38.680 | giving you a philosophy lesson.
00:05:40.120 | It's like, this is retarded.
00:05:41.840 | It doesn't make any sense.
00:05:43.280 | Build a better wall, a sharper knife and get some food.
00:05:46.080 | And then we'll cover all the other stuff.
00:05:47.840 | So I think that in my, when it comes to how I approach martial arts in terms of
00:05:51.440 | learning, as well as teaching, I really try to boil it down to what I feel to be
00:05:54.360 | the most important component parts.
00:05:55.880 | And then if I one day reach the level of where these tiny details matter, that's
00:06:01.280 | fantastic because again, the difference between, you know, the ability to pass,
00:06:05.240 | let try to pass successfully against a Cabrini or Rafael Mendez and against a
00:06:09.360 | regular run of the mill black belt are, you know, it does come down to little
00:06:12.000 | details, but it's also presupposing that you're in proper position that even allow
00:06:18.240 | these details to become relevant.
00:06:19.600 | And I think that a lot of times we put the car before the horse and
00:06:22.160 | that's not, that's problematic.
00:06:23.360 | Are there still, in your opinion, undiscovered positions, submissions
00:06:28.840 | or techniques in Jiu Jitsu?
00:06:29.920 | Oh, I would say that there have to be, there absolutely are.
00:06:32.600 | Um, you know, I think that what we see is Jiu Jitsu now, don't get me wrong.
00:06:35.760 | The core never changes because physics doesn't change.
00:06:39.640 | Physics is the same thing.
00:06:40.720 | That's why I get a kick out of people that love to like self-defense arguments.
00:06:43.320 | It's like bullshit.
00:06:44.200 | It has no, there's no physical difference in self-defense beyond the fact.
00:06:47.160 | Yes, you can eye gauge me though.
00:06:48.200 | I've never seen anything like that in real life that you're crossing a pretty
00:06:51.120 | serious psychological line.
00:06:52.280 | If you're putting your knuckles to, you know, your thumb, two knuckles
00:06:54.680 | deep into somebody's eye, forget the fact that, you know, that we're legal,
00:06:58.240 | moral, other things like that.
00:06:59.360 | It's like, I've never done that before.
00:07:01.320 | I wouldn't do it lightly.
00:07:02.560 | There'd probably be some hesitation there.
00:07:03.920 | What, so anyway, what makes it different is the psychological component and all
00:07:08.240 | these other things going on, but physically there's no difference.
00:07:10.960 | Again, people like, Oh, Jiu Jitsu is really different than MMA.
00:07:13.440 | No, it's not.
00:07:14.080 | Not in my opinion, not in my experience.
00:07:15.960 | It is absolutely not.
00:07:16.920 | What are you talking about?
00:07:17.920 | Physics are different inside of a cage than they are on a mat.
00:07:20.600 | And they are out in a field.
00:07:22.480 | It's exactly the same.
00:07:24.280 | Now, if I try to sport grapple you under a non-sport grappling rule set, then I
00:07:30.560 | may run myself into trouble, but that had nothing to do with Jiu Jitsu.
00:07:33.160 | Jiu Jitsu is physics, is proper expression of physics, the same way boxing is.
00:07:37.360 | And the same way wrestling is the same way all of these things are.
00:07:39.640 | So I would say that as long as something adheres to the principles that, that
00:07:44.600 | allow something to be effective and, you know, and fundamentally sound, that
00:07:49.600 | you can do almost anything.
00:07:50.600 | And I think that people will continue, particularly in the Gi, it's going to
00:07:52.960 | get nuts, you know, just the level of the amount of, of things that you can get
00:07:56.200 | away with and do and, and different grips that you can make.
00:07:58.960 | But, I'd say what we're looking at right now is going to look only somewhat like
00:08:04.640 | what Jiu Jitsu is going to look like in 30 years.
00:08:06.720 | The same way the Jiu Jitsu we see now is so much fundamentally better, honestly,
00:08:11.560 | and, and more evolved and adaptive than it was 20 years ago.
00:08:15.480 | And people will swear up and down like, Oh, back in the day, it's like back in the
00:08:18.760 | day, people didn't know how to fight very well, even 20 years ago, the level of, of
00:08:22.080 | people understanding how to deal with Jiu Jitsu was very reduced.
00:08:26.520 | So you could get away with all sorts of pretty questionable stuff.
00:08:29.880 | Like sitting in front of someone in close guard and have them not completely
00:08:33.160 | kick the shit out of you.
00:08:34.440 | But, I think, you know, with particularly the advent of the barren bowl, the 50, 50
00:08:38.760 | position, all these different things, which have always existed, there's, they've
00:08:41.800 | always existed.
00:08:42.520 | And when that's, I always hesitate to say invent.
00:08:45.200 | I don't like the word invent.
00:08:46.520 | Like certain people use it a lot.
00:08:48.000 | I'd say discover, because you could show me, I could come up with something.
00:08:51.040 | Let's say Lex, you know, you've got a really good straight foot lock.
00:08:54.040 | I was watching you train last night and I could be doing that in a way that no one
00:08:57.760 | ever taught me.
00:08:58.520 | That doesn't mean I invented it because you've been doing it forever.
00:09:02.000 | But basically it's, let's say no one showed me the details you were using and I
00:09:05.320 | managed to stumble across them.
00:09:06.680 | I didn't invent those details.
00:09:07.880 | I discovered them and that was neat.
00:09:10.120 | But again, none of us have invented a dang thing.
00:09:12.000 | People have had two arms and two legs for certainly as long as I can remember and
00:09:15.760 | probably longer than that.
00:09:16.800 | That's what I hear.
00:09:18.080 | Yeah.
00:09:18.400 | That's, that's the word.
00:09:19.280 | So in the history books.
00:09:20.960 | Yeah.
00:09:20.960 | Yeah.
00:09:25.960 | Yeah.
00:09:30.960 | Yeah.
00:09:35.960 | Yeah.
00:09:40.960 | Yeah.
00:09:45.960 | Yeah.