My Newest Martial Rant

So a couple days ago I was at the bookstore and I decided to pick up the X guard by Marcelo Garcia. I own a couple other books about grappling most notably Mastering the Twister, Mastering the Rubber Guard both by Eddie Bravo and also Jiu Jitsu University by Saulo Ribero. I love Saulo’s book its great it gave me my bearings in the grappling game but this post isn’t about him or his book. When I first checked out the 10th Planet Jiu-jitsu I realized something. And that magical something was that Eddie had developed an entire system that in theory took the weak points of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and exploited them in nogi grappling and I suddenly understood shaolin kung fu. Now I know that makes zero sense but let me explain. I was reading about the history of shaolin a long time ago on the beach. What I noticted about the history of shaolin was it all started with 18 movements bodhidharma’s muscle tendon change classic and from that we get all 200 forms of kung fu we see today. However why does a kung fu form like praying mantis or drunken monkey seem so complex? It’s because it wasn’t designed to beat a random street thug who couldn’t fight it was made to beat another shaolin style so that the temple would adopt the style and regard the style as superior. The rubber guard is the same thing!!! When first exposed to eddies eccentric Jiu Jitsu it I was like this makes no sense why do all this work to set up an omoplata or a triangle when I could just slap it on like Royce Gracie did in his fights? Because he was so successful he taught everyone his style and now everyone knows it. You can’t just slap on a triangle because you opponent most likely knows how to escape from it. 10th planet system was made so that people who aren’t as talented martial artists could defeat people who emulated the martial style of the Gracie family. The practice of adding a layer of complexity and developing new moves or a whole new system to counter another previous system works… for a little while. Its like the game you play where you put your hand on top of someone else’s and they respond by placing theirs on top of yours and it goes on in that fashion forever. It’s really really hard to permanently win that game the other person always pulls their hand out from under yours and places it on top. At ADCC 2003 Eddie got his hand on top but the other grappling teams soon pulled their hands out from under his and placed it on top of his. This is where we come to Marcelo Garcia’s book. When I read his book and looked at his butterfly and x-guard game something clicked and I was like wow the 10th planet system is cool but its Childs play compared to this. The entire introduction to Marcelo’s book is about how he sampled all the positions and looked within himself and found this one. He developed the position and he loves the x-guard like he loves a child. It has emotional content his grappling game is an expression of him. It’s a physical art. He is a martial artist not a competitor. He’s not trying to counter or beat anyone he is just expressing himself though grappling. Honestly more people miss the meaning of art in phrase martial art then people ignore the martial aspect. A grappler or fighter is just as much of an artist as a painter. When you learn to stop playing games and start expressing yourself in a martial way then you will become unstoppable in combat. Did I mention that the X-guard by Marcelo Garcia is a great book and everyone interested in grappling should buy it?