1. Connection Principle
Connection refers to being as close to your partner as possible, both in terms of attacking and defending.
Connection refers to creating movement, preventing movement, or predicting movement.
All of these are possible because you’re able to feel even the tiniest shifts in your opponent’s body positioning by leaving no space between you and them.
All of the following principles are forms of connection with your opponent.
2. Detachment Principle
Achieving optimal efficiency in transitions through deliberate connections from your opponent.
Know when to let go in order to achieve a strategic goal.
Holding on "desperately" does not translate to better control.
3. Distance Principle
Distance has the role of neutralizing the application of a technique against you by disrupting the optimal distance from which it is applied.
Managing distance makes it impossible for the opponent to attack effectively.
It will help you understand how to stay safe and attack more efficiently.
4. Pyramid Principle
Optimizing connections with the ground and with your opponent to maximize balance and control at all times.
This one has to do with your centre of gravity and being constantly aware of where it is in relation to both the ground and your opponent.
The goal is to be like a pyramid, well-balanced and impervious to attack from every angle.
5. Creation Principle
Using targeted actions to force specific reactions in your favour is the Creation Principle.
The art of counter-attacking in grappling.
Create openings by making your opponents react in a predictable way.
The principle “be first, and be third”.
6. Acceptance Principle
The acceptance Principle means being first to accept the inevitability of action so that you are best prepared for the outcome.
Sometimes, you can’t do what you want, and the opponent will get their move (pass sweep, transition, etc.).
Let them, so that you can control the outcome rather than be forced into it.
7. Velocity Principle
Constantly changing your operational speed to confuse and overwhelm your opponent.
Being fast all the time is predictable. So is being slow.
Instead, break your rhythm and constantly change the speed at which you execute your moves.
Alternating “fast and loose” and “slow and tight” .
8. Clock Principle
Disrupting the anticipated timing of your opponent’s techniques to reduce or eliminate their effectiveness.
If you understand what is happening, you can guess the timing of a move or technique, and do your best to stop it or capitalize on it using the a principle eg “Creating”
9. River Principle
Bypassing resistance by flowing around it.
Instead of trying to power through your opponent, go around them.
If they’re focused on stopping one thing, go around like a river flows around a rock, and attack with something else.
10. Frame Principle
Substituting muscular strength with skeletal structure from every position in the fight.
Instead of focusing on your muscles to do the work, use your entire body to achieve mechanically superiority, whether you’re looking to create space, or take it away.
11. Kuzushi Principle
Breaking your opponent’s balance in your favor.
What's really important is the last part of the definition “in your favor”.
Focus on deliberate, precise ways in which you can affect your opponent’s centre of gravity, using the Pyramid principle against them.
