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.
12. Reconnaissance Principle
Gathering information about your opponent’s behavior for use against them.
This is a tactical strategy.
Every exchange allows you to learn something about your opponent’s preferred approach to grappling.
This is information you can use against them, preferably paired with the Clock principle.
13. Prevention Principle
Putting your opponent’s objectives before your own to prevent their progress.
How to stop opponents from executing what they’re looking for.
Provoking an overreaction that will open up a counter-attacking opportunity for yourself.
14. Tension Principle
Capitalizing on the offensive and defensive opportunities enabled by tension.
When two points are connected, there is tension. Keeping it or letting go of it can help you achieve your goal.
It is all about determining which is the right course of action at a given moment.
15. Fork Principle
Creating positional dilemmas that force your opponent to choose how they lose.
The “your money or your life principle”.
Make your opponents choose the “least bad” option for them.
For example, threatening with a sweep and submission at the same time.
16. Posture Principle
Neutralizing a technique by disrupting the optimal posture from where it is applied.
Whether standing, sitting, or supine, the posture plays a role – the alignment of the vertebrae.
Break this alignment and you will make opponents significantly weaker.
17. False Surrender Principle
Feigning surrender so that your opponent lets their guard down.
Not quite “the Brazilian Tap”, but not too far either.
Pretending to accept a bad position or allow entry into a submission hold does not mean you’re actually giving up.
Tricky, but very efficient and highly-reliable principle.
18. Depletion Principle
Draining your opponent’s physical and mental energy using targeted actions and connections.
If two fighters are equally skilled, conditioning will determine who wins.
The depletion principle helps you exhaust opponents while staying fresh yourself.
It involves using moves that save your energy while burning lots of your opponent’s energy at the same time.
19. Isolation Principle
Tactically contain one or more of your opponent’s limbs for your advantage.
Restricting mobility by neutralizing a certain limb.
You can use it to finish submissions, breakthrough defences, or control an opponent.
Trapping.
20. Sacrifice Principle
Give up something of actual or perceived value to gain a tactical advantage in another form.
When you can’t seem to gain ground during a match, you’ll have to think in terms of chess- lose a battle to win the war.
Be careful not to give up too much though, or this principle could backfire.
21. Momentum Principle
Capitalizing on mass in motion to maximize efficiency against your opponent.
Either make the most of momentum that is already there, or create momentum in order to facilitate your own attacks/escapes.
22. Pivot Principle
Increase the effectiveness of a technique by changing the angle of its application.
He who dominates the angle will dominate the fight.
Pivoting helps you change angles in order to get the best one for executing a technique of your choice.
23. Tagalong Principle
Seizing the “free rides” in the fight to save your energy while depleting the opponents.
Goes hand in hand with the Depletion principle.
Basically, it is all about surfing on your opponent from top or allowing them to pull you from the bottom in order to achieve a better position, and conserve energy.
24. Overload Principle
Disproportionate application of your resources to target a specific part of your opponent’s body.
This one is something you already know – submissions like the armbar, for example. Your entire body against the elbow joint of the opponent’s arm.
This principle is available in other situations and not just when finishing joint locks.
25. Anchor Principle
Pinning any part of your opponent’s body to a surface to inhibit mobility. This a principle that will require some work on your part to fully understand. It works in terms of pinning an opponent to a surface, yourself to a surface, you to yourself, the opponent to you, you to your opponent, and the opponent to themselves.
26. Ratchet Principle
Creating persistent incremental advancements in one direction while preventing motion in the opposite direction.
Ratcheting can be done in a “micro-ratchet” or “macro-ratchet” fashion.
The former refers to moving parts of your body, while the latter involves moving the entire body.
The key moment is that once you move, you set up in a way that prevents the opponent from moving you back.
27. Buoyancy Principle
Capitalizing on offensive and defensive surfacing opportunities throughout the fight.
What is buoyancy? it is the upward force that prevents an object from sinking into a fluid.
In grappling terms, this means successfully getting a top position when you’re on the bottom, or retaining a top position when you have it.
28. Head Control Principle
Controlling your opponent’s head to limit or direct their movement.
Where the head looks, the body will follow.
Exploring the different ways in which twisting, turning, tilting, framing, hugging, pulling, pushing, or pinning the head can help you control an opponent.
This principle has both offensive and defensive applications.
29. Redirection Principle
Reducing your opponent’s effectiveness by controlling the direction of their energy.
Instead of fighting force with force, redirect your opponent by changing the angle or intercepting their energy.
30. Mobility Principle
Moving yourself when your opponent cannot be moved.
Can you move a wall away from you by pushing it? How about moving yourself away from the wall, like doing a push up?
Recognizing when to move your opponent, and when to move yourself.
31. Centerline Principle
Limiting your opponent’s potential by taking control of their centreline.
By either “splitting” or “breaking” the opponent’s appendages, you can make them weak and susceptible to your attacks.
Particularly useful when hunting submissions.
32. Grandmaster Principle
Using the 32 principles to continuously improve your Jiu Jitsu - just like the Grandmaster.
