Coaches Corner: Fun-Duh-Mentals

I’ve never met a coach, in any sport, that has not talked about the importance of good fundamentals. I’ve also never met a coach who says that it’s the amount of flashy, complicated techniques and moves that a player knows that determines how good they’ll be at their chosen sport. But when I look around I see the majority of martial arts instructors talking about fundamentals and teaching nothing but complicated flash.

In this article I will, for the most part, be referring to the fundamentals of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu but my major points can be easily transferred to any martial art or sport with just a little bit of translation.

So why are fundamentals important? The simple answer is that, more than anything else, improving your fundamentals improves your ability to fight. Think about it, a better hip escape is useful in any number of situations but a better inverted omaplata is useful in only one. Also, in Jiu Jitsu at least, fundamentals are consistent across all categories; this means that the technique is performed essentially the same regardless of whether you are in a sport BJJ, MMA, self defence or Vale Tudo scenario. In other words, a good coach wants to develop their athletes’ ability to a high level in the most time-efficient manner possible and teaching good fundamentals is the best way of doing that.

Having accepted that fundamentals are important; exactly which techniques and movements are fundamental and which ones aren’t? If you asked 5 different BJJ instructors to write down the fundamentals you would end up with no two lists agreeing; sure there would be some crossover but each list would deviate, most likely substantially, from the others. The main reason for this is that most martial arts instructors are not coaches—yes, there is a difference—and as such teach their game their style rather than the art itself. For example Royce Gracie students, like Royce, typically take a defensive, low risk, opportunistic approach to Jiu Jitsu, whereas Mario Sperry‘s students, like Sperry, take an aggressive, top game oriented approach. Both instructors teach the art of Jiu Jitsu but exhibit radically different styles from one another and have passed these styles onto their students. This is the most common way of teaching in the martial arts industry and it is not particularly good. Your style is suited to your body and personality and you frequently end up teaching a wide spectrum of people who differ from you both physically and mentally.

Fundamentals must transcend style; coaches need to teach the fundamentals of the art and not the fundamentals of their game. Matt Thornton very succinctly – and accurately – defines a technique as being fundamental if it meets two criteria: 

1. It is something that every blackbelt has to know.
2. It is something that everyone performs essentially the same way.

For instance, the knee elbow escape from mount is a fundamental – Marcelo Garcia, Frank Mir and Rickson Gracie all know and perform this move the same way despite their radically different physiques and games – but the Electric Chair sweep is not a fundamental as not all black belts know it and those that do execute it differently from one another. This isn’t to say that non fundamental moves are useless, far from it, but that these moves are specific to style and situation and as such won’t be as useful to everyone in the room. For example, in the past two weeks I’ve accidently put three people to sleep and tapped a number of others with the Von Flue choke; this technique has obviously been successful and useful for me but as it arises largely as a result of my game (aggressive, dynamic) and bodytype (shortarse) it is far from being classed as a fundamental.

At our gym we spend 90% of our training time developing our fundamentals and 10% exploring other techniques.  As a result our athletes have experienced rapid progress and exhibit a variety of games. This variety of games leads to even more progress as a top fighter who only has to get their game to work against other top fighters is not nearly as dangerous as a top fighter who is successful against guard players, leg lockers, arm hunters, rubber guarders, back control freaks and top fighters.  

So, to recap, it is important not just to talk about the fundamentals but also actually teach and train them.