Gravity Magic

In grappling there are four skills that participants need to learn early in their journey. The first skill is the ability to move your own body, or the ability to control where you want to be.

Most experienced grapplers understand this at an intuitive level and therefore say things like posture and base.

If you don’t have these skills what does that really mean?

Posture- body tension and alignment

• Body Tension - Build the strength in your neck and core that allow you to flex and make your body a single tool.

  • Try doing pushups without flexing your abs, then try again with tight body tension. This will really show you how important core strength is to the rest of your power.

• Alignment - Do not allowing your opponent to compromise the alignment of your spine.

  • This skill can be utilized in someone’s guard to avoid triangles and armbars, while you are mounted to avoid top side triangles, or when you are on top in side control to avoid a buggy choke.

Base- balance and agility

• Balance - Keep your weight in a place that it can move in whatever direction it needs to go.

  • Think of yourself as a table, if someone removes one of the legs and pushes that direction, it is going to be difficult to stay upright, and difficult to move any other direction.

• Agility - Move your body where you want it to be.

  • You don’t always have to move your opponent, Once your strength is built, this skill is using body tension, alignment, and balance to move yourself to where you want to be. Whether that be shrimping out of side control or blocking a knee an circling around someone’s open guard.

I call this Gravity Magic, because when you utilize all of these elements you feel much heavier than the weight you posses. It is like you are a wizard tapping into gravity to cast your spell.