Ryan Hall's Theory of Ideals

Ryan gave a seminar on January 30, 2010. He went over a series. It was a deep half guard entry into a "waiter sweep," followed by a guard pass, into a submission.

But rather than focusing on these specific techniques, Ryan insisted that if we got anything out of the seminar it should be the principles and theories he uses to explain why he chooses these techniques and their specific details.

It's in those principles he uses to explain his techniques that Ryan reveals the various theories and principles he uses to categorize and systematize Jiu Jitsu techniques. He deconstructs each movement, trying to break it down into base elements - a small move of the hips, a placement of a hook, a foot on the floor. In doing so, he highlights the small, simple actions that make Jiu Jitsu an art which has a high efficiency of power and movement.

There is also a very interesting viewpoint he conveyed on the guard. Basically, it is "when I am fighting an opponent, he may have an excellent guard, but I never want to find that out." That is to say, he never wishes to engage his opponent's guard but rather bypass it entirely. In the series he taught at this seminar, what I described above as a "guard pass" was actually a "guard bypass." Why engage your opponent in a position in which he is strong if you don't have to? It is very nearly what I was getting at on a theory I examined in an earlier entry describing that if we define and understand a position, we can defeat more than an opponent, we can defeat the position.



In the times I have met him, he has always advocated a theory of Jiu Jitsu as follows:

If I fight a grappler in all areas superior than me, size, strength and technique, yet I make 100% correct technical choices for movement, I will win. He uses the example of fighting Marcelo Garcia or Rubens "Cobrinha" Charles to highlight this theory. Fighting Marcelo Garcia, no matter what your rank or skill level, if you make flawless movements in the fight, you will defeat Marcelo.

I largely agree with this theory, but we should deconstruct it.

We recognize that we are discussing Jiu Jitsu. We are discussing this theory within the generally accepted rules of Jiu Jitsu. We recognize that grappling is a sport whose equipment is limited to the human body. We make a few assumptions on this equipment. We assume that each body is within a limit of size and strength of the other in order to be able to reasonably manipulate the opponent. We can see that even someone of 130lbs can force some reasonable manipulation against the body of a person of 300lbs. However, it is more difficult to assume that someone with a 40lbs body could reasonably manipulate that 300lbs person in the same way. In Jiu Jitsu, we assume that human forms will be within some sort of tolerated limits, where one person will be able to have some reasonable manipulation over the other person's body.

Apart from this physical limitation, Ryan's theory has three important pieces:

First Assumption, there exists perfect progressions inside the limits of what Jiu Jitsu is.

Second Assumption, while Marcelo Garcia is a superb grappler, and arguably the best technical Jiu Jitsu fighter in the world, he and every other grappler makes technical mistakes so that their game is less than an ideal progression.

Third Assumption, anyone who fights an ideal game will defeat anyone fighting a less than ideal game.


In order to really examine this theory, I would want to deconstruct it further. I'd like to define some of the terms I've used more specifically.
What is it to "reasonably manipulate" an opponent?
What are "progressions" in Jiu Jitsu?
What is a "game" in Jiu Jitsu?
(while we all feel like it is common sense, I would even like to define)
What is it to "win" in Jiu Jitsu?