In fact, you do not even need to look outside of BJJ to see wildly different basic techniques: if you were to see an IBJJF gi comp and a no-gi sub only comp it could be hard to reconcile them as the same sport. I expect a skilled practitioner in one has all the fundamental understanding to become skilled in the other, even if they need to develop a whole new arsenal. The techniques that each of these groups learn could not be more different, yet both of these are grappling arts, part of the same continuum. And if you look more broadly, to other arts, the ‘fundamental’ techniques become entirely different.Ĭompare two very different schools of grappling: freestyle wrestlers and 10 th planet students. You could still win competitions on points, and from a self-defense point of view you can escape an attacker and gain top position, or at least stand up.
I would argue that you can in fact practice BJJ without using submissions at all – you would of course be cutting out a huge part of the game, and what makes it attractive and effective for most people, but nonetheless it would still be BJJ and would still be useful. We consider these to be fundamentals, but I’m not sure this should be the case.
We learn these from the outset, sometimes throwing up fifty or so in a warm up. What do you define as a fundamental grappling technique? For most BJJ practitioners this usually includes the arm bar, the kimura, and the triangle, usually all from guard and followed by side control. Depending on what art you study, one is a fundamental, and the other is a basic, and it makes no sense