Brazilian Jiu JItsu, eh?

On the menu for discussion: history of the BJJ belt system, semantics of the belt grades.

BJJ is a grappling art. You also hear "grip fight! grip fight!" a lot. Yet, it is a criminally neglected subject. Hopefully I can provide insight on the matter.

A fully resisting opponent will not simply "give you" the technique. Against a resisting opponent, the process of applying a technique can become sloppy and languishing, and the window for hitting a clean, "textbook" execution generally grows smaller with better competition. Some techniques lend themselves to a certain way better than others.

There are a myriad of different guards available. Not even world class athletes whip out all of them at once.

Foreword: Some guards work better for kneeling opponents, whereas some guards are primarily meant for standing opponents. Then, on top of this, some guards are excellent for bogging down the opponent (holding), whereas some guards come with very intuitive and powerful sweeping options in exchange for defensive potential (sweeping).

Even world class athletes actually use less than five guard pass techniques - one or two are their "favourites", and then the others are for dealing with something that truly requires a specialized technique.