This was my first night back on the mats post-Covid lockdown.Last night I rolled with a new white belt, one month in.� �What do you want to work on?� I asked. �Breaking the guard and getting to side control,�...
This was my first night back on the mats post-Covid lockdown.
Last night I rolled with a new white belt, one month in.�
�What do you want to work on?� I asked.
�Breaking the guard and getting to side control,� New White Belt replied.
NWB seems about thirty, not too tall, not too short. Average build, maybe a little meaty. I would guess he�s about 160-170 pounds.
�Well, that will be easy to do on me.� My stubby legs usually they pop open with no resistance.�
I wrapped my legs around NWB, barely connecting my feet together. NWB took a deep breath, stared at the ceiling, went over the breaking-guard steps in his head as he carefully postured up, slid his knee into my posterior, stretched away. My ankles snapped open. I resisted the urge to activate my open guard�this was his learning experience, after all. I waited patiently as he transitioned to side control, leaving gaps large enough to drive a truck through.
NWB worked to side control and exhaled.�
�That was good!� I encouraged him.�
�Yeah?�
�Yeah. Now you gotta work on your spacing. I could have escaped while you were passing.�
I demonstrated how to keep his knee close to the hip on a punch-through, how to underhook the opposite arm, and how to transition his other knee under the shoulder.
He tried again, maneuvering a little better this time. As he settled into the position he asked,
�Now, what�s that thing you do where you crush the person�s jaw?�
�� ��Oh?� I replied, not eager for a jaw crushing just then.
�You know, with your shoulder?�
The thought of his extra 60+ pounds driving into my jaw made me say what I said next:
�That�s kind of a dick move.�
He seemed shocked. �Oh, it is? I didn�t know. I�m sorry. Some of the purple belts have been showing me how to really crush someone�s jaw when you�re in this position.�
Oh the purple belts have been showing you? I thought maybe he had seen it on YouTube. But he was learning it from my teammates. I didn�t want to dis them. I also don�t want to end up with a broken jaw when this guy spazzes out during sparring. So I regrouped.
�Oh, I see. Well, with me, it would be kind of a dick move, because you are twice my size. You don�t need to do that to control me. But, if you were rolling with that guy over there,� I jerked my thumb toward to our resident 260-pound black-bear of a mat-mate, �You might need to do that to keep him down.�
I went into side control on NWB and gently crushed his jaw.
�It�s like this: in Jiu Jitsu you want to expend the least amount of energy necessary to control your opponent. If you can do it without the jaw crush, you should.�
So, here�s my working definition, folks: a Dick Move is when you use more force than you need to in order to control your opponent.
Do you have other ways to define a Dick Move? When is it all-is-fair Jiu Jitsu, and when is it a DM? When is someone calling something a Dick Move actually a Dick Move on their�part?
