I wrote a blog about how to stop people from stalling, especially from the guard position. I show examples from high level competitors also showing how they've used these tactics to keep the match flowing. I hope you find it useful.
Chandler, very interesting take. I agree with pretty much everything.
I will say though that I personally feel the only way to reduce stalling in close match-ups is to change the rules to have a lot more forced engagement and risk-taking. For example, more power would need to be given to the referee to penalize athletes under established criteria. Another idea is implementing "set piece" positions to penalize passive athletes; for example, forcing the penalized player in a pre-set inferior situation. Both of these ideas come from Olympic wrestling.
One interesting thing about FS and GR passivity calls is that they discourage players from disengaging out of bad positions. They also discourage players from obtaining a good position and just trying to maintain it. The idea is to force players to enter into risky positions where a scoring action is likely to occur and then execute techniques as often as possible. They don't want to let wrestlers spend most of the match in positions where they feel safe (but where takedowns aren't that likely), or enter into strong tie-ups but let go of them because they felt the timing wasn't "just right". These soft criteria would be utterly alien to our BJJ sensibilities (and they are unintuitive to a lot of folkstyle wrestlers too), but it is effective and creating a sport that is visually exciting for audiences. In my opinion, it is more fun to compete in too, although I understand such artificial engagement is not everyone's cup of tea.
The set piece in GR -- 1 point awarded to the opponent PLUS forced parterre -- is a huge deal, since in most close match-ups parterre is the only realistic position that you're going to see scoring techniques from. In FS they use the shot clock instead, which is not that significant, but it does usually encourage more risk-taking. One rationale behind forced parterre and the shot clock is that the outcome of the match is still mostly determined by the athlete's skills, not solely by a referee call (which can sometimes be arbitrary in very close matches).
I know, none of this has any chance of ever being accepted by the BJJ community. But without any rule changes, I also believe that stalling is an excellent strategy in many match-ups.
jeiteki, post: 62615, member: 9812
Chandler, very interesting take. I agree with pretty much everything.I will say though that I personally feel the only way to reduce stalling in close match-ups is to change the rules to have a lot more forced engagement and risk-taking. For example, more power would need to be given to the referee to penalize athletes under established criteria. Another idea is implementing "set piece" positions to penalize passive athletes; for example, forcing the penalized player in a pre-set inferior situation. Both of these ideas come from Olympic wrestling.
One interesting thing about FS and GR passivity calls is that they discourage players from disengaging out of bad positions. They also discourage players from obtaining a good position and just trying to maintain it. The idea is to force players to enter into risky positions where a scoring action is likely to occur and then execute techniques as often as possible. They don't want to let wrestlers spend most of the match in positions where they feel safe (but where takedowns aren't that likely), or enter into strong tie-ups but let go of them because they felt the timing wasn't "just right". These soft criteria would be utterly alien to our BJJ sensibilities (and they are unintuitive to a lot of folkstyle wrestlers too), but it is effective and creating a sport that is visually exciting for audiences. In my opinion, it is more fun to compete in too, although I understand such artificial engagement is not everyone's cup of tea.
The set piece in GR -- 1 point awarded to the opponent PLUS forced parterre -- is a huge deal, since in most close match-ups parterre is the only realistic position that you're going to see scoring techniques from. In FS they use the shot clock instead, which is not that significant, but it does usually encourage more risk-taking. One rationale behind forced parterre and the shot clock is that the outcome of the match is still mostly determined by the athlete's skills, not solely by a referee call (which can sometimes be arbitrary in very close matches).
I know, none of this has any chance of ever being accepted by the BJJ community. But without any rule changes, I also believe that stalling is an excellent strategy in many match-ups.
I'm not super familiar with FS and GR, but Judo has similar rules. Once you get your grips you have to attempt a throw in a certain amount of time. For the more unorthodox and powerful grips you only have 1-3 seconds before you attempt a throw or you're penalized.
I actually don't mind a "shot clock". They already have it for double guard pulls, but I'd like to see it expanded to other areas. I'd like to see a guard pulling shot clock that lets you pull guard for 30 sec, but you have to at least get an advantage in that time or else you lose 2 points(Or you can just stand back up).
They have to do something because you often hear athletes saying things like "I'm going to wear him down" or "I'll make him waste all his energy" and unfortunately this often means stalling or playing a boring game. In order to stop this the other person does the same thing and it creates a race to the bottom. I like watching BJJ, but this is something that needs to be fixed. I've done BJJ for years and love it, but even I can't stand watching some of these matches.
That was a really interesting article. I think the best way to defeat stalling is to go on the attack -- which means standing up and fighting for a takedown. Trying to play guard against a stalling opponent isn't as effective as this, IMO.
EDIT: standing up and fighting for a takedown or standing up and pulling guard.
JBerg, post: 62632, member: 11456
That was a really interesting article. I think the best way to defeat stalling is to go on the attack -- which means standing up and fighting for a takedown. Trying to play guard against a stalling opponent isn't as effective as this, IMO.EDIT: standing up and fighting for a takedown or standing up and pulling guard.
I think standing with minimal stalling penalties or out-of-bounds penalties runs into a similar issue. It's just as easy to stall on the feet as it is to stall on the ground, and it's also really hard for referees to determine who is stalling since it's easy to look busy to an untrained eye.
Also remember that the serious strategic opponent who is stalling is probably looking to counter any overextension. Chasing too aggressively for a takedown can result in getting countered. Even standing up to pull guard too many times can result in getting passed on one of those guard pull attempts.