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Ryan Hall's 50/50----
In the last year, the position seen here, known as the 50/50, has gone from being an unseen and awkward position to a technically developed part of the Brazilian Jiu Jitsu game. Graciemag.com encouraged the debate by hosting videos and statements from various schools which discussed the position and the escapes, transitions and counters of it.
When accepted as a valid position, the 50/50 does not feel unusual. Our bodies comfortably enter this position. But the people paying attention to BJJ for the last two years have seen its frequency of occurance skyrocket. Before, the 50/50 was unheard of and unrecognized. Now, it is accepted into the lexicon of Jiu Jitsu. But the emergence of the 50/50 as an accepted position is one example of the mental structure that is Jiu Jitsu.
----Rafael Mendes and Rubens "Cobrinha" Charles----
Before beginning Jiu Jitsu, a person does not have a concept of what the guard, the mount, half guard, side control, and the other established positions of Jiu Jitsu are. Basic positions such as these are picked up quickly by learners and immediately become large parts of the mental structure they create to understand grappling. By their relations to control, sweeps and submissions, these positions gain meaning and significance.
The closed guard is a specific position which people have attached meaning to. In most circles of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, the understanding of the closed guard is that the man on bottom has an offensive advantage and the man on top is on the defensive until he manages to open the guard and pass. While this meaning is not entirely arbitrary, it is not fixed or absolute. Every submission grappler has a unique understanding of exactly what the significance and meaning of the closed guard is.
----The Closed Guard----
And as we gain understanding of the surrounding positions, we create a mental structure, relationships and hierarchies of positions. Every Jiu Jitsu player makes this structure, mentally organizes these positions in order to understand the game. Thus our understanding of the game is controlled by the positions we recognize and accept. We try to progress towards positions we feel are advantageous and try to escape from positions we feel are disadvantageous.
I hope I have managed a little explanation so it seems clear that anyone's understanding of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu is controlled by people's understandings of the individual positions. Thus, the whole of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu is also controlled by individuals' understandings of individual positions. Because of this, there is upheaval when the generally accepted understanding of a position is changed, when someone uses a position in an unconventional way or when a new position is introduced.
The 50/50 was simply an example of a new position being introduced. Because people had no understanding, no place where this position fit into their mental structure of Jiu Jitsu, it was controversial. Those who understood the 50/50 were in a position to use their opponents ignorance to dominate them from the 50/50.
I've heard these upheavals have happened before. The half guard underwent a "revolution" a while back. The closed and open guard underwent revolution in the 70s when the triangle submission had a renaissance.
You can see a clash of mental structure of positions when rolling with pushy, strong, persistent white belts. (Wrestlers, anyone?) These white belts may have no mental structure to organize and understand the positions in BJJ or may have a structure which organizes the positions in a wrestling format. They do not necessarily accept or acknowledge the existence of the half-guard and the butterfly-guard. In not acknowledging the position, they react in unconventional ways. While they can be caught and can be easy to submit, it can be difficult because the paths you must use to submit them will be quite different than the paths you use against an opponent who reacts in a conventional way (in a way that someone who has a similar, BJJ understanding of the position reacts).
Is it possible to reject, to consciously stop acknowledging the validity of certain positions? In a sense we are only swept by the butterfly guard because we believe the butterfly guard can sweep us. We are only triangled out of a spider guard because we believe it breaks our posture. We are only stuck in half guard because we believe our opponent has locked us in it. If we expand the boundaries of our understandings of position, if we cross these boundaries, we defeat not just the opponent who uses the position on us, we defeat the position itself.
----Ryan Hall and Me----
