Level Up: The RPG Training Model

I grew up playing games. Final Fantasy. Chrono Trigger. Secret of Mana. Dungeons & Dragons. Pokemon. Ultima Online. I spent so much of my formative years immersed in these worlds that they have imprinted themselves into the way that I perceive reality, and that ripple has touched the way that I think about jiu-jitsu as well.

In role-playing games, you have your character, and how that character grows and evolves oftentimes depends on your play-style preferences. If you like to charge into combat with reckless abandon, you may want to build a barbarian. This would mean building up your strength stat and investing skill points into hand-to-hand combat, perhaps two-handed weapons so that you can wield an enormous axe. A rogue, on the other hand, will spend more points on agility and likely build up stealth-related skills like sneaking and archery.

Jiu-jitsu training is not so different. We are the character, and the skills we invest in largely depend on our grappling styles and preferences. Someone who plays a De la Riva-based game will likely find him or herself preferring leg drags because many of the new De la Riva sweeps that are in vogue lend themselves to finishing in a leg drag position. If you prefer to play butterfly guard, however, you might end up focusing more on cross knee passes as the finish to a butterfly sweep often warrants a cross knee pass to achieve a dominant position.

In this way, you can sketch out your game and evaluate how the pieces of your jiu-jitsu connect and support each other. Just as you would if you were looking at a D&D character sheet or looking at the make-up of your party in a classic turn-based RPG.