Put some venom in it! Most of my job is getting performance increases in Jiu Jitsu athletes. By far the biggest part of that job is increasing skill levels and improving tactics. As such I put a high value on technical nuance and sophistication among the people I teach. This is reflected in class where praise is usually directed to the pupils making the gains in technical performance. Most of our sparring tends to be very controlled with a big emphasis on excellence of execution. Nonetheless when it's time to shine on the big stage one has to go beyond technique and start talking about intention. When you have to derive maximum performance from a given move there is an ineffable element that comes from the intensity of intention that you bring into the move. There is a BIG difference between sparring with someone who is calmly going through the mechanics of a heel hook versus someone who comes at you with the real intention of breaking your leg. Mental intention creates a unity of purpose in your body that creates a more powerful physical action. You don't want to train all the time with this, since training is more about physical refinement, but it's nice to add it into the mix periodically to see how much more more venom you can add to the moves you practice every day. Here, garry tonon puts some venom into an arm drag – a move he practices every day in a relaxed fashion, but the extra spice added here turns it into a powerful vortex that took his opponent to the mat in the blink of an eye. Technical perfection plus hard intention creates an unstoppable and intimidating move.
