Just hip out: Fundamentals and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu! 

The scene: A busy, loud gymnasium packed with people sporting their favorite grappling clothing brand, barricades dividing the crowd of spectators from competitors, and a sea of mats, the mix of emotions of champions and those who fell short…blood…sweat…tears. Above all the chaos, coaches yelling “hip out, HIP OUT! AGAIN!”.  

Hip out? What is a hip out?

It’s arguably the most fundamental, odd, weird movement that makes jiu-jitsu one of the most effective martial arts on the scene. Are there other fundamental moves in BJJ? Of course, but I won’t bore you with a list. What’s important to know is that from white belt to black belt, every roll, you will hip out. You will make space, and you will take space with a simple, fundamental “hip out”.  

Fundamentals ≠ Beginner

It’s common for people to confuse “fundamental” or “basics” with beginner, but it couldn’t be farther from the truth. The most complex, flash, state-of-the-art moves rely on movements that we learn from day one, but don’t necessarily perfect the timing and skill of until years into practice. This makes what is fundamental king, the thing we should come back to again and again. The thing we should help new students understand, but remind advanced students, is often the missing piece to the puzzle of a complex game. 

We All Start Here

While new students are trying to figure out how to move across the earth without using their hands and legs, I like to ask them, “Hey, have you ever done this before in any other aspect of your life?”. The answer has always been “no,” and I’m like, “yeah, me too,” haha. We all started here, on this common ground, with this fundamental frustration and “basic” move. Fast forward to a black belt trying to figure out why some new move isn’t working, advanced students sitting all around trying to figure it out, and someone says, “Have you tried hipping out?” followed by an awkward silence, a sigh, and “no”. They hip out and BAM! Success. It’s annoying, but more often than not, it’s the answer. 

Flashy Doesn’t Mean Functional

Jiu-Jitsu has evolved and become commonplace enough that you can find infinite videos on any social media platform to break down complex games or show off flashy moves. I won’t say that I don’t fall victim to doom scrolling. If I see something that catches my eye, I’ll save it with the idea that I’ll watch it before training and try it out to see if I think it is “real”. Not going to lie, most of the time it falls victim to storage and is forgotten but on the off chance I do remember, I find it’s not something that will be as reliable as it seemed.  Where the fun can be had is taking inspiration from those videos, using your core knowledge, and tweaking things (with a little fundamental knowledge, of course) to see if you can make something new and effective.  

A Real-Life Example: The Guard No One Can Pass

There is a certain individual in our academy whose guard is ridiculously frustrating to pass and has become notorious for the skill. I won’t out this person by name, but you know who you are…and others of us know exactly who I am talking about.

They do 2-3 fundamental things extremely well and in such a way that it is nearly impossible to chase down. You can try the traditional passes, you can try to link them together, you can try to launch through the air like superman and fly over it, but no success. Frame, hip out, switch hips.  Repeat, frame. Switch hips. Hip out. Etcetera, on and on.

Yes, this person may have watched a video that showed them some complex algorithm, but it’s all fundamental. The only times I’ve had success passing with them have been by focusing on picking those concepts apart. Break the frame, isolate the hips, and control with distance or pressure. It might seem like I just outed some sort of secret, but good luck, they are so good at it that if I’m lucky, I’ll pass once in a roll. 

Final Thoughts

This whole post has mostly been about convincing us that if you have the fundamentals, the concepts, the rule set, you’ll be unstoppable. Mostly true, I’ll tear it all down by saying once you know the rules, you can break the rules and on and on, but that is for another time.  

Ultimately, fundamentals in sport is usually the thing we want to conquer and move on from the fastest, get to the fun stuff, ya know? Really, though, thinking back, the fun part is figuring it all out and linking it together.  Taking the movements into moves and moves into games.

But if you get into a pickle? Just try hipping out, it could work.

– Professor Julie Hoponick