BJJ's Archetypes: Examining the Strategies of Jiu Jitsu's Highest Level
When discussing boxing’s archetypes and metagame, there exists a common understanding of a Rock-Paper-Scissors relationship between Out-fighters, Swarmers, and Brawlers. Then there is the nebulous “Boxer-Puncher” who, conceptually, is something of a hybrid.
Thankfully, BJJ usually talks about competitors in terms of their techniques, tactics, and systems, which is certainly much more accurate.
This is my attempt to explain the overarching archetypes of BJJ and discuss the sport’s metagame. It’s worth mentioning that there is no value judgement as to what is ‘good’ or ‘bad’. This is simply based on decisions in competition (for what exactly I’m tallying, read on).
I’ll differentiate along two basic axes:
The “Guarder vs Passer” spectrum will be scored on a 0-1.0 scale, and the “Finish-Oriented vs Positional” spectrum is scored on a 0 to 6 scale. There is, of course, a middle ground between the two dichotomies.
If we assume a medium rating in either score (0.34 - 0.66 in Passer/Guarder or 2-4 in Finish/Position), we can have up to nine categories.
I’m sure we can come up with catchy names like “The Voltron” or “George Clooney”, but we’ll stick to this for now.
For my sample, I chose 15 reasonably diverse, world-class jiujiteiros and tried to show the full breadth of BJJ strategies. I watched 10 matches within a single ruleset at the highest echelon, IBJJF Black Belt GI division.*
I only measured three things:
1) Number of times a competitor pulled guard
2) Number of times a competitor attempted a takedown
3) From which positions they were attacking with submissions
The first two inform the “Guarder vs. Passer” axis while the latter registered for the “Finish-Oriented vs. Positional ” Axis.
For the above, the blue represents the lowest score in the column, while the red highlights the highest score. For the Guarder/Passer Axis, there was a three-way tie.
Some Interesting Nuggets
Despite my attempts at a diverse scatter plot, there is a heavy lean toward Guarders, with three of competitors not registering a single takedown attempt (in the sample I watched) and seven coming within the “Guarder” third of the y-axis.
Based on these, we can say that on average among this sample:
- The most popular archetype is the“Positional Guarder” represented by 3 of the 15.**
- Heavier competitors are more likely to be Passers.
- There is only one competitor that scored under 2.0 on the Sub-Positional spectrum, he was also one of the rare lighter weight Passers.
- There are only two “Versatile” competitors, insinuating that high-level competitors tend to one end of the Passer-Guarder Spectrum or the other.
Is there anything else that you see? Let me know!
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* Albeit, the rules have changed slightly in the last 10 years. For example, the addition of advantage points.
** Had I looked at more competitors without handpicking them for variety, I’m sure there would be an even heavier lean towards this corner of the graph.