John Danaher is undoubtedly one of the sharpest minds in BJJ, and he recently explained how best to exhaust your opponents. It’s an interesting topic and it’s one that’s definitely valuable, as some competitors have made their entire careers off the ability to drain their opponent’s energy throughout the match. It’s obviously useful in longer matches but even with a short time-limit, it’s possible to wear an opponent out and use that advantage to find the finish. Contrary to popular belief though, it isn’t just as simple as having good cardio and pushing the pace as much as possible at all times.
Danaher actually used two of his students as examples of how there are different ways to wear an opponent out:
“Very different types of pace are equally effective. Dorian Olivarez regularly exhausts even much bigger opponents with his speed, but Gordon Ryan also exhausted his opponents while barely moving.”
He’s not wrong either, both Ryan and Olivarez usually find their submissions by breaking down their opponents over time. Danaher then explained what these two different approaches actually have in common:
“What really exhausts opponents is making them work in an inefficient manner for extended periods of time. When they are forced to carry bodyweight from mechanically broken stances, or forced to follow fast movement from positions where they can’t catch up – that’s what exhausts people.”
Obviously there’s a very clear difference between Olivarez and Ryan; they compete at opposite ends of the scale when it comes to weight classes. Olivarez is an under 66kg competitor and although Ryan has done under 88kg in the past, the last few years have seen him stick to either under or over 99kg. That obviously has an effect on which method you would employ:
“If you’re light and fast, speed makes a lot more sense as a method, if you’re slow yourself, weight placement makes more sense.”
But as John Danaher explains, there is no single best way to exhaust an opponent in BJJ. The best competitors are generally capable of using both:
”Play around with each. Make sure you adapt their use to the opponent, and soon you’ll be able to use pace, or lack of, as a weapon.”
John Danaher shared his thoughts on pace in BJJ and how to exhaust your opponents in a recent post to his official Instagram account:
