Slow is smooth, smooth is fast: Navy SEALs' efficiency secret

Hell, it's even in Asterix and Obelix https://www.facebook.com/judoclubsaintaubindaubigne/videos/a...

It's a lesson that many of us learn and then take into other aspects of life, because it's really humbling.

This is not the kind of thing I’m talking about. Of course we all regularly get “beaten” by people with less skill and who are smaller, or bigger, or anything else - but I’m not talking about training with a partner or letting them practice a technique during a roll.

I’m talking about people that walk in with their egos very high and their skill very low. There are those who come in and are almost afraid to use any strength at all. Then there are those who believe that strength is all you need, so on their first few rolls they gas out immediately and then get rocked.

I’m not suggesting that two trained people of vastly different weight classes would be equally matched. That would be absurd.

Also, I’m not talking about your life being on the line. I’m talking about BJJ.

6’3” and at that time (19 or 20) was probably right around that 180lbs - no one would have described me as muscular back then though, just skinny more like it.

Anyways, first day of training, the first thing the instructor did was assume I needed humble pie. Told me he wanted to see my baseline, said get in the cage, and called over the only female in the class. She was ~5’6” ~140lbs from memory. Not chubby, just stalky and solid. Rest of the class came over to watch with cheeky smiles too. Later found out it was kind of her thing to break in the new guys.

She had me in a rear naked tapping out in under 30s.

I didn’t know what it signified at the time, but she was a brown belt and regularly took home hardware from regional amateur tournaments.

I had ~6 mo striking experience (Muay Thai), but had never rolled, never wrestled in high school. Best and only entry on my grappling resume was growing up with a brother.

So it does happen, as I can attest, but I do understand your skepticism if you haven’t seen it, especially because of additional hidden context like this:

- I had never directly encountered, and was extremely uncomfortable with, the idea of physically overpowering a female. It was the most unnatural thing, and I was psychologically paralyzed by this until it was way too late.

- She had zero chill. Probably read my obvious body language, and knew her play was to blitz.

- I didn’t know how rolling was supposed work with any opponent, let alone a female. I didn’t know rolling etiquette, conventions, nothing at all. Not that it would have mattered because she had no intention of offering me the usual respects anyways.

If she had attacked me on the street with murder in her eyes, and I reacted with full force, would she still have gotten the best of me?

I’d like to tell myself I would’ve bested her in a life or death scenario, but truth is I’m deeply uncertain of the outcome in that hypothetical.

Aside: you don’t have to, but a one sentence definition of it would be awesome too - my lifting has been limited to the classic stuff, no fancy Olympic “bend and snap” stuff ;)

Weight classes exist because they matter amongst opponents of roughly the same skill and training level. If one person is trained and the other is not, they matter a lot less.

You're not the first person to be surprised by this and challenge me on it. You also wouldn't be the first person to come to the gym, try to prove your point, and fail. :)

I never suggested that BJJ was going to be the only thing you should learn or know if you wanted to defend yourself in a fight. Cross training with some striking (muay thai, boxing, something) and/or weapons training? Sounds great, go for it.

To be clear: I have been in my fair share of fights, IRL. I've been stabbed twice. I grew up in Brooklyn and spent a lot of time in, well, less reputable bars and clubs. Most fights do not end in the first five seconds, and you should GTFO if you can, at all. Not fighting is the best way to win. If your opponent has friends with them, GTFO at any cost; that goes without saying. Most fights go to the ground, relatively quickly. When they do, taking their back and getting your hooks in is far better than mounting them, since you can absolutely control them from that position while someone else calls 911 and/or finds help to break up the fight you definitely didn't start, because starting fights is the fastest way to lose them.

As for "adrenaline matters" - this is explicitly why you train. It absolutely matters. But someone untrained will just spaz. Maybe they get lucky, maybe they don't; but they usually don't. Someone trained may not remember every single thing they know; but so much of it becomes instinctual that even with the adrenaline dump they are definitely not on their best game, but are still far more capable than the untrained individual. Furthermore, competing helps a lot with desensitizing yourself to the adrenaline dumps.

Also, "before you realize there was a fight about to happen" is not a thing. I have never been 'caught off guard,' because that is not how fights start. Yes, sometimes an idiot will throw a punch at a random person on the street; but that is absolutely not how most fights start. Well before a fight starts, you have already tried defusing the situation and de-escalating, because engaging is a last resort.

But sure, maybe their "friend will just curb stomp you" so you may as well just never try.

The point I was trying to make is that when you're on the mats against an actively resisting opponent who is, yes, attempting to break your joints (which is what happens if you don't tap) or choke you out (which is what happens if you don't tap), you don't have a choice but to focus on only the thing in front of you. Your brain and body simply won't let you focus on anything else.

"Practicing murder" or "practicing killing you" is simply a cute way (and obviously exaggerated for effect, since nobody's literal goal there is killing anyone) of describing that last paragraph without having to use all of the words in that last paragraph. I never said I was Deadpool; relax. It's a self-defense focused martial art which, in real life, you would use to prevent someone from causing you harm.

So no, I really don't think your comment or this one were necessary. It's pretty cynical to go from 'exaggerating for effect,' which is the obviously charitable reading, to 'mak[ing] yourself feel cooler/tougher,' which is the cynical reading.

I haven't been on the mats in over four years, because I had surgery and haven't gone back yet; I miss it. I definitely don't work it into "every conversation," because I am not the one-dimensional NPC your brain decided I was when it read my comment. :)

The problem comes when you’re tackling large, ambiguous problems.

Unmatched firearms handling -- that's where the 'smooth is fast' comes from -- but operational planning is a different story.

99% of the time navy seals aren’t doing tactical operations, they are setting things up so they can do them when needed. You prepare for doing 48 hours without sleep by being fit and well rested.

They focus on cleanly executing the plan, in the tactical encounter, which they can do quickly, because they’ve rehearsed that plan several times.

Eg, room clearing is smoothly covering all the areas — not the fastest run through the building, which might create errors.

It has to be extremely intentional for me to remind myself that pace matters. I really envy those who can just do that naturally; my wife is one of those people.

Meanwhile, when I forget, I find myself 25 minutes into what was going to be an hour-long strength/lifting workout… in the bathroom at the gym throwing up.

And then I remember to pace myself for like a year or two until I forget again haha

Perhaps this is because, as a paramedic on an ambulance, you're simply never on scene within three minutes? (As compared to a bystander)

For example, I am exceptionally happy that we have standardized on OpenAPI documentation and/or the self-documenting nature of GraphQL (where used) rather than WSDLs and the other ancient nonsense.

I’m also glad we’ve mostly progressed from SAML to OAuth2/OIDC/JWT. Sure, SAML still exists but it’s definitely on its way out, once the enterprises of yesteryear eventually switch.

I don’t know if you’ve ever built a SAML application and/or IdP, but it’s awful.

Sometimes “old” is just worse.

But it looks like pro-military agi-prop, standard spec-ops worship stuff.