and try to stay ten moves ahead of your opponent, but that usually doesn't work. Why? Because you're doing Brazilian Jiu Jitsu kata. You may think you can plan what your opponent is going to do, but if he surprises you, then you'll find out that your kata was your worst enemy. It misled you into battle. You must not plan on doing this and doing that. You must learn how to respond to what pressure your opponent gives you. If you always try to force an issue, you will one day more than likely encounter an issue that is a lot bigger and stronger than you can force. Then what will you do? You'll probably get tired and panic, expend more energy than you really had to, and maybe even lose the fight. Maybe luck will be on your side and you will win the fight. But you will have spent so much unnecessary energy that you will be unable to continue fighting other fresh opponents.

Your planning, strategy, and set-up must happen during training. You must address every little nook and cranny of the issue at hand before testing it out in live action. You must also have an instructor who is willing to share with you the flowchart of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. You must see and learn how each technique has several individual counters, and you must learn and memorize each and every counter. Then, you must see and learn how each and every individual counter has several counters to it. For example, if I were to show you a simple arm lock from the guard, and then show you ten (10) different counters to that one arm lock, you would say WOW! Then, if I took each individual counter and showed you five counters to each of them (i.e. five counters to counter #1, five counters to counter #2, ..., five counters to counter #10; fifty counters in all), your mind would be blown. And then if I asked you to memorize them for your up-coming match with Jean Jacque Machado, you'd think I was crazy! Well, welcome to the intellectual world of set-ups and strategy. It is a world of complex factors and exponentials!