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BJJ Shorthand Notation?

I think that Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu needs a shorthand notation of the movements and positions.

Too many times I’ve tried to read text-only blog entries about positions and have had them stop making sense halfway through. For example, people will start talking about an attack from side-mount and then talk about moving your hand to attack, but forget to talk about which hand they mean.  The one by their opponent’s head? Or the one by their opponent’s hips?

The thing is, I know I do this, too.  I take notes on classes and I know that if I passed them to someone else, they would be lost.

I was asking about how ballet teachers write down their movements they make during a dance, and she told me about dance notation.

So, my proposal is, invent a BJJ shorthand notation.  Anyone want to help?

This is a type of dance notation. The image is from Wikipedia.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 9th, 2008 at 3:39 pm and is filed under BJJ. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

6 Responses to “BJJ Shorthand Notation?”

  1. Spiros says:
    December 10, 2008 at 4:16 pm

    I think that’s a great idea! I don’t know anything about BJJ, but will think about it and can help, if I can help, if you know wot I mean. It makes me think also of having a shorthand notation for other physical things, like walking to the corner store to buy a kilo of oranges. You know, walking down the stairs, then turning left outside of the building…

  2. bkoplitz says:
    December 12, 2008 at 10:33 pm

    Thanks Spiros!I’m going to take you up on that. I am still researching existing shorthands to see what I can borrow. How is Madrid? There is a slight chance that I might go to Lisbon in the end of January, but it depends on some things out of my control.

  3. Milca says:
    January 3, 2009 at 6:48 pm

    Uaaal thats a crazy shorthand, I would love to know a better way to take note of the positions… I gonna keep drawing step by step of the interesting positions, images always work better than words.
    See yaaa!!Cool Blog! ;)

  4. bkoplitz says:
    January 5, 2009 at 8:24 pm

    Thanks Milca!
    How are things in NZ?
    I have been traveling and not training very much.
    There has got to be a better way to describe BJJ positions.
    Wanna help me come up with something?
    Beijos!
    Billy

  5. another neijia says:
    July 1, 2009 at 8:56 pm

    I agree. I take extensive text notes now. Shorthand (even one invented and used by only one person) would save time. Eshkol Wachman has some interesting elements but certainly not enough. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eshkol-Wachman_Movement_Notation

    People like to compare bjj to chess. Chess is more complex yet chess notation is extremely simple. However, the reverse would probably be true for bjj.

  6. bkoplitz says:
    July 22, 2009 at 9:16 pm

    Sorry for the delayed response.
    I would love to collaborate on something like this if you would be interested….

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