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Hackers guide to Jiu Jitsu

./hackers-guide-to-jiu-jitsu.png

Intro

I am a 40+ software engineer and recreational Jiu Jitsu practitioner, strugglying with vast amount of information related to the sport. I decided to make use of my `computer` skills to aid me in the process of taming this new skill.

This is the first post in a series of posts, documenting the process.

Who is this series of posts for ?

  • Jiu Jitsu practitioners with decent computer skills
  • People that are using digital sources for acquiring new skills
  • People that need to become better at learning

    So, you may find interest in it even if you are not into Jiu Jitsu.

    If you ever researched for topics:

    • Note taking
    • Second Brain / Mind mapping
    • Flash cards
    • Flow charts

    then chances are that you will find similar information here applied in a specific topic.

What makes Jiu Jitsu a great topic to use for demonstrating learning techniques ?

It probably sounds oxymoron to use a combat sport to demonstrate things like note taking, learning etc, but is it? If you are not familiar with the sport, let me just say that it has a huge learning curve, due to the vast number of techniques and contexts. It’s so vast, that its typical nowdays that super specialized video instructionals are often more than 10 hours long. On top of that it’s a constantly evolving domain, which means that all related information should be live (easily accessible and editable).

So, to summarize:

  • Huge domain
  • Constantly evolving
  • Video is predominant source of learning

Why ?

Solving practical problems

The main reason is to solve practical problems I was having while studing using instructionals and online tutotrials. You may find one or more of the questions below relatable:

  • How many times did you find a great resource online but lost it?
    • Forgot to bookmark ?
    • Lost bookmark ?
    • Resource taken offline ?
  • How many times did you find a great tip inside a huge video and it’s not easy to find it again?
    • Video was not bookmarkable ?
    • Video was in a DVD ?
  • How many times you took a great note, that was then forgotten ?
    • Lost ?
    • Never reviewed the note ?
  • Is it hard for you to retain the information you learn ?
  • Have you ever felt that you need a more compact representation of knowledge than the original raw material ?

Influences

John Danaher is arguably one of the biggest influnces in modern Jiu Jitsu. Danaher is a Jiu Jitsu and MMA coach but also a Phd in Philosophy. I think that what makes him stand out, is his background in Philosophy, which he sucesfully applied to the sport giving him a unique perspective.

Influnced by Danaher, I cannot stop but thinking `How could I apply my unique skills in perspective to gain an agnle in the sport?`.

The obvious answer, is `By using my hacker skills to solve the pratical problems mentioned in the previous section.`

And this is pretty much what this series is about.

Format and topics

The first parts of the series will include short posts related to video processing / playback tools and how the can be used to make the most out of instuctionals. Then I am going to focus on note taking. Then I am going to demonstrate how to integrate everything together and we’ll see how it goes.

All the tools I am going to use are going to be free and opensource tools available in all three major operation systems (Windows, OSX and Linux).

An example of such tools:

Feel free to drop a comment with requests, suggestions and feedback!

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