In the past, I’ve done a bit of research on the art of the con.
And back then, I chanced upon an extensive interview of a small time grifter. It was packed with all kinds of little lessons for distraction and misdirection, but while I was reading, one story made me stop everything for a moment.
In it, GM (the grifter being interviewed) talks about the contrast between himself and his sister (who also engages in grifting). He calls her a wolf that has cunning for days but no restraint at all.
And one example he gives to support that point is a con she once ran.
During it, she slept with eight different men without condoms, and then hit them each up later for $500 in abortion money.
That’s crazy for a whole host of reasons.
I immediately saw a connection to people who take far too much risk when setting up their attacks though.
Now I am for misdirection and conning people. Hell, that’s the name of the game.
To make what we do on the mat look and feel easy, we must focus attention away from our true intent.
We must distract.
But I refuse to accept the notion that the risk must equal the reward. That’s a bunch of ptooey.
That’s why I prefer the con that GM calls the Pigeon Drop.
It works like this:
Go to the bank and make sure that you have two different bills. One must be a $5 and the other a $50. Then at any store, grab something cheap and go up to the cashier. Take out the $50 and let the cashier see it clearly. Let them mark it in their memory banks. But right before they ring you up, add something else to the order to distract and then switch the bills.
It takes sleight of hand, obviously.
And I am in no way advising you to give it a try.
(If you do that, that’s on you, buddy.)
What’s clear though is that the attention is being focused on the $50, a distraction is made, and the situation is changed in that moment.
That’s how the short con works on the mat as well.
Case in point:
For the loop choke from half guard, I have three different setups for the same attack, and all of them work off of the principle of distraction.
The one that most people have seen, though, was posted on the tube many moons ago and I’ve been hitting it in the room for a long long time. So when I go for it, most people know it’s coming, but they still get caught often.
That hip tilt forces them to react, and in that moment they get distracted, their attention is focused on the wrong thing, and then I….
STRIKE.
And it works far more often than you would think.
Just imagine if you apply that same methodology to your attacks. Your attacks would start to flow like water. You just have to think more deeply about the situation that would be best for making your attack work.
That means that you focus on creating logical reactions from your opponent that don’t require you to risk it all.
And if you be wanting a wee bit more education in this, some tricks await here:
[btnsx id=”6774″]