For years I was guilty of saying things like “that technique sucks” and “this technique is the right way to do this.” I still catch myself doing that from time to time. What I want to impart to you is that you should try to limit that thinking. Thinking of techniques as merely “good or bad” or “right or wrong” is limiting your understanding of techniques. Techniques are merely the moves or positions used to accomplish a task. They should first be evaluated on whether they are getting the job done. Ask: “does it work?”
If you watch people applying the same move at different levels of competition, you’ll see great variance with respect to the how the move is done successfully. Thus given two techniques that both accomplish the same task, the one that does so with less output of energy is the more efficient and therefore “better” technique.
“Methods are many and principles are few. Methods always change, but principles never do.”
Because you are going against a live opponent, within a single jiujitsu technique are a multitude of problems that must be solved along the way to the final outcome. To say something like the armbar from the guard is a single technique belies the truth that a single technique is in reality a multitude of solutions to problems that arise when you undergo a desired task. That means that even a technique that begins and ends the same may look drastically different in the middle as the opponent has provided a different response to the same attack.
As you advance, start to dig deeper into the concepts and context under the techniques and seek to understand how parts of the techniques are solutions to various problems. See problems and solutions in the details. Ask yourself: “why should I put my hand here?”; “what if the opponent does this?”; and “how can I prevent him from doing that?” Open your eyes to the deeper level and try to understand what underlies the techniques.
Read more about methods and principles here.
.