When Henry Akins sat down with Josh McKinney for a podcast, the conversation turned toward a question every aging grappler eventually faces: how do you keep improving when your body stops cooperating? Akins, a black belt under Rickson Gracie, offered an answer rooted in decades of training with one of the sport’s most mythologized figures.
“What I say is, can you dominate another human being using only 5%,” Akins said, describing what mastery looks like to him. “That’s the goal, right? And it seems like unfathomable to most people because most people are so focused on winning and not learning.”
Akins explained that most practitioners chase results at any cost, relying on strength and explosiveness to force techniques to work rather than refining them.
“Strength and power is always a compensation for proper technique,” he said. That approach might produce short-term wins, but it caps long-term growth. “If you only train with strength and power and physicality, sure you can get here, but you’ll never get here.”
The key, according to Akins, is recognizing that performance is built from two elements: physicality and technique. Physicality inevitably declines with age, but technique can keep improving indefinitely.
“The real key is to focus on the element that’s not going to degrade in time, which is your technique,” he said.
He pointed to Rickson Gracie’s own career as proof. Even into his fifties, dealing with multiple herniated discs and hip and shoulder issues, Rickson reportedly submitted a well-conditioned black belt in a matter of minutes despite barely training.
“You’re talking about a guy that’s already pushing Marcelo Garcia to the limits, and then Rickson is able to just take him out like that in his fifties, barely training and with a ton of injuries,” Akins said.
Akins also stressed that nobody needs the entire encyclopedia of jiu-jitsu, just a handful of techniques performed at an elite level.
He recalled a conversation with five-time world champion Bernardo Faria, who told him, “I only have about 10 moves that I’m really, really good at, but when I go compete, I force those guys into those positions.”
For older practitioners specifically, Akins recommends two training methods: positional sparring, which builds comfort in every position while reducing chaotic, injury-prone scrambles, and flow rolling, which strips away tension and strength reliance entirely. Both methods, he said, keep the body healthier while still sharpening the skills that matter most.
