Question: When looking at tournament footage for ideas on how to improve, do you think it's better for lower belts (ie, I'm a two-stripe blue belt) to focus on older champions (ie, Margarida, Saulo, Terere, Roger) than on newer champions? I'm asking because sometimes I feel like the older champions focused more on fundamental BJJ (like I need to), where the newer champions focus on "modern" BJJ (inverted stuff, berimbolos, advanced lapel techniques).
Before someone says "focus on both," I have limited time to watch tourney footage and want to get the most benefit for my time. I'm curious as to what the upper belts on this Forum think.
Yes.
It's strange to think that at one time the "non-fundamental and modern game" included things like basic half guard without the knee shield and basic spider guard. 
Depends on your goals and training environment. If you want to work on more basic stuff that's fine and if you want to learn some of the new positions that's fine too. For what it's worth I don't think any of the new "fancy" positions are so complicated that you can't start to figure them out at your level.
Also, if you don't want to learn berimbolo or lapel guard or whatever there's still plenty of modern jiu jitsu worth studying. Ton's of great guard passers like Lucas Lepri, Rodolfo Vieira and Romulo Barral and plenty of guys who's guard's don't rely on weird lapel manipulation or inverting(Octavio Sousa, Leandro Lo, Bernardo Faria etc).
"Old school" jiu jitsu had plenty of guys doing crazyish stuff(Roleta, Nino Schembri, Robson Moura etc) and there are plenty of modern jiu jitsu guys with fairly straightforward games.
why limit yourself... watch a mix of it all... the new stuff will be more applicable to modern sport bjj but it is all interesting/fun/beneficial
You are doing a yourself a disservice by not exposing yourself to it all.
For instance I'm no berimbolo'er but the leg drag pass is fucking money. And works well with the rest of my game.
Look at it all and concentrate on what you want to concentrate at that time.
more important to focus on someone built like you... if your looking for success in tournements.. better to watch new guys because they have it down to a science and rules have changed over the years..
Yes/no.. You need to focus on what YOU need to focus on is the real answer.
For me someone who only trains 3 or 4 days a week and not particularly talented that's fundamental movements and guards. That's not to say there aren't interesting or fancy things that happen inside of those fundamentals. I have had lots of personal revelations lately about extremely simple things that make a world of difference.
Maybe you train 6 days a week two times a day. maybe your a wrestler or judo guy.. I dunno your needs might be completely different.
Funny to see this mentioned - I just ran across an old box of videotapes from way back in the day, mostly Mundials and Brasileiros from the mid-90's, plus a few All-Japan judo championships from the 80's (Yamashita time!). Would love to rip them and share, but I don't even have a functional VCR in my house, let alone the hook-ups necessary to rip it to a PC.
Wondering how I could make this work....
Stick to the old school guys..
I have no problem with the new stuff, what I do have a problem with is a beginners learning advanced techniques before basics.
Posture control, framing, grip fighting, transitions, re- counters are difficult in any guard, but if you are just learning DLR guard before you even know where to place your feet when opening your guard, you will have a serious problem going through the ranks. Well IMO anyways..
Not a bad idea at all.
I'm sure I can dig one up from somewhere.
Has anyone here ever done that (ripped from a tape to a PC)? I remember trying it about 10-12 years ago, and it was a GIANT pain in the ass, the PC kept fucking it up somehow. Granted, my computer now is a helluva lot faster, and maybe the capture equipment is better, and maybe the software as well...
I base my game off Terere 