Rolled with M today the whole time. On the drive over I was dreading the training. My mindset was simply whoever grabbed a hold of me would only have a countdown until they crushed me. I kept trying to think of anything I could do and nothing was coming to mind. All I could think of was defense I knew wouldn’t work. It was as if everything I knew had disappeared from my mind. I knew my new strategy had to be centered around attacking but what that meant had stopped making sense to me after I’d overanalyzed it to death.
But then I started thinking about my sessions with M and how whenever I tried to just plow through his defenses I felt a combination of annoyed, tired and frustrated. I started realizing I need to make other people, especially the more athletic, faster, bigger younger ones, feel that way as well. And thinking about that further the frustration came from his unique defenses, often involving shielding his arms from kimuras and Americanas by grabbing his own thigh. This often throws off the attackers angle enough for it to be ineffective but not so much that most people realize it. They think that if they just put a little extra squeeze on it, then they’ll get it.
The other element was unique attacks from positions where you’re not technically supposed to attack. I’m talking about ezekial chokes from the bottom of sidemount or kimura variations when you have his back. They can annoy the attacker because they shouldn’t work but if you sit there, they will. So now rather than attacking in a dominant position you’re defending and even more importantly: you have to move.
Despite these strong pluses for incorporating these things into my game I’ve been hesitant. I started working things like this maybe 8 months ago and while it was very effective, I got so carried away in always looking for submissions, that I would let my self get swept or passed and never really advanced position.
But today after our session I realized that there is definitely a way to combine the two mentalities because when the training partner is annoyed and having to move either another submission becomes available or you can advance position. Once I started seeing this, the light really went off in my head.
It’s very similar to what Robert Drysdale explained in his no gi series about how once he started going for a submission the position became there. I think this can work for gi and no gi.
The most important thing for me in this is how it changes my mentality. Rather than worrying about someone passing, I’m now working on attacks and putting my body in the position to make that happen. Them not being able to pass is a nice side effect rather than the goal in my head. I find that having a goal to do rather than something to avoid. Negativity is not specific. Attacks are specific even more so than a position at times. Not sure if this makes sense to anyone but it’s making sense to me at the moment.
Hopefully the story will be the same tomorrow ;)
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