Taking years to learn the obvious ;)

This week has really solidified a lot of principals that have been floating around in my head for a long time. Some injuries have kept me from rolling that much, but I’ve been doing some drills and light training and just really feel like I see a more complete picture on a lot of things I have always struggled with.

I trained with my instructor last night and today and was literally doing almost everything wrong. Now it might not be wrong in the sense that they were the wrong attacks or the wrong ideas, but they weren’t being executed well enough to work on a high level opponent. He was nice enough to hit the rewind button and fix the little details.

Looking back I realize some of these flaws have been with me for as long as I’ve been training and I never realized it. I saw the symptoms, which were me losing position or having to scramble, but never saw the real root of the problem. At this point most of my energies are devoted to dealing with real problem roots rather than the endless variations of the symptoms that they present.

Let’s take dealing with the x-pass from the bottom as an example:

I’d never really analyzed the root problem, which is me not controlling them in the first place. I’d tried speed and timing with things like arm drags which work sometimes until people got wise to them. This was completely reliant on the surprise factor and I had no structure backing up if the arm drag didn’t work or if I dragged them but they flopped over. It was all or nothing.
I also started working some d’Arce chokes from the bottom, which again were effective at times but also failed half the time. Sometimes there was a sweep from that position as well, but once again it was a sniper shot and I only had one bullet.

So for a long time the pin and pass has been the bane of my existence. While my long legs really help with certain attacks, many times once someone pinned them down I was essentially done for.

Once they got past my arm drag and D’Arce gimmicks, I’d simply have to scramble and not let them set in the pin. With guys bigger and stronger, this was always a painful process as the inevitable tree falling on my head was never pleasant and the more tired I was, the more this would just make me want to quit.

These past few weeks, common sense finally reared its head and I started thinking about how the x-pass is described: pin and pass. And I had the profound revelation of maybe if:

A) I prevent or disrupt their pin

And

B) I prevent or stop the actual motion of the pass

They won’t be able to pin and pass.

So for the pin part, I’m working on them having nothing stable to base on. It’s hard to do pushups on a stability ball. If they push on two bent knees what would happen if I straightened one leg? Or if I changed the angle of my knees so they go from their wrists lined up with their shoulder to wrists over their shoulder? (I’m calling this the ab wheel concept)

Even if they do get the pin they still need to pass. With their hands pinning my knees their head is within reach. If my head starts driving into their chin, their motivation to keep moving in that direction decreases. If at the same time I’m pulling their far elbow out they’ve lost their structure. I can also use this to help pivot myself around so now they’re dragging me as the attempt to pass.

From here, they will most likely switch directions, and that’s the time for the arm drag as now the timing is correct and I have the structure to back it up as well. They are closer and my head is on the same side of the arm I’m dragging which gives me much more control of their body as they’re not going to collapse far away and I’m halfway to their back or a takedown. This is what I mean by structure: my body’s in the right place to take advantage of them being off balance so I’m advancing while they’re adjusting.

Before I had timing and sensitivity but no structure. It took just a moment of my opponent breaking one of them and I’d have to use speed or flexibility, neither of which I have enough to compensate against someone big enough and strong enough.

Now this system is using structure to limit and inhibit their motion. This allows the timing and sensitivity to really be utilized because I have control over them as well.
I’m not sure if this makes sense to anyone at this point. I’m still experimenting and keeping this in the lab for now, but I see the light on this one.