Tunnel Vision

Felt like today I zoomed in too much on getting my head position and not enough about feeling where my training partners weight was etc. The result was a lot of energy and forced techniques.
I failed to really look at the whole picture. It’s not just where my head is in relation to his, it’s also about lining up the rest of my body and acknowledging where his weight is.

As a result I was pushing almost across my body instead of through my centerline. And I had no support from my legs as the leg “behind” my head had its outside on the ground. I had no base behind the direction I was pushing. I should have shifted my hips over to my head would be “supported” by a foot on the ground.

The result was I had to really strain to hold position and set up a guard, as I needed to use muscular force since I had no structure backing it.

Now my training partner is a super tough and talented guy, but I knew something way wrong. I was tired in the wrong way. I discussed this with M as I always like to pick his brain on these things and we figured that in this situation I need to either “head drag” the opponent to get his head on the other side.

Or I could readjust my posture so that it makes him want to move.

I guess this brings the different schools of thought where some argue you should figure out a bunch of different setups for a few techniques or whether you should have techniques for whatever the situation presents itself.

In this case I think setting myself up in proper alignment right from the beginning is optimal.

Granted the head drag or maybe popping to a guillotine has its place but the more I can get to the root of problems rather than chasing the symptoms, the better.