training to be sensitive

3/19/09-3/21/09

I’ve been reading about Rickson’s seminars that he’s been giving where he shows concepts and details from every position that help make every move as efficient as possible. I am always looking to do that in all of my jiu jitsu and by extension, all of my life.

As I get older, this idea that I am taking the straightest smartest path becomes more and more important. So with that said, how do I go about doing that?

One thing that feels increasingly important is drilling. Now when I say drilling I mean it in several ways.

First off, I’m seeing that just doing straight reps on a technique is important. As boring and annoying as it can be, things like doing perfect armlocks, wrist control from triangles are important as the more I drill them, the more I see the opportunity when rolling live.

The other type I really think is effective is positional training. Often times this is done by starting from a position like the guard and working through attacks or various things. Now sometimes this works well to just start from a position and basically just go wherever the match takes you. I think this can be good as it keeps the sense of realism.

What I mean by this is it’s important to keep the flow of the game as a whole in mind. If I only drill side mount escapes and don’t realize that my escapes lead to giving up my back, or to a submission then I haven’t looked at the bigger picture.

But on the other hand, if the whole picture is only looked at then the finer details are missing also. So sometimes it’s good to just work on a sidemount escape and once you escape, go back to that position and work out of there again.

But lately I’m working on fine-tuning that as well. It’s almost as if I’m working on the idea of having a remote control. I want to put things on “pause” or even “rewind” when certain things happen. I want to slow things down and see what my best option is at each moment.

I’ve been able to feel things like this for the first time with certain training partners that I’ve never noticed before. Many times I would cover moving in the wrong way with scrambling, strength, flexibility or simply lose the advantage. It’s a painstaking approach but I remember long ago when I used to play music if I got to a difficult spot, I’d slow it down over and over until I got it. For me getting it really involves feeling it.

Sometimes it will take an entire training session to just get the right sensitivity for a move. But I’ve found it’s well worth it as even if I haven’t trained for a while I find the sensitivity remains there.

For me not training for a while really shows me how good my technique is. If I find myself scrambling and out of breathe, it often means that the gaps in my techniques are being covered up by my scrambling or other attributes. I can also tell when I feel myself tensing up too hard and/or holding my breathe.

While I still think sparring is the best litmus test to tell about progress, a lot of this training, especially the remote control sensitivity type is the best way to make that progress. The sparring is a way to check on it and figure out what else needs to be worked on.