2015/11/20: Anger, Injury, Keeping my Ego in Check

So training has been going well recently. I've mostly been doing Jiu-Jitsu stuff at the academy, and training on my own in terms of Kung Fu and things of that nature.

So today, during class at the academy, I was rolling with one of the brown belts, and what ended up occurring was I just ended up having to defend myself (which is usually what happens, since my guard sucks), and then I held him off for like 4 minutes before he armbarred me. And it dislocated slightly. Ugh. The same arm too. I have to play piano :(

Anyway, I was training with Chris today as well. It went pretty well for the most part. We got a lot done; we drilled some tieups, some takedowns, some butterfly sweeps, and a ton of guard passes. Then we did some live passing, which was cool, and I got swept a lot.

It kind of frustrated me how much I was getting swept, simply because I just don't know all of them yet. How could I expect myself to not get swept despite knowing all of them? I got kind of angry, and I kept making him rewind so that I could see what was going on, and then having to adjust my gameplan accordingly.

I think my biggest mistakes in terms that I allowed him to keep his feet on me, and I allowed him strong angles. I think a large part of it is that I roll with people who don't do as many of the sportier sweeps, since the focus is more on street sparring than sport. But I think once we go through the sweeps chapter, I'll be a lot less frustrated. Also I got arm dragged a lot.

Today has shown me that there is a huge hole in my guard game though especially in terms of offense...and defense. Will work on that.

2015/11/05: Overhead, Other News, Problem Solving

Last night we did butterfly guard focus, and I spent a lot of time in butterfly guard. I tried to get people to commit their weight and lean onto me, and when I finally did...I just leaned back, and I felt ALL of their weight come off of the ground. I was supporting them...entirely. It was pretty cool. Then, all I had to do [aided by their forward momentum] was extend my legs and tip them over my head...and over they went, dragging me right to the mount. It was pretty cool. I did it twice. All you have to do is get them to lean...

I will focus on this when I work my escapes. Escapes I think will be the hardest part of my journey, since there are two kinds of escapes: you initiate, or they initiate. And no one good is going to initiate for you...unless they want to submit you I suppose.

In other news, I began my Kung Fu training again. And I must say, it's going well.

Anyway, at the end of the day, everything you're doing is just problem solving. I'm currently working on my my weak side butterfly sweep is well...weak. [Whizzer/Wrist control] I'm playing around with where to put my weight, where to put my butt, the angle I'm driving him at, the timing, the rocking, everything in order to get the move to work.

I think this is what separates me from most other people; I use science to try to make my moves work instead of my muscles. I think at the end of the day, I will come out on top because of that.