2015/12/18: Awareness, Interaction, "Don't Look for It"

So I've been in a bit of a slump recently. But recently I've been trying to think of ways to change my mindset, and today I tried some new things...and they worked surprisingly well!

I remember I wrote an article on Facebook once upon a time about competitive activities (found at https://www.facebook.com/notes/ray-chou/my-thoughts-on-competitive-activities/10152925793451666) and I concluded that awareness was a key element of competitive activities; without awareness, one fails. Every problem that one can conceive of, at the end of the day, is traced back to awareness. Especially reading things like the Art of War and things of that nature...know yourself, but not your enemy, for every battle won you will suffer a loss. Know yourself and your enemy, a hundred battles, a hundred victories.

I found that particularly interesting because I somehow forgot about this concept in my Jiu-Jitsu. Sometimes, there will be people that do moves to me, and I will have no idea how they did it, but I am so caught up, so invested in the moment, that I don't even realize that such a thing occurred. That...or most people do moves that are very obvious. But today I tried focusing on sole awareness.

It was incredible how easy everything became all of a sudden. Because I was so aware of my opponent's weight distribution in my guard, it was so easy to mess with it (just add a little more to whatever they're doing at the time). It was also cool how I seemed to "sense" their moves before it happened.

I even overhead swept a guy because I sensed him about to commit his weight forward.

I also got to roll with Alex, the instructor that I'd say I'm closest with, since I interact with him the most. Watching him roll is quite interesting, and quite enlightening, but rolling with him was a truly eye-opening experience in itself. I went into it with the mindset that I would be as aware as possible, only paying attention to the motions of my opponents (will come back to), and it was so cool watching the subtle little motions he was doing to constantly keep me off balance. His motions were so subtle, but all done at the perfect time, and at one point I even got overhead swept myself haha. I learned a lot though. He really sharpened my defense in his closed guard; the hand-fighting was really fun, but I stayed calm, and just watched what he was doing to me, and didn't try particularly hard to do anything. (will come to back to as well) When I asked him for advice, he told me to keep doing what I was doing. So I guess focusing on awareness is effective.

Also, I think one thing that's been holding me back is that I was always focusing on what I was doing. What am I doing? I want to go for this overhead sweep/butterfly sweep/escape/whatever move that I want to do. However, that's not how it works. Jiu-Jitsu is a live interaction between two grown human beings, and it must be treated as such; it's a conversation, a dance, and there is no sense in me being able to impose my will on the opponent. I must listen to my opponent (think Bruce Lee! All of the maxims apply on the ground as well), and I must become one with him. Forget about whatever ambitions I have, I simply must become one with the moment, and trust my training. After all, that is what technique drilling is for. If you try to force something, it will never work... (See the Art of Dying)

Finally, I think it's the fact that I am going for moves that is making the moves not work. Alex said that to me today, and I find that it aligns so much with the other things that I believe in. What's so crazy though is that I didn't apply it in this particular way, which troubles me because once again, it's another blind spot that I couldn't see. Don't try to make the moves work, let the moves come to you. Literally, don't actually try to go for anything. Your body will do it itself. You must trust that your body can recognize the indicators, and your mind either must be in an empty state, or, if one is not advanced enough, one must be focused on almost solely the opponent. But that is so interesting; not trying to even go for a move, and just letting it happen. Surprise yourself. Later on, you'll create gameplans where you try to mess with your opponent's motions, but if the bodily reflex of moving when one's conscious/unconscious mind senses an opportunity must be ingrained to reflex level.

So, for the next month, I will be aware, use my awareness to respond to my opponent, and I won't actually try to go for anything.

2015/12/08: Percentages, Rate Calculation

I decided to take a break from Jiu-Jitsu today. I'm tired of always being disappointed in myself, so I thought today could be a good break to just play piano...[and not get punched in the face XD]. So of course, I did a lot of thinking. Like I always do.

I've decided I'm going to actually break down every motion, or at least the ones that are currently relevant to me, identify the lever systems in place, and figure out how I need to position my limbs and such so that I exert the maximum force possible. That will be my mission over the break that I get from Jiu-Jitsu, and I will post significant findings here.

Anyway, I've been thinking. And I realized something - the reason I'm so disappointed in myself is that I can't get my moves to work a majority of the time. But there's one -well...a few- problems with that.

1. I have not drilled the moves to muscle memory so they are not 100% in terms of execution
2. I am fighting against an opponent who is somewhat equal in skill
3. There are inherent percentages of the moves themselves based on the inherent advantages/disadvantages of the positions
4. Timing advantage, speed advantage, inherent physical traits [strength] advantage

So suppose I am doing an elbow escape that I have only 65% mastered. Elbow escapes are about 80% success, say. with the proper setup, and we will assume that I have the proper setup. Here, a success will be defined as no longer in the mount. [They might jump to knee on belly, but that forces movement] I will assume my opponent is equal in skill with me, but I only have 75% of his strength. I have a speed advantage of 110%, and a timing advantage of 110%. So let's do some calculations.

Expected Percentage = Execution% * (Your skill/( Their Skill + Your Skill)) * Inherent Advantage/Disadvantage * Inherent strengths

So for this elbow escape, Expected Percentage = 0.65*0.50*0.80*0.75*1.10*1.10 = 0.23595.

Holy shit. That number is way lower than I expected. So I should expect my elbow escapes to work about a fourth of the time [for now]. Any higher means I'm improving! Moral of the story? Stop being so disappointed in yourself. Right now, a 25% success rate means average, and later on, that number will go up, whether because your relative skill is increasing depending on your opponent, or otherwise.

Calm down.

Also, I'm waiting for my first stripe (mainly because I want access to the stripe 2 material on Gracie University), but I haven't gotten it yet for some reason, despite numerous other people who tested for their blue belt after me getting it. So I sense something is wrong. Was it due to my lackluster attendance in the first months of the year? The fact that I twistered a bunch of people? Or do rubber guard stuff/other super sporty/unorthodox stuff sometimes? I have no idea. I think I'm keeping it playful and I'm definitely putting survival first, but the scary part is that one's blindspots...are blind to oneself. So I'll just keep going and I hope I get my stripe soon haha. I want to learn those moves grrrrrrr

2015/12/08: Get Punched in the Face Day

Today was the weekly (sometimes biweekly) get punched in the face day. My favorite day of the week. Usually because that means I literally can't do anything and have to deal with the psychological pain of realizing that if this were real, I could have died. The other person was able to easily side mount me and just wail on me. Granted, the mounted triangle occurred when I was pretending to be the wrestler bad guy whilst passing the guard, but I felt incredibly powerless.

I survived. Don't get me wrong, I was getting punched, but I always had a cover up. But what troubled me the most was that I couldn't escape. I know that everyone currently has more skill than me, but I was too panicked/in a frenzy to figure out what I needed to do to escape. I felt stuck. Trapped. Nothing I was doing was working. How right I was doing everything, I'm not sure.

I need to calm down a bit.

2015/12/04: "He's Just Bigger Than Me," Feeling Powerless, Not Quite There Yet

So today was an interesting day. My recent focus has been on side mount escapes, which I guess is something I'll always be focusing on (that and survival). I'm getting bored of just survival, so recently I've decided to focus on escapes as well. I'm working on a giant flowchart that will comprise of an entire gameplan for escaping side control, and I will touch on that a little bit.

Anyway, recently I've noticed a trend in me recently; dismissing a failure of mine because someone weighed more or something. Of course it is an advantage for someone to be heavier than me. HOWEVER, I should be so good that it doesn't even make a difference. Stop trying to justify your own failures, accept you screwed up somewhere, and go fix it!

On the other hand, sometimes it feels like, especially from the guard position, that as the smaller man, I just can't do anything. (Or from the bottom position in general). This, however, is to be expected; the bottom position is typically inferior/weak, and I have few natural advantages that I must take advantage of completely. I need to get better, but sometimes it just feels like I can't do anything, because my moves aren't working, or someone is preventing them. If it's not working, I'm doing something wrong. If someone is preventing them...then I need to figure out how to get around that. There is always a weakness.

I'm trying to do all of these crazy moves with as little energy as possible - but I'm just not quite there yet. If I was a black belt rolling against a purple belt, then maybe I could do that. But no, I'm a measly blue belt. But hang in there. You'll get there eventually.