Experience Grappling:
The longer I grapple and study jiu-jitsu the more one thing becomes overwhelmingly apparent to me. There is absolutely no substitute for experience in this sport. Beyond just seeing all sorts of different fighters with different strengths and weaknesses, experiencing different types of games (ie. Good pressure, Open guard, or crazy half guard skills) things such as attention to detail, muscle memory, timing and thoughtfulness need to be developed.
It's often the goal or ambition of white belts and new blue belts to fill their heads with as many moves as they can get their hands on. Buying new books every week, getting instructional DVD's, starting in the blackbelt section when they are reading submission books. They believe and I did as well when I just started that knowledge of submissions was the end goal, and if I could have hundreds of them memorized I would be ahead of the game.
As I spent more time training, and soon learned that all those crazy submissions didn't work for me the way they did for Eddie Bravo, or Rodrigo Gracie, I was frustrated and felt cheated by the instruction in the books. As more time passed I realized that it was not because the instruction was bad, in fact normally it was excellent it was my own ability that was holding me back. Not my athletic ability, I've always been a athletic person but my grappling experience. There is no way someone with 6 or 7 months of training will be pulling off submissions on more experienced grappler's of a few years just because a world class black belt can do it and showed it to you in a book. I didn't have the timing, the knowledge of positioning, leverage and pinpoint detail in my movements yet, I didn't have the mat time.
When I had been rolling for close to a year and about ready to get my blue belt, I noticed how my game had changed. I had a foundation in positioning, balance and timing, not perfect but a developing game. I was concentrating on only a few submissions, for me, that was the straight armlock from open guard, and a triangle. Those basic techniques were what I drilled, and was successful with in sparring, I was able to work on transitions and setting those moves up and letting my opponent put himself where I wanted him and and capitalize on it.
Shortly after I received my blue belt my instructor had a friend of his in to do a seminar, Andrew Smith from Revolution BJJ down in Richmond Virginia was the visiting brown belt (his site is here RevolutionBjj.com). During his seminar Andrew did a section about finishing the triangle, I was thrilled, one of my favorite techniques and I was going to learn how to make it more effective. One of the details he mentioned was the position of your toes, "live Toes" as he called it in order to make the triangle tighter. At the time I took that for granted, and all but forgot about it, it was too detailed for me then.
About a year later during a particularly intense roll, I had someone locked in a triangle but was just holding on, not finishing. I checked my legs, locked in, my hand position was in place, their arm was across, what was I missing? Then for some reason it jumped into my head, my toes were not the way Andrew showed us in the seminar a year ago, I put those toes in their upright and locked position and that was it, my opponent was tapping like mad. It was not that I had forgotten or not paid attention at the time when I was taught it, but I was not advanced enough to understand that detail until that moment, I needed more experience.
The real honest answer here is that grappling can be extremely frustrating, and our desire to be good right away is just not realistic. You can't teach experience, you can't get years of mat time from a book or dvd, if you want to be a good serious grappler you need to put in your time, and be patient. Don't give up the drive or desire to learn, but just remember it's ok to take your time, it's ok to not be good at a technique the moment you learn it. You need experience, so get out there, hit the mat, give yourself a break and enjoy rolling, your day will come!
Thanks for reading, and remember there is NO substitute for experience
-Sean
It's often the goal or ambition of white belts and new blue belts to fill their heads with as many moves as they can get their hands on. Buying new books every week, getting instructional DVD's, starting in the blackbelt section when they are reading submission books. They believe and I did as well when I just started that knowledge of submissions was the end goal, and if I could have hundreds of them memorized I would be ahead of the game.
As I spent more time training, and soon learned that all those crazy submissions didn't work for me the way they did for Eddie Bravo, or Rodrigo Gracie, I was frustrated and felt cheated by the instruction in the books. As more time passed I realized that it was not because the instruction was bad, in fact normally it was excellent it was my own ability that was holding me back. Not my athletic ability, I've always been a athletic person but my grappling experience. There is no way someone with 6 or 7 months of training will be pulling off submissions on more experienced grappler's of a few years just because a world class black belt can do it and showed it to you in a book. I didn't have the timing, the knowledge of positioning, leverage and pinpoint detail in my movements yet, I didn't have the mat time.
When I had been rolling for close to a year and about ready to get my blue belt, I noticed how my game had changed. I had a foundation in positioning, balance and timing, not perfect but a developing game. I was concentrating on only a few submissions, for me, that was the straight armlock from open guard, and a triangle. Those basic techniques were what I drilled, and was successful with in sparring, I was able to work on transitions and setting those moves up and letting my opponent put himself where I wanted him and and capitalize on it.
Shortly after I received my blue belt my instructor had a friend of his in to do a seminar, Andrew Smith from Revolution BJJ down in Richmond Virginia was the visiting brown belt (his site is here RevolutionBjj.com). During his seminar Andrew did a section about finishing the triangle, I was thrilled, one of my favorite techniques and I was going to learn how to make it more effective. One of the details he mentioned was the position of your toes, "live Toes" as he called it in order to make the triangle tighter. At the time I took that for granted, and all but forgot about it, it was too detailed for me then.
About a year later during a particularly intense roll, I had someone locked in a triangle but was just holding on, not finishing. I checked my legs, locked in, my hand position was in place, their arm was across, what was I missing? Then for some reason it jumped into my head, my toes were not the way Andrew showed us in the seminar a year ago, I put those toes in their upright and locked position and that was it, my opponent was tapping like mad. It was not that I had forgotten or not paid attention at the time when I was taught it, but I was not advanced enough to understand that detail until that moment, I needed more experience.
The real honest answer here is that grappling can be extremely frustrating, and our desire to be good right away is just not realistic. You can't teach experience, you can't get years of mat time from a book or dvd, if you want to be a good serious grappler you need to put in your time, and be patient. Don't give up the drive or desire to learn, but just remember it's ok to take your time, it's ok to not be good at a technique the moment you learn it. You need experience, so get out there, hit the mat, give yourself a break and enjoy rolling, your day will come!
Thanks for reading, and remember there is NO substitute for experience
-Sean
posted by Sean at
6:24 AM
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