Some realisations
Shifting the goal posts
The other night whilst driving home (yes, I even get jiu-jitsu revelations while driving) I came to the realisation of why I struggle to learn and remember newly taught techniques.
It’s all to do with my current way of approaching sparring. I have been forcing myself to be completely relaxed and as non-resistant as possible, even going so far as starting off laying down in front of my opponent and allowing him/her to take any starting position they prefer.
I have resolved myself to the fact that this means I will get submitted by my opponents, be they experienced blue belts or new white belts.
My ultimate goal is to try and come out at the end of the session without pushing myself physically, so that I am not out of breath or sweating heavily.
What this has done is given me time to think about positions, submissions and the timing that is required to achieve the various techniques that I have managed to lock into my head.
However it also means that I can try out new techniques that I am not so well versed with or ones just learned within the past week and should they not succeed the first time I am able to put myself back in the same situation at a later stage and try them again. What is important is that because I am not relying on the two or three techniques I can do I can focus on mastering the techniques that are there in my head somewhere, yet never come out to be practised.
Therefore in shifting my end goal of sparring, from that of endless submission to overall relaxation I have indeed created more oppurtunity to master the lessons that I have learned. And in not sparring in this way before I have been hampering my own learning pace and indeed, hampering my capacity for learning and using new techniques.
It’s all very zen….
Evalutions
On Saturday the 20th of June a group of about 13 four stripe white belts were invited by James and Gary to participate in a Combatives Evalution process. It turned out to be quite a day.
While we wait for the results I have been thinking about my performance and I have decided that it was not as good as it could have been.
So I have personally decided that whatever the outcome, I will be looking at working on my Combatives techniques with renewed energy.
It’s going to make it an interesting 2nd half to the year…
Tags: gracie combatives, Sparring