We've recently introduced a rotating curriculum for the fundamentals sessions at the Labs-BJJ. Last- and this week's themes are mainly techniques from the guard* on the ground. That means that at the end of next session, our white belts would have learnt and - thanks to the I-method - practiced against live resistance up to 6 Brazilian Jiu Jitsu techniques from the closed guard. Going out on a statistical limb, I'd say that's a lot more than 95% of the country's population knows, with BJJ / grappling being a relatively small community.
Why am I mentioning this? Because it's very easy to forget when you are sweating buckets and working your butt off against other BJJ players and grapplers at various levels of experience.
If you're having a hard time getting your new techniques to work against people with a couple of years of experience on you, I beg of you to remember that they are the top 5% of the country's population** and give yourself a nice, big pat on the back. The other 95 are practically clueless to how to defend a properly executed scissor sweep, let alone defend a follow-up technique (e.g. palm-up palm-up choke). By playing this game, you are already part of the elite.
BJJ is a wonderful art.
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*Every session starts with techniques from standing.
**Not exact figures of course and doesn't take into account age...etc. Having said that, 1% of Britain's population is 600 thousand people and I doubt that many people in Britain have ever tried BJJ.
9 comments:
Thanks! I need that. It's been a rough training week. Feeling better now.
That's so kind of you to come out and say Tom. Many thanks and bless you and your bunch.
I wrote this on the train home from a helluva session rolling with 2 very good wrestlers, one of which is a much bigger and stronger purple belt than me :o)
Thank you for the reality check :-)
I came home feeling very bad indeed about how I did in training tonight. It's hard to keep things in perspective, and I need reminding at times!
Thank you cy for writing that! I feel great for reading it :o)
Here is a challenge: Never feel bad after training. Whatever happens, never feel bad (unless you intentionally break someone's arm after they tap!)
Your blog is always so uplifting, Liam. You know with my neurotic personality I need somebody like you every now and then to remind me how "elite" I am. Ok...maybe you weren't referring to me when you said "elite". But I'm going to go ahead and pretend you were. ;)
I was Allie I was! Thank you very much for the kind description.
I know and respect your neurotic personality. It's the world we live in. It makes us think that you need to be frikking superman or something just to be elite or even good. Well I'm here to dispell that illusion.
The day I stepped on the BJJ mat and did a mount escape that worked against 1 person, I was already better equipped at this than 99% of the population. That's a statistical fact! Just because I can't get it to work against the Braulios and Saulos of the world, I'm so how expected to feel bad about it?
To hell with feeling bad :o)
Amen! Preach it!! :)
Amen! Preach it!! :)
@ A.D. - I'm glad to see that someone else is as neurotic as me. My coach and I had a very similar discussion last Friday. He reminded me that my training should be fun, not make me stressed. (Jen)
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