Sunday, September 06, 2009

Need to put in some mental mat-time.

Hey! I've been training about a year now! One month at the first school, then some time off, then I started at the Relson Gracie school at the beginning of October 2008. So my twelve month anniversary is about now. Whoohooo!

My shoulder is still quite achey, keeping me from sleeping well at night and bothering me when I run or jump. My ankle is also still swollen and tender and clicking. Today in class we looked at a sweep and/or choke that originates from guard, using the gi skirt wrapped around their neck. It was a fun sweep to play with though no fun on the receiving side. However, I know I won't land this successfully unless I begin to analyze the setup from a strategic perspective. This is what I have been monumentally lacking. I need to be working backwards from the desired outcome and find ways to bait people into making mistakes... that is, baiting them into making smart choices to defend one attack that leave them open to another. Now that I'm progressing a little bit with knowledge of the "right" ways to defend against something, I should spend more mental time and energy planning how to use those defenses to my benefit.

I am also taking Kirk's advice and choosing to roll more with people my own size. Met a new guy, Jason, today who's just moved from Buffalo NY.. he's maybe 10 lbs heavier than me and a very technical fighter. When we rolled, he quickly went to butterfly, and I was trying to work the pass Dan was emphasizing last night, where you straddle the bottom leg and reach under their top leg to grab their belt while stacking their top femur flat with your shoulder. Unfortunately, he stripped his bottom leg and reverse triangled me while I was still in mental la-la land thinking about what I was doing. *sigh*

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