One of the things that I'm learning about competition is how limited, how small a winning strategy often is. Lloyd Irvin has really popularized this notion when it comes to jiu jitsu. But that said, Rodrigo has been encouraging us to "do what works for you" ever since I started training some five years ago.
It makes almost too much sense. Ali? Footwork and a left jab. Roger? Mount and choke. Frazier? Left hook all day. Marcelo? Back and choke.
Everybody has an edge. The trick is to identify it as early as possible and then own it. There are guys who have made great careers in the NBA out of nothing more than being able to consistently hit a 20-foot jump shot on demand.
When I extract "what's worked in competition" from what's only been "tried," the path to success when the clock is on is clear: pull half, Rodeo to the top, finish at the shoulder/elbow/wrist/neck from side control. What I need to do in the weeks leading up to competition is to refine those specific situations and to plan for potential counters. And that is pretty much it.
At the risk of making excuses, I think a lot of my struggles in competition have come from failing to see things in this light. I know that a lot of my "cardio" issues, especially at blue belt, had more to do with cognitive confusion than my ability to grapple for 5-6 minutes at a clip. Dan Inosanto famously said that "if you are tired, you aren't even smart." I'd say that the opposite is also true: if you aren't smart, then getting tired while fighting is very easy to do.
Being smart in this context, the competitive context, is about having a gameplan - however "small" - drilling the gameplan and then executing the gameplan. It's a very small circle of trust, or maybe more accurately, a very small circle of risk, that you want to court in competition. That may make for some less-than-novel training sessions in the month before the event. But under stress, that less-than-novel training is what your body will remember before "you" do.
That's the kind of circuitry you want to build, to harken back to insights of
The Talent Code.
One of my biggest goals at Gracie Barra Seattle is to help build a culture of drilling before and/or after class. You look at basketball or soccer players before and after practice. They aren't playing full-on matches with each other. They are doing 10-20% moves with each other, practicing little small moves: back to the basket out of the post, a feint to the corner and drive toward the goal, that "highlight move" in slow-motion. I remember reading in one of Lloyd Irvin's e-mails years ago something to the effect of think of how much better you'd be if you spent five minutes after every class practicing a certain sweep or escape for two or three weeks. That five minutes would probably cost you one "live training" sparring session each day. But think of where you'd be with that one sweep or escape or guard pass or submission in a month's time. In the eight weeks leading up to a tournament, those five minute sessions would really add up. Imagine if they were 10-minutes after every class. At the end of eight weeks, that's four hours worth of focus on one or two critical positions and situations, minimum.
The only person I ever saw do anything remotely like this was Steve W, one of the most valuable training partners during meu purgatorio na faixa roxa, who never hesistated to ask someone to drill a takedown or sweep from the guard or a finish before or after class. It's the kind of thing that I think really benefits a team exponentially over time. I also think it makes sparrng more productive because guys can spend time developing technique independently, outside the context of competitive sparring.
In other words, if I'm working on the deep half guard during a time when the coursework for the academy is on passing the guard, then the only time I'm going to get to work on my deep half guard is during sparring. But sparring is not the kind of ideal, controlled situation that's best for developing a new technique. Even if I wait to train new techniques on less experienced guys (which is the sensible thing to do), that training still not the kind of controlled setting that is key to getting new technique down from the roots up.
It's wildly inefficient when you think about it. The only option is drilling, outside of the class, as much or as little as you can get.
5-10 minutes a day. 3-5 times a week. Armbars from the guard ... escapes from north-south and side control ... pass the guard. Whatever you want for your game, it seems like that's best the way to get it.
