The temptation to dwell on what did not work, what isn't working, is pretty significant. But only psychopaths forget their failures. So, I'll point to some changes I'm going to make in my training over the next several weeks - at least through the balance of April, through Subleague and (hopefully) all the way to the July Revolution event.
First and foremost, I'll be training every day - "every day" meaning Monday through Friday. That's the surest route to technical improvement. I feel as if I'm in a bit of plateau position which, given my ambition, increasingly feels more like I'm losing ground even if in reality I'm maintaining it.
I've been on the mat four days a week for the past four weeks - as good a training/competing clip as I've had. Yet rather than make gains, I feel as if holes are being exposed. I wonder if that's how it is: periods of achievement and success punctuated by stretches where the discontents of that achievement become apparent, the counter to your new favorite sweep, a detail you've started to ignore or take for granted in what used to be your most effective submission ...
Two things have been exposed in my half guard game over the past two times on the mat - one exposed by Benny and the other by Jeff. One, I need to pay more attention to my paw grip side. I've been so obsessed with the underhook and half guard leg games that I've totally neglected everything but the most basic paw grip defense work. I remembered last night that I used to hit Americanas from half guard with some regularity. The way I play half guard now, those attacks are impossible.
Worse still, I'm getting crossfaced far more often than I've ever been. Benny crushed me with the crossface Thursday night - I couldn't move. That's what the sticky paw is for. I know this game. Time to get back to it.
Two, from the top, and this has been a growing problem that was really magnified in my match with Jeff. If the guy gets to his side on the bottom in half guard, then my best attack is to stand up and treat it like an open guard knee cross pass opportunity against the sitting guard - pretty much what we have been working on in class this past week. Rodrigo didn't explain it that way. But I noticed how similar the positions can be.
Standing out of the half guard changes the game and the direction of the pressure when you're trying to pass. Instead of trying to "out sideways" the guy if he gets to his side in half guard, pike up and begin putting pressure on his far shoulder as you drive your knee up and into his body. Keep your outside leg wide for base and to give your hip room to twist and get your leg free. At the same time, keep strong pressure on the guy's far shoulder, which will help flatten him and make it harder for him to move.
Again the theme of changing levels when passing the guard, the same way you would change levels to keep someone off guard for a takedown ...
The other training change will be to bring back 30 minutes of hard conditioning in the morning. I got a little disillusioned after my last conditioning program in advance of the March Revolution event didn't seem to give me the conditioning boost I'd hoped for. I'm going to make a few changes, making the conditioning more ground agility and anerobic oriented, for one. Diet has been good, but I'm not even consistently getting seven hours of sleep a night.
We'll see how this works. I feel like I just need another four weeks to help take care of the holes in my half guard game that have started to appear over the last four weeks. I'm also dedicated to adding a deep half guard component to my half guard over the next four weeks, as well as becoming more effective with the Twist Back sweep. That would give me at least three solid options from the bottom in half guard, all of which compliment each other well.
As "successful" as I was with the Tozi guard opener today, I want to make sure that I keep working the Saulo and the 101, as well. With regard to passing, I still will focus on the Leite style that Rodrigo showed us recently, with the knee cross and switch options that Saulo talks about in his book.
The bottom line is that I feel myself wanting desperately to be better. Ari Kiev, performance psychologist for Olympic athletes and billionaire traders alike, told me in an interview several months ago:
A lot of the conversations that I have with people tend to be brutally honest, because I think the task of a trading coach or a guide is to confront people, to wake them up, to throw cold water in their face to really get them to see how much they have decided to produce the results that they are producing. That the results aren't by chance, but they are because the individual has made a decision, conscious or unconscious, to produce certain results.So let's have at it.
I've talked to a few people today who were not doing very well this year and challenged them in terms of are they willing to dig in and really change some of their underlying approaches - which haven't been working - in order to increase the likelihood that they'll be successful. I talked to one guy who is a deep value guy. And, deep value, holding stocks and buying more as they go down and buying still more as it goes further down, doesn't seem to be working in this market. To hold onto that philosophy when it's really not proving to be successful - which a number of people have done - may not really make sense.
But, you have to challenge the individual to say, "You're making a decision to hold onto this approach which worked a few years ago, but it's not working now. Are you motivated to really try to succeed? And, to succeed, you may have to rethink your philosophy."
That's not an easy conversation, because you're really getting in somebody's face and saying it’s not the market, they're responsible for how they're performing.
It’s a tough conversation and not everybody is willing to have it.
