After spending the middle third of the 1980s trying to make it as a teenage, hotshot post-punk guitarist, one of the first thoughts I had when I heard Soundgarden's "Let Me Drown" back in the early 1990s was "now I know why I'm not a rock star."
Looking back over my last few training sessions, it is clear why I am not a jiu jitsu phenomenon, either. I am definitely having some productive moments when I have the advantage, working on weak spots or new techniques like the cross half guard Rodrigo showed us that I was able to attack with on Friday. But I am not doing nearly as well in the survival and escape categories when I am overmatched in size, skill or both.
Truth told, I'm actually doing well in the survival level. What I am failing to do is consistently pursue a strategy for escape or a strategy for both opening and passing the guard (beyond the Flat Pass, at least). Fortunately, the dharma that is jiu jitsu provided me with just what I needed in last Friday's instruction - not unlike the way that one guard pass the Rodrigo showed us the Friday before the last tournament would have been the ideal way to pass the guard of my first opponent in that competition.
I'm feeling a little ego-sore about my jiu jitsu, which one of the reasons why I decided not to train on Saturday despite the rare opportunity to do so. Now is a great time to really get saturated in technique as the solution to problems like passing the guard or countering the bear hug pass of the half guard (hint: sit up and hook sweep or sit up and attack the neck) or escaping mount and rear mount. I think I'm slowly putting together a Unified Field Theory for myself when it comes to passing the guard, which would be pretty epic (as the kids say) in terms of taking my game to the next level.
That and finally going ahead and adding the butterfly guard and sitting guard to my half guard in a more proactive way to deal with the fact that more and more people are avoiding my half guard with strategies that provide for other opportunities to attack.
