Part of what I've been struggling with over the past few months is trying to find a way to train as an advanced jiu jitsu practitioner.
One of the things that used to really puzzle me when I was a white belt and blue belt is why so many advanced guys, brown and black belts, avoided the regular classes like the plague. Now, of course, I understand quite a bit more why that was the case. But it still begs the question: how can brown and black belt continue to improve at a rate comparable to the growth rate of, say, a purple belt or advanced blue belt?
I've been flailing away to improve the same basic half guard game that I was doing when I was a two-stripe blue. That's no exaggeration. I've become more effective, to be sure. But it still the same pair of sweeps.
And it has seemed impossible to build upon this. I've sketched out all kinds of tactics, and added a conditioning element that should help improve my agility from the half guard. I've bought Jeff Glover's deep half guard DVD. But I'm still stuck.
Right now, there are few more critical priorities than expanding my half guard game. Staying aerobic will always be at the top of the list since that's what's going to allow me to train every day, every session, to be the one turning the lights out at the academy every couple of evenings. But expanding my vocabulary from the half guard is key to becoming better from the bottom, having more options and being able to dictate where the match takes place for any length of time.
So what does that mean? More live training, for one. At the present pace, I should be "brown belt eligible" sometime in July-August of this year (not when I'll get my brown belt, just the earliest possible time). Continuing to take the Fundamentals curriculum is critical to that schedule. Still, I only need to do as much of that as I need to in order to advance. The A session, the B session and a Friday review (A&B) is plenty to get my Gracie Barra card punched three times a week.
I'm thinking about training the full early sessions on Monday and Friday, the early Live Training on Wednesday, the late Live Training on Thursday and the full evening session on Tuesday (which includes the Advanced Program). This is an everyday training schedule with two out of the five days solely 30 minutes of Live Training (Wed/Thu).
Technically speaking, my goal is to focus on the transition from half to hook half and attacking with the hook sweep. This is a sweep I've been trying to add to my game for about a year now. If I can get this into the mix, then I'll move on to the deep half entries. But for now, half to hook half to hook sweep is all I'm interested in from the bottom for the next week or two.
Also, I'm done with the "Move of the Day" cheerleading. This goes a little into what I was writing about before about feeling as if I'm giving more than I'm getting. I spend a LOT of time being pretty pedagogical come training time and, to be frank, there aren't a lot of other advanced belts who do. And I'm starting to think that they are a hell of a lot smarter and more accomplished than I am because of it. If nothing else, my experience at the Cobrinha seminar this weekend was an example - however extreme - of where I'm headed if I don't start to embrace a bit more selfishness when it comes to getting what I need in order to improve.
For awhile, I thought that my role in jiu jitsu was ultimately more bodhisattva like than buddha like. "Teaching others and helping spread the art of jiu jitsu" turned into a fallback goal sometime when my competition record as a purple belt eclipsed the 0-8 mark and I realized that being a sport jiu jitsu champion was unlikely in the extreme.
But the fact of the matter is that I'm not that interested in being the world's most knowledgeable and magnanimous jiu jitsu guy in the room. To be blunt, I'm far too much the misanthrope for that and, thinking about it now, I feel like I really should have known better.
What I really want from jiu jitsu is to become good. Extremely good. Rickson Gracie - Leo Viera - Demian Maia good. And short of going all Anakin Skywalker about it, I'm not interested in anything that doesn't help me get there.
