I feel like I'm doing a better job of maximizing my training time over the past few days of training. Working with my grip series (Eagle and Tiger), I'm finding it easier to think about the guard as an environment instead of just a series of techniques and positions. Of course, there is no way to get to the pure "environment" feeling without going "through" the techniques. But it does remind me of that great quote from Rickson Gracie in Choke:
The most interesting aspect of jiu-jitsu is – of course the techniques are great – but the sensibility of the the opponent, the sense of touch, the weight, the momentum, the transition from one move to another. That’s the amazing thing about it. You must allow yourself to go as an automatic pilot. You don’t know exactly where you’re going, until the movement happens. Because you cannot anticipate what’s going to happen. You must allow yourself to be in a zero point, a neutral point, and be relaxed, and connected with the variations. So you pretty much flow with the go. This is a point beyond knowledge. It is from years and years of playing around and sensibility.
That's what I'm after increasingly these days: being able to feel where I am first and foremost as a way of better anticipating and responding to what might come next. In that great Gracie Magazine issue that talked about what it took to be a champion, I thought Minotauro made an interesting point about the relationship between competition and learning that I think applies to training and learning, as well.
"A champion isn't just produced by a championship. Compete frequently, and that way you will sharpen up your instinct and gain experience to change tactics while under pressure. Not to mention the fact you face competitors you've never seen before. In other words, take on new moves and less-conventional games. Thus you learn not to be surprised.
That idea of avoiding surprise I think is also key. I remember so many times finding myself with a great opportunity - the guy who turtled after I took him down in my first match at the last Revolution tournament - and freezing because of a lack of familiarity. I still can't remember the last time a guy went into a full on turtle in training. Competition, yes. But opening it up in general in the academy - and focusing on feeling and sensibility - is a great way of avoiding the impact of the unknowable when it arrives.
163.2 on the scale post-train.
