My Own Private Silva-Aldo Moment.)
A nice night of training today on Wednesday. In most respects, it was a repeat of Tuesday night's training, which was perfectly fine with me. Everything I know about skill acquisition - verified by the research in The Talent Code - shows that repetition is the key to mastery.
Call it muscle memory. Call it circuit building. Call it whatever you want. But as far as becoming truly great at anything is concerned, drill baby drill.
Or, at least, develop some halfway decent familiarities that will keep you from doing something stupid. For example, every match I've been in where I took the initiative turned out relatively well (wins or close losses). By contrast, every match where I've let the other person control the standup, control the guard situation, has been a disaster.
So the goal for training is to develop a "first-strike" capability from standing, and an invulnerability to the most common dangers of the guard, especially sweeps.
All of this boils down to a jiu jitsu that spends a lot of time standing - both when it comes to securing takedowns and passing the guard. And as ironic as that is - that my success on the ground is intimately connected with my success on the feet - it couldn't be clearer that this is true.
I've done a little work in this regard conditioning-wise, judo footwork for active rest, for example, and tempo single leg squats to improve lower body muscle endurance. But there are some other things I can add in, at least to the degree that I'm buying into this latest assessment of what will work for me on the mat going forward.
