The following is an excerpt of the e-mail I sent Cindy, in response to her request that I let her know what I would like her to help me with before the November Revolution.
At first I thought I was going to come up with a list of the top eight or so specific techniques that I thought I might find most useful- perhaps a couple addressing my weakest areas, a couple capitalizing on my strongest areas, a couple that I just can't seem to make work or just can't seem to understand well. But the more detailed I got while I was thinking it out, the more I thought that the fewer specifics and the more free rein I give her, the better off I will be. She's the expert- both in BJJ and in competing. And not only that, coming from the perspective and experience of a fighter very close to my size. She knows a lot better than I can what it will take for me to improve, and where my weakn- I mean my OPPORTUNITIES FOR IMPROVEMENT- are.
So I just offered a short generalized summary of the most pressing issues that I am conscious of:
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General weak areas that need help:
My most persistant and frustrating problem right now is that I seem to always find myself defending on the bottom- and I can often get to bottom half guard, and then I get stuck down there. I still need more ideas for useful things to try from that position, and lots of practice trying them- especially against resisting opponents at speed, under the pressure of a live roll. (This problem is less tournament-related than a general ongoing frustration.... almost everybody I work with in class is much bigger, stronger and heavier than me, which makes me more likely to find myself stuck in this situation and more intimidated/defeatist about trying to get out.)
It seems to me that when I roll, I have some moderate success with guard passes and escapes, but my subs and sweeps in general are much weaker areas. I've always concentrated much more on "position" than "submission" thus far, to the point that I still don't attempt many submissions at all and have a poor rate of success with the ones I do try. When I'm on the bottom, an escape (squirming out, getting to knees and turtleing, replacing half-guard or guard) seems like less work and more likely to succeed for me (especially against big heavy guys) than trying sweeps, so I don't even try them much.
So- subs and sweeps in general, and it might be a good idea to just focus on a couple of simple, reliable ones that can be done from a variety of positons- and drill, drill, drill, practice, practice, practice those few items as opposed to trying to get me to absorb a big toolbox of stuff. I am a VERY slow learner and I often have to be taught a thing several times before it starts to stick... and then there's a big gap for me between being able to drill a technique against an unresisting partner versus trying to remember it, recognize the opening, and make the technique work in the speed and pressure of a live roll.
If we had time, same with takedowns- they are weak in general, so maybe pick two good ones and work them to death. I'm much more worried about the subs than I am about the takedowns, though.
Miscellaneous tidbits, specifically Revolution-related:
1) I will almost certainly have to fight Bianca- who is very persistant and adept with a wide variety of chokes, and our rolls almost invariably end with me tapping to her choke sooner or later (again, because I'm not trying many subs myself.). I have some moderate success at choke defense, but more will probably be needed to save me from her. And I need a plan to get her subbed before she can choke me.
2)A few Revolutions ago, there was a white belt woman who got the Vicious Submission title for a flying armbar in about twelve seconds. That woman is probably a blue belt now- and this may be stupid, but I'm all paranoid now about feeling like I need to be prepared for an opponent trying to flying-armbar me right out of the gate. I've never even seen one outside of a video, so I'd like to know 1)what it looks like coming at me so that I'll recognize it, and 2)how to defend. As I said, I don't want to get too hung up on having to WIN (especially as this would be my first tournament), but what I seriously do ***NOT*** want to have happen is that I _DO_ NOT_ want to get subbed in the first fifteen seconds of the match. That would be really humiliating and discouraging.
3)I have never really paid attention to the scoring system, what's illegal, and other details of competition (I've never even watched one), so an ongoing feed of informative comments about those types of things would be welcome. I don't want to be giving up points because I don't understand what I ought to be doing in order to accumulate them efficiently. And I'd be completely embarrassed to get DQ'ed for doing something dumb that I didn't realize was not allowed.
As far as your general opportunities for improvement, you sound exactly like every other female. (And smaller males, probably, too.) Our training partners are bigger and stronger and often more insistent on starting on the top, so we concede and let them. Or, if we do get on top, they immediately sweep/throw us, and we're on the bottom anyway. And we're too busy defending both legit attacks and grab-and-squeeze idiocy (which is still a threat because of the size/strength difference) to set up our own attacks.
ReplyDeleteFor Bianca, since she likes chokes, block all her attempts at grips and immediately strip any that she does get. Just like you don't want to let someone settle into a position before starting to counter, you don't want to let someone solidify a grip before trying to get it off.
I do observe that when I am focussed on being (ar at least pretending to be) aggressive about going after subs, it noticably serves to distract/divert many people from their own attack... to the point where I feel that a decent portion of the problem is simply my intimidation re: going for subs. It's definitely one of those looping, feeding-upon-itself problems. But I can't make the other people change; I can only try to change things about my own approach. I want to try being more aggressive about hunting for subs- and to do that, I need to work on technique until I feel more confident about trying for those.
ReplyDeleteBianca- you're right; I need to not let her get even the first hand set up. I will pay better attention to that. I also need to keep her off my back. I don't seem to have a lot of problems with people getting my back in general- and I feel fairly confident about being able to escape that position. But this woman in particular seems to be skilled at getting and keeping my back, and then nothing good happens from there for me. I think I need to be more vigorous and insistant about avoiding finding myself there at all.
Thanks for the input!