Still no kibble.

Violence and the risk of violence goes up when people are insecure. Remember always that weapons embolden the insecure. –Rory Miller



Open mat at Edmonds.

Started with Georgette, no-gi.... she trounced me utterly and repeatedly.  Found myself in that frustrated space... that one where I just need to call it a day, because both my performance and my mental state just go downhill rapidly from there.

Note that once in this place, I should really just VACATE the gym immediately, because if I sit on the wall, people bug me to keep going.  If I beg off, it starts to look like I'm pouting like an asshole because I got tapped. Which I guess in a way I am. I think everybody could tell that I was frustrated, which frustrates me all the more because I am trying to hide it. Today, no disasters ensued from continuing under duress, but next time should just go. Haven't really found a good way to deal with that state of mind, but continuing is usually not advisable. It's the Point Of Negative Returns.

Anyway, I let Cindy use me as a dummy to do some drills and invent some new fiendish and painful contortions. Then she was rolling with Georgette, which she probably shouldn't be doing with her shoulder injury, but you can't keep her off the mat.

I rolled with a purple belt guy that I don't know, who was flow rolling and doing some catch and release. Then Craig, whom I enjoy rolling with and haven't seen in a long time: more flowing and catch and release, he wore his gi and let me let me wear my no-gi gear to make it marginally more even. Those were both kind of fun, even though my self-sabotaging mind kept flagellating me all the while with its I-wish-I-didn't-suck-so-bad and why-do-you-bother-to-keep-trying-to-do-this refrains.

As a scientist, I am very aware that I am battling a very basic concept of psychology  that just really can't be battled: it is very hard to keep doing something in the face of a lack of positive reinforcement. My "higher function" brain can yell all it wants that this is actually useful and good for me and progress *IS* actually being made... but it feels like I've been pressing a lever repeatedly for five years (longer, if you count all of my MA experience and not just BJJ) and just never getting any kibble, ever. No rat would continue to press the lever this long. My inner rat is like, "WTF is wrong with you???!??"

I continue to not know what to do about this issue, and I continue to be very frustrated and discouraged about it.

Georgette pointed out a couple of things.

1)I keep giving up my back. She rightly parsed this as, "Most of your regular training partners are going easy on you, and failing to be heavy/tight enough to prevent you from squirming (technique-less-ly) out of back mount." It makes me feel better that I had made this very same observation and come to the very same conclusion the very first time I rolled with her. At least I can see and interpret my problems, even if I don't do so well at actually fixing them.  I really need people to stop giving me slack here, as it just encourages my sloppy habits. Note that this is neither a happy nor a fun thing to face. I asked her to keep taking my back and subbing me, and to make it hurt a little.

2)She wants me to put more weight on her feet/knees etc while I'm doing standing passes. This is not the first time I have been told this, but as I tried it again, I was reminded of why I don't do it- it feels way too vulnerable. Once I start leaning on the knees, as soon as the opponent pulls hir knees back, I'm going to face plant. Georgette says, "don't let them pull their knees back." I feel that there is no person on the mat older than four whom I could actually physically PREVENT from pulling their feet or knees back.

This leads me to a principle that has been a cornerstone of my game since I started: "You don't have to move the other guy, you only have to move YOU." Which I still feel is golden wisdom, for us teeny people. You can't even begin to deal with a 200lb man on top of you in side control without embracing that idea. Otherwise you are just lying there helplessly crushed for eternity.  And yet I begin to wonder if I have taken a good thing too far.

I have been aware for a while that I work under an assumption that I simply cannot move my opponent nor make hir do anything. This leaves me with a severely limited game that consists solely of 1)reacting to what the opponent does to me, and 2)losing all my options as soon as the opponent starts restricting my movement. I simply do not even TRY anything- ever- that involves moving the opponent, or making hir do something, or otherwise affecting hir. Like sweeps. And most subs.  I escape. That's all I do, because that's all I *can* do that doesn't really involve addressing my opponent in any confrontational way- because of course as soon as we go head to head on something, I am obviously going to lose.  It's not a fight. It's not a contest. I'm not trying to beat anyone. I'm not even truly engaging them. I'm just letting them attack me while I try to escape.




Ouch.




Okay, I'm not sure what to do about this.... and it obviously is harking back to a lot of very deep-seated, ingrained, damaging conditioning from childhood on up. But it feels like a possible first glimpse into a different perspective on my defeatism problem. Which could be a first step.


Found that my Asics earguards do have a few spots where they start rubbing painfully at a certain point of a LOT of jiu jitsu over a two day period. I had to take them off, because it started to feel like I was more likely to get cauli from the earguards themselves than from going without. Note that I should start keeping a spare pair of (a different brand of) earguards in my bag.