Improving...

Minor achievement...
The other night I felt I made a small achievement. We were doing some drilling from Closed Guard where the guy on bottom tries to sweep and the guy on top tries to pass. I was rolling with a blue that had been rolling pretty hard with another guy before. I managed to get into half guard when I remembered some of the things I had learnt from a half guard pass and had tried a few other times but not really succeeded.

This time when I did it, it felt things kind of clicked (more like the guy was too tired to fight) and I nearly passed when the guy regained a kind of half guard but I persisted and tried the same pass and it worked. From there I managed to transition to side then full mount. I'm very sure he let me off easy, and was just way too tired, but I felt a little surprised/proud that it had worked and felt a small spark of accomplishment of actually using what I had learnt. But then I got my guard passed like I was an amputee, but I was still smiling on the inside.

As Bruce Lee once quoted, "Knowing is not enough we must apply, willing is not enough we must do."

I was browsing through some JJ clips on youtube when I came across this talk a BB was giving on grappling the "anti-you." Basically he talks about not taking it hard about tapping out in class and to be technical over being a knucklehead. I thought it was a pretty good little prep talk, especially since I'm tapping to a techno drum beat everytime I roll with someone which can feel very demoralising and makes you feel and wonder if you've even progressed at all.

I find that some blue belts I can hold my own against to certain limits. Others just tap me out seemingly with ease and lets not even mention the higher colour belts. Some give me space to roll but dominate; others that just sub me, after sub, after sub. Most times I take it on the chin and smile and think "that's the only way to learn," but sometimes you can't help but feel sh*t and question your ability and if you should continue. When that happens I just tell myself to "man up" (and thank god at least i'm not dodging bullets) and that tomorrow is another day :)

Good advice...
Got some good advice from Thiago after class today. Which is something I've heard of doing before but forgot about. He complimented me and said I had been improving (which feels good to hear from someone else). Then he told me how every week he sets a goal for himself and works on it through the week. For example: for one week he'd just work the half guard and sweeps from that position, even if he knows he sucks at it but by "forcing" himself to work from that position he's improving on it.

Now I got to come up with a goal for this week...