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I started reading Jiu-Jitsu University by Saulo Ribeiro and a lot of what I've read so far is making complete sense. As a white belt you basically look to just survive. You don't have too many offensive weapons so you try to survive. I can relate to this because when I first started, I knew nothing other than I didn't want to get choked or end up in a joint lock.
Last night during class I was partnered with a guy who does MMA and has a few fights under his belt. He is pretty good as he knows quite a few offensive moves. The first round of rolling, I survived. I swept, escaped, got swept, mounted, and managed to survive. The next couple of rounds I gassed and basically was dead meat.
He told me I was "pretty strong" and "you've gotten a lot better". I take that as a compliment. I truly believe in the techniques, even the few that I know.
So my point is, I'm just learning to survive and learning well. The submission skills will come with time, we are learning those too.
But, position before submission. That is an excellent quote.
Roll safe!
It's an awesome book. Saulo always has great quotes. My favourite:
ReplyDelete"You have to think that your partner, the guy that you're training [with], has to be your best friend. So, you don't want to hurt him."
There aren't enough instructors out there who explicitly tell their students to always avoid unnecessarily hurting their partners. As much as I like the Beneville series, there are a bunch of 'dirty' techniques in there, like the can-opener.
I see the elbow dig guard break being taught all over the place, which is disappointing: Saulo makes a point that it's a crappy thing to do to your training partner, as well as brutish technique.