Advice from Steve

My friend, Steve Scott, founder of Welcome Mat Judo, author of many books on judo, grappling and combat sports in general, and, as he is known by those closest to him, "Becky's husband" has given me some pieces of advice on writing.  One is:

"When in doubt, put more in."

So, I did. There were two different ways of doing the arm bar defense pin to arm bar combination. Ronda does it one way and I do it a second way. Ronda does it her way because she wants to pin the other person, which seems a very reasonable desire when you are doing a pin.

A second piece of advice from Steve was,

"Don't assume everyone knows what you know."

The way I do the arm bar defense to pin to arm bar combination is that I do a pin that is not very effective at all. Almost everyone gets out of it.

This is the stuff in the book that drives my co-author, Jim Pedro, Sr. , absolutely crazy. He's a bit of perfectionist, and he really hates having anything in the book that is not "right", like a pin that almost everyone would get out of. He and Steve are in agreement on one point. Jim says I can't put anything in the book like that without explaining why it is not "right".

I said I thought it was obvious, but Jim said, "No." Actually, since he is from Boston, it sounded more like ,

"No -o."

Okay, so here is my explanation, I do it the second way because I really don't care if I get the pin or not. In fact, I am hoping they get out of the pin because the way I do it the pin escape sets the opponent up perfectly for an arm bar.

I put both ways in the book, because I am following Steve's first piece of advice. I still like my way better. However, here is some advice on coaching, not from Steve or Jim, but from me. When you go from being an athlete to being a teacher or a coach, remember this.

"Everybody is not you."