Saturday, December 7, 2013

Practicing Fighting Your Way Out

Ronda steals a lot of things from me - ideas, quotes, my sweaters - so I think it is only fair that now and then I swipe something from her. In this case, it is a drill she does at practices sometimes.

Here it is --- let your partner get you in a very bad position. You can see in the different groups above, two are pinned, one is in a choke, one just escaped from an arm bar before I took the picture.

You get into a position where you are at a grave disadvantage and you start matwork from there. This is good for three reasons.

  1. If you have a group of students mixed in ability, it makes the stronger or more experienced students have to work to escape, rather than winning every exchange. In other words, it pushes them harder, and that is what you want to do.
  2. For the smaller or less experienced students, it gives them a chance to feel successful. If nothing else, they are starting out on top. Having some success during the class keeps them from getting discouraged.
  3. It mixed up practice, keeps it from being one of those dreadful clubs where you do the same thing, every day,  to the point of monotony.
Some people think monotony is okay, that it pays off in the end. To each his own (or her own). For me, I don't want my life to suck lots of days so I can have a few when I feel great because I won. I want to feel great every day.

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5 comments:

  1. ShannonDecember 7, 2013 at 9:53 PM

    I love positional sparring.
    Every few weeks my BJJ school will spend a few classes doing just this. The only way to get comfortable in bad positions is to be in the all the time.

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  2. AnonymousDecember 8, 2013 at 10:35 AM

    "Ronda steals a lots of things from you." Do you mean she steals those pint size sweaters? If I Ronda, I would seek independence and not copy your bad habits (cursing, full of pride, conceited, UNGODLY....).

    You were only a pint size woman who overcame very petite women in Judo. Big Deal!!!!

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  3. AnonymousDecember 9, 2013 at 3:22 PM

    I read your blogs on a fairly regular basis and always like them. I looked down and see no comments. Huh, wtf is that? So I will comment. I admire you and your family so much! I wish you all always the best. BTW, will not choose an "identity" as Google Account. It appears as though the Gov't is collecting peoples' data off of Google even though Google has strongly opposed this.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Dr. AnnMariaDecember 16, 2013 at 12:47 AM

    Hey, anonymous -

    I fought in open weight divisions. Not only are you rude, you're ignorant.

    ReplyDelete
  5. UnknownDecember 20, 2013 at 3:57 PM

    Dr. AnnMaria - Great post and point - I work in sales training and so much of the martial arts applies to sales and selling. I am going to use this concept with my clients in roll play settings and in my own training. Thank you for this!

    I am curious though, since Ronda borrows much from you, on TUF 18, she told a fighter who was giving up during weight cut that you "you can not even let yourself believe you have any “quit” in you."

    After that episode, I wondered, how do you get rid of quit once you got it? If a fighter came to you for help and asked you to coach the "quit" right out of them, how would do it? What would be your approach? If someone has quit in them how do they flush it from their system?

    Would love to hear your insight, wit and wisdom on that topic. Who knows, the answer just might be a whole blog post all together. I know there are lots of people who need your "best in the world on your worst day" mindset and thinking.

    Thank you advance!

    ReplyDelete