I am learning that part of my game has to be figuring out and adjusting to my opponent’s game. Today I rolled with Nick who is a big heavy guy who overpowers people with leg drive. Even though I want to practice technical moves, I need to adjust my game to the person I’m rolling with. If someone is relying on brute strength to drive through you, it’s not the right time to be thinking about fancy set ups.

I am also learning that it’s probably better to roll with blue belts because they are all so much more technical and tend to not rely on strength. I can learn much more from them, though I have no hope of submitting any of these guys.

Finally, I am observing how much one’s mental attitude affects training. Today I had a terrible day at work and it carried over into training. I wasn’t able to compartmentalize the misery of my job and when I hit the mat I had all of that mental baggage with me. As a result, I wasn’t able to focus and gave a half-hearted effort at best. I need to get better at getting my head in the game.

This entry was posted on Monday, November 19th, 2007 at 8:14 am and is filed under MN Martial Arts Academy, gi, rolling. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.