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.

Japhy: Japhy kept me in his half guard and prevented me from passing most of the time.  I passed a couple of times but he was able to sweep and basically turn around in my guard.  I was too tentative about going for a submission and I didn’t have a game plan.  When I ended up in mount I blanked out and wasn’t able to do anything useful.  To be honest I was surprised that I passed guard because I do it so rarely.

Rocco: Rocco basically outclassed me in every conceivable way.  I wasn’t able to pass his butterfly guard and when I did attempt to pass by stepping over his thigh he swept me with a variation of light-as-a-feather.  If I had tried to pin his thigh rather than stepping over I might have avoided a sweep.  Over and over, Rocco methodically worked his way from side-mount to mount to high-mount and then an arm bar.  My problem is that his transitions are so fluid that I didn’t know I was in trouble until it was too late.  Most white belts pause between transitions as they think through their next move.  Rocco is a purple belt and he thinks four or five moves ahead of me.  At one point Rocco had my back and was going for a collar choke.  I pummeled and was able to push back on my heels so that I was on my back.  Then I made a mistake.  Instead of driving back and wiggling my shoulders through his arms so my back was on top of his face and then stepping out to the side, I just tried to step to the side and he easily countered with heel hooks.  He was then able to secure a collar choke in a leisurely manner while I flopped ineffectually.