Ebbs and Flows
The last few weeks have been great. Life has been full of many activities, most of them not related to BJJ. Sometimes I can lose myself in jits and it tends to overtake my life. I am sure all of you have had the same experience where every waking moment, and most of your dreams revolve around this sport we love. However, recently my head hasn't been in the game and rather than fight it and force myself to "work" at it, I have let it go. Hanging out with the kids, reading, swimming, biking, trying new restaurants, watching the olympics, politics, and more. It is great to get a little reminder of just how insignificant this art is in the grand scheme of things.
Of course, I still train 3x a week - it's just less serious for now. I am in the ebb, and I know the tide of bjj obsession will flow back in soon. So I am trying to enjoy the calm before the storm. It's a natural process if I let it be.
That said, I trained Sunday with Dave and had a great lesson on side control and some fun rolling. Of course we covered the usual fundamentals of the position like body and hand position, but we went into a more advanced game based on grips. It was great to get some insight into what higher level players do on the mat to force movement and change the position up. More and more I see that Dave's game is based a lot on the idea of push-pull. Forcing a reaction and then using that reaction to your benefit.
It was also yet another example to prove that in bjj there is no black and white. I think this dynamic reality is what makes it so tough on people new to the art and even tougher for people looking to advance to the higher ranks. You cannot simply remember a few principles and be "good". Once you get beyond keeping your elbows tight, what then? It's a lot of timing, sensitivity and movement. It has to be learned through patience and sweat on the mat.
As a quick example of this duality, look at side control. I originally heard of two types of top games, smashing and floating, from Matt Thornton. In hearing that, I assumed you either played one or the other. Of course, everyone has to learn both, but my thought was you apply the floating game when you play against a bigger opponent and the smashing game when you want to dominate. I certainly think this is one way to look at it, but it can be blurred. You can move between them as needed. If you want more movement, which typically equals more attacking options, then play a floating game, but you can always move back to a smashing game at anytime - and visa versa. There is no set formula, no hard rule.
