Size Matters…

If skill is equal, who would you rather roll with.  Someone who is bigger and more powerful but slower than you, someone the same size and roughly the same shape as you, or someone who is smaller and faster than you?  Like I said, skill is equal.  My personal preference is to let the smaller guys roll with others.  Lol.  It’s not that I’m afraid of them or anything, I just have a really hard time keeping up with them.  In my game, I like to get the position and make sure I have it secure before I go for a submission.  I find that I don’t often have the opportunity to feel safe and secure with the wee ones.  It makes me rush.  When I rush bad things happen…

I was drilling with Sean last night, and we were kind of talking while training.  I don’t remember exactly what we were doing, but the topic of trusting your partner came up.  I said that I was confident that he wasn’t going to hurt me, unlike some other training partners.  Wouldn’t you know it, later during sparring, I was caught in an armbar by a guy and I could see the strain on his face.  He was pulling as hard as he could.  As I unlocked my arms to tap, my elbow popped and went past straight.  I don’t mind rolling with him because I feel that we challenge each other, but I always have it in the back of my mind that he is really trying to hurt me.  It’s not the first time I have thought this about him.  Oh well.  My fault I guess.  Shouldn’t have been there.  I sort of wish that Someone would remind the guys that we’re training partners…  It’s pretty tender today.  Hopefully it feels better by Monday’s class.

I tried to use some of the principles that I learned in the Black Belt Blueprint.  I’m not done the book yet, but I really liked the section on breathing the proper way during a match.  I tried to focus on exhaling when I had to make myself smaller and inhaling when I was trying to bake myself bigger or bridge.  It worked pretty well when I remembered.  🙂