Trust issues?

Mon and Wed of this week was local rollage -- now that I've gotten married I'm not making the trip up to Axis much, though once my wife gets some stuff started around here, I'll start going up there once or twice a week. The sessions around here are awesome tho -- Henry usually comes up with some drills, I help out the new guys with their techniques, then we roll for a really long time. Great workouts. Two and a half solid hours of BJJ is immeasurably good on so many levels.

Last night a bluebelt came -- big dude, maybe 215, but rusty. Super awesome guy though and confident enough with himself to have a nice, smooth roll and not use his 35 lb weight advantage against me in a caveman sorta way, which I really appreciated. I'm not used to rolling with guys that big so it was cool. Things I did well:

He wasn't really able to pass my guard

Worked a couple good sweeps to mount

Took his back

Ever since I started constantly hunting for the underhook, my game has changed dramatically. I don't know what it is about jiujitsu -- you'll add one element that will totally revolutionize your game, and it makes you wonder why the hell you weren't doing it the entire time. This was also true when I started working a lot of open guard. Henry mentioned that I was going for a lot more opportunistic sweeps and being more proactive with my game -- these are all a result of constantly trying to get that underhook. It's funny too, because when I started really focusing on it, Matt Hughes was on TUF5 and said, "I'm going to show you the most important thing you need to know," and demonstrated the underhook. I guess he would have some insight eh?

Admittedly, I should have worked open guard on the big guy more. I did it a little bit, but he was really good at killing my legs and passing, so I kept him in closed guard and worked attacks from there and pulled X-guard when he stood up -- just really focusing on my bottom game, which is where I live anyway. Good shit.

I had a good time showing the new folks some stuff. I really love teaching (it's in my blood!) and it's really no wonder that people who can make a living teaching BJJ do it and love it. The tough thing about explaining stuff is that it's really important not to overwhelm the guy you're explaining it to, because you want to add so many details in there that are of utmost importance. It's also hard not to go off on tangents -- "Or you can work this here, or transition to an armbar, or work knee on belly like this, or switch up to this collar choke, etc etc", all of which have a whole laundry list of subtleties contained within them. Simplicity is best, I suppose.

It's funny -- Henry and I have been trying to get people to come out for so long, and now after almost two years some people have finally decided to stick around. This has given me a lot of perspective on "n00b behavior" -- namely, the psychology of people who are just getting into jiujitsu, particularly Americans, because I'm only really used to rolling with Japanese dudes. This also brings us to the reason I entitled this post what I did.

I think a lot of guys really really need to trust who they're rolling with in order to feel comfortable. And I'm not talking about being "roll dawgz" or whatever, I mean they need to trust that you won't make them feel like a pussy or treat them like a bitch if you beat them. I don't really feel like I had that kind of baggage when I started -- maybe because of the amount of "mantrust" involved in the job I had in the Marines, and the fact that I knew Henry came from the same kind of unit. I also didn't really give a shit if I got tapped out, because I fully acknowledged the fact that I had no idea what I was doing and had never done any martial arts outside of what we did in the USMC, which I knew was retarded.

In any case, the newer guys who showed up (that I talked about before) are getting waaay more comfortable with BJJ in general, and are actually being moderately responsive and receptive to instruction without feeling the need to throw their own two cents in. That's another thing I've noticed about new folks -- they always feel the need to add something based on whatever experience they have, even if it's nonsensical or bullshit. Sometimes it makes me miss the military, where telling someone that "it's shut up time, and I'm the one talking" was acceptable. I guess I've harped on this before. Maybe I'm just irritated because I feel I've put in more time than them and I don't really like them telling me "how it is" on their first day. Maybe I'm the one with the ego problem. Who knows.

Anyone else have some insight into the "new guy" phenomenon?

Anyway, while I miss going up to Axis twice a week, rolling locally with our crew has been completely awesome. I'll start getting back up to Axis once things settle down, because the 5 hour trip (get home from work, change real quick, run to the train station at 4pm for the 4:18 train, get back at 9pm) would leave my new wife bored and probably irritable when I got back, especially since I'd be tired and wouldn't feel like doing anything but sitting on the couch and drooling.

More later--