Reverse Psychology

I had the opportunity to work with one of the black belts at the seminar yesterday and it sure gave me a lot of insights.  Methods and techniques that had "been fine" with other partners, suddenly were not ideal.

For instance, in one of the first drills, I wasn't planting my foot solidly for the takedown, and so I wasn't able to trip him like planned.  Against other partners, I found I was able to just hook that foot and trip, not truly establishing that solid connection to the ground, without too much trouble.  But against someone bigger and much more advanced in their grounding, I couldn't.  I HAD to get that foot planted.

As we moved through more drills, I found more things like this where I would often cheat a bit, but couldn't with him.  With him I had to make sure that my technique was pure.  And if I wasn't in a position to make it pure, I needed to figure out how to get there.

This was a reminder to me to make sure I am really practicing as true to technique as I can.  I think I sometimes cut corners, because subconsciously I feel I can...or I hold back because I'm looking out for my partners, but at the detriment of the technique.  In real life, I'm only going to get one chance to make it work...and in order to make that natural, I need to practice it that way.  

It was also interesting how we discovered the odd thing where my shorter stature made the technique more difficult for him.  While we worked on that last drill, where one of us was trying to do the duck/project/grab/takedown and the other was trying to withdraw and push them down, we realized it was harder for him to take me down than me for him.  Because he was so much taller, he had to get so low, that it was near impossible for him to keep his head up...which was one of the key points in that technique.  There just didn't seem to be room!  It was also difficult, once he was ducked so low and all scrunched up, to establish his foot behind mine in order to finish that takedown.  Even if I couldn't push him down, I was able to stay on my feet, buying myself time, and eventually I would find myself in a good position to grab him around the neck or some other way to defend.  The longer it took him, the better it was for me.  Eventually he worked it out...but again...it came down to pure technique and very fast movements.  And even though he worked it out, he still felt that taking someone bigger down in that way was much easier than someone smaller.

After class I spent a lot of time analyzing everything and digging deeper.  One of the biggest light bulbs that went off for me was just in my way of thinking and how I tend to think and analyze things based on how they will or won't work for ME.  Everything from my perspective.

I'm shorter, so I shouldn't do [this] against someone bigger.

I'm bigger, so I shouldn't attempt [that] against someone small.

And I carry forward thinking certain techniques aren't applicable and I push those aside as "non-options".   But it's not just about the things I CAN DO that will work against this particular opponent.  It's also about all the things THEY SHOULDN'T DO against me.  And then of course, and how do I get them to do them and turn it into my advantage?

I'm not saying this is an easy thing to do....but this little shift in thinking feels like it opens up a whole other arsenal of options.