Monday, January 17, 2011

Mental

When you go up against someone bigger than yourself, how does your approach and plan of attack change?

I'm not a small guy, but I'm far from the biggest.  For the longest time, I thought that I was roughly the same size as JD, another student who has the same rank that I have.  Last week, two people told me that I was doing very well for going against someone that much bigger than I.  That little seed--that when I fought JD i was fighting someone bigger--took root and grew.

Tonight, I worked with JD after class, and I realized in the middle of the roll that where I was mentally while rolling with him tonight was not the same place that I was last week and the week before.  Tonight, I was much more willing to give away a position and let him muscle me around.  His hip movement is great, so he always makes it tough for me to keep him down, but that doesn't mean that I shouldn't fight for it or use his momentum to get to a better position.

This is frustrating on at least two levels.  Level one--I'm letting myself get away with not working as hard because someone is a little bigger than me or a little stronger than me.  This is not how smaller guys beat bigger guys.  Level two--I'm not thinking about how to use technique against strength and athleticism.  Again--this is not how smaller guys beat bigger guys.  Most of the bigger guys I roll with have one of two disadvantages:  they are either (a) older than me by 15-20 years, or (b) newer than me to the art.  So I can usually either frustrate them or bait and switch, I can rely on my deeper technical knowledge and familiarity.  So JD is a great opponent for me.  And naturally, now that I've realized this, I won't be able to train with him for another two weeks as he has Air Force Reserve deployment or something starting at the end of this week.

1 comment:

  1. 90-95% of my training partners are bigger than me. In fact, there is just ONE person (out of 100 or so regular training partners, and probably a total of 200 people at my school) who is actually smaller than me and isn't a child.

    I find that with people anywhere near my size (i.e. of any height, and not more than 40 lbs heavier than me) I will do and play whatever. When they get heavier than that, I try not to be on the bottom.

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