I have been noticing something in my Brazilian jiu-jitsu training lately. If I look up a technique I want to try before class, I tend to over-focus on trying to find an opportunity to do that particular move. Lets take, for example, the Otto-Plata. I will spend a few rolls with my partners trying to find the opportunity to sink the Otto-Plata and get distracted from what is really going on. This will happen until I am stuck under cem kilos still searching for it and realize that I need to get the hell out of there.
Or, in other words, if the only tool you have is a hammer, everything starts to look like a nail.
I start to lose focus on the gestalt of what is going on and keep looking for something to hammer nail.
So I am trying to back off the techniques and stick to basic movements, that way, I’ll be able to get into positions to find the nail.
I’m going to just go to class with goals like: “today I will Elvis-ize my hips”. They are a bit too stuck to the mat.
All that said, training is going well. I’ve basically recovered from all my injuries and the new cracks and creaks in my formerly injured joints are just the soundtrack to me rolling around trying to hammer things.
