talking points

This past Saturday Brian and myself had our super-fights.  It was about two hours away in White Plains, which was pretty easy to get to.  The venue itself (Westchester County Center) was very nice, much nicer then the Washington Ave Armory up here.  We were supposed to be there at 4 pm to weigh in and fill out paperwork...they weren't ready to do this until 445 pm and the fight's didn't start until 6 pm, however once they did start they flew by.  There were a total of 20 fights lined up on the card, from MMA to MT to NoGi grappling and Gi Jiu-Jitsu.  I was set to be #8 while he was #18.  

Let me start with Brian's match.  He seemed slightly anxious right up until the bell went off and then a switch flipped.  From there he pretty much went out and steamrolled this guy.  He pulled guard, got the Gi tail and went to work.  His opponent couldn't break the guard and when he did it was because he was allowed to as Brian went for a lapeloplata and turned it into a rolling armbar for the submission.  The whole thing was pretty to watch.  Coincidentally, it was the exact same thing he taught us during the week. 

My match on the other hand was not so pretty to watch lol.  Originally it was set to be a points match but they changed it to sub only which threw me off a little.  I couldn't and didn't break his grips on my pants so I wasn't able to play my game.  I also hyper-focused on the sleeve collar grip, which in itself isn't bad but if you don't break the pants grips you are basically holding the door open for him to pass your guard.  I did get a sweep which was positive and I did not get subbed so the match ended in a "draw".  

While driving home i thought a bit about my performance and realized this was the best thing that could have happened.  I breezed through Boston, most of NY and my NAGA match.  I expected none of those to be easy and yet they were.  I fooled myself by thinking this would be easy also.  I need to keep focused and ignore what appears to be the obvious, because it's not always what it appears to be.   

To me, this all means that 1) I've gotta keep training hard even take a few more long lunches to train, 2) I've gotta keep trying new things and keep an open mind, 3) I've gotta keep stepping out of my comfort zone by traveling to train aka head to MGA/Unity/Shaolin/Renzo's in NYC and our sister school,  Blackhole Jiu-Jitsu.  These steps will help to keep my training fresh and from falling into a rut by giving me different bodies and different looks.