Analytical Process

Brian (my professor) stopped me after class the other day and asked why I haven't been using my spider guard much anymore.  He pointed out that I have a good understanding of it, that it has brought me success in the past and that by using it, other opportunities for attacks will open up.  My two main reasons for not using it were, 1) me wanting to ultimately get to "such and such position", so why not just jump right into that position and, 2) my SG doesn't work well in training anymore.  

He countered my reasoning by saying spider guard will set up "such and such position", if you don't catch them with spider guard first.  Essentially, by forcing what you want, you won't necessarily get what you want, but by giving them a path to take you can get them to walk in the general direction.  When I roll with higher belts they are always steps ahead of me for this reason.  Even with me trying to dictate the pace of the roll, it makes no difference.  They have their game or idea of what they want to do and are working me toward it.  When I roll, I have to start to operate with this mode of thinking, setting technique up a few moves before I get my chance to use them and recognizing when this chance is.

And regarding how my SG doesn't seem to work well on my training partners; that (and he has said this to me before, but I am a bit thick) it's training with people who know your game, stuff won't always work unless the technique itself is better.  Sharpen your technique to the point where it doesn't matter if your opponent knows it's coming, he isn't going to stop it anyway.  

This immediately got me thinking, back a few weeks ago Brian called me over to drill something about a minute before class started, saying that he needed to get back to using this particular technique.  Later on when we rolled, he hit me with the same thing that he had drilled earlier...but for the entire round...and I couldn't even come close to stopping it, even knowing it was coming.  And lately in my YouTube wanderings, I have been focusing on Erbeth Santos match videos and highlight clips.  He does one particular take-down move all the time, a modified snapdown/seoi nage.  He does it so often his opponents have got to know it's coming at some point, but they never seem to stop it. 

Points made.