Getting the snot beat out of you on the mats is not fun, but getting said snot beat out of you when you are playing your "game" is even worse. This is the point where I see most people giving up on what they know, due to the frustration of it not being perfect, to adopt something that seems easier but in the end will yield the same results stated earlier. For example, say you have a really good guard game, them Johnny Kimura comes in one day and is passing your guard like Nightcrawler from X-Men, then when he does it he kimuras both of your arms at the same time, while collar choking you with his teeth. You just can't win. He continues to do this all week long until you, fed up with the nonsense, switch to being a guard passer because he makes it look so easy. Bad idea. Now what doesn't make sense about this situation is that you have been perfecting your guard for the last 3 months, and invested about $500 in instructional DVDs, and now since that one guy (or even multiple guys) beat you, you give up on it all together. Never happened to you? Well it has for me, and I seriously tried to become a guard passer for about 3 weeks until I realized that I was being beaten because there were serious flaws in my game. It would have been easier to just run away and start fresh, but would my game improve that way?Note: The reason I moved on was because I was told by a few higher belts that what I was doing was too advanced, and wouldn't work for me.
So I went back to the drawing board, and started pinpointing the areas that I was having a hard time with. See when you notice little defects, you have to disassemble your game and figure out when you make the most glaring mistakes. Sometimes if those mistakes are not huge, you can make little tweaks here and there. Maybe you just need to drop your hips in side control, or perhaps you abandon submissions too late causing your opponent to escape and get a dominant position, either way little tweaks can go a long way to improving your game. Most of the time it is all you need, while other times may take something extra like, a private with your professor or extra drilling. One thing you have to remember though is that neglecting to fix the problem and moving on to something else is not going to help. Being persistent even when it means getting beat up is the only way you will take your game to the next level. So grab that wrench and tighten up those positions folks!
In case you didn't get the Nightcrawler reference.
