Don't Move Them, Move Yourself

I couldn't train this week, so I sat out and watched a lot on Monday night and Tuesday afternoon. Even last night, at the Women's Class, I didn't grapple, but watched the girls. It is amazing how much I learn whenever I get opportunities to watch other people experimenting during rolling.

I had been watching Fabio a lot and, as usual, the people he grappled were breathless and sweaty at the end of every grapple, while he seemed untaxed. During the rolling, they would be going nuts trying to pass or get hooks or go for some submission. Sometimes, it would look like they might get something, but then Fabio would shift underneath them and next thing you know, he's slipped out of their grasp or swept them over.

I didn't even realize that something had clicked while watching Fabio these past few days until last night, when we were doing more flow rolling drills in the women's class. The goal of the drill was to not stop moving for two minutes. If you get on the bottom, you don't stop. You keep hipping/moving until you get out. And if you're on the top, you avoid holding , but try to keep the flow moving.

At one point, a couple of the girls had stalled with one sprawled in side control and the other struggling to get out. She was pushing up on the other girl. Because of the way that the top girl was sprawled, she had the upper-hand, so to speak, with leverage. There was no way the bottom girl would be able to get out just trying to heave the top girl off.

I kept yelling out things like , "Hip! Hip! Keep moving!". But I think I had yelled those things so many times that both girls were ignoring it. lol So I yelled out, "Don't try to move her! Move yourself!" Instantly, the girl stopped pushing and started hipping. This created a scramble and got the flow roll moving again.

After I had said it, I realized that that is one of the big reasons why Fabio is so efficient during his grapples. He doesn't try to move the other person, really. He moves underneath them and either slips out to one side or gets their center of gravity off balance so they go over.

Learning HOW to move this way is what I think is going to be my obsession in the years to come. So much of learning how to move can only come from the experience of being underneath and trying different ways of moving to get them off their base or slip out from underneath them.

I'm really excited about experimenting with this concept. It's been kind of ruminating around in my slow brain these past few months, but I feel like I see what my goal is, now. I am looking forward to putting more pieces of the puzzle together over the next years.

Yeah, I know. I am such a nerd. :)

Also, right after I posted this blog, I went and read Liam's blog. He took the idea of learning by watching other grapplers to the next level. Check it out.