Always Keep Moving

I have been trying to break a bad habit in the past few months. When I am grappling and get into a scramble and end up in a bad position, I have had the bad habit of stopping in the bad position for a little bit. For example, I am defending guard and someone passes and gets to side control. I would pause in side control for a few seconds. Part of it was being tired. Part of it was thinking about what to do next. Part of it was just feeling a little defeated, I guess.

But Fabio pointed out that, in a tournament, the person has to establish the position for 3 seconds before they get the points for it. If I keep moving, I might be able to escape before they get points for establishing the position.

So, lately, when I am grappling, it is my goal to never stop moving. If I don't know what to do, oh well. I try to just go with my instincts and see what happens. Doing that has been helpful because I am learning new ways I can move.

I try to ignore being tired. Last night a guy was passing my guard and we were scrambling. He was moving around on top of me with a lot of pressure and I was folding and hipping and folding, trying to return to guard. My muscles got so tired that, at one point, my whole chest felt like it was constricting and I felt a little panicked because I could not breathe. But I pushed through that panic kept moving until I got to my guard where I could rest for a second. It is amazing how my mind wants to give up before my body actually needs to.

If I am in a bad position and I am tired, thinking about escaping can be overwhelming. The thing that helps me the most when I am that tired is to focus on basic principles and small steps like, "I need the underhook here. Work for that underhook. Good. Now I need to hip out. Inch, inch, inch. Good." When I only work on a few steps at a time, it makes it seem like less of an impossibility. It also takes my mind off a negative fact--that I am in a bad position--and keeps it focused on a positive action--what I can do to escape.

There are a lot of times where I still run out of gas and have to pause in a bad position. If I absolutely have to stop, I defend my limbs and neck, breathe for a few seconds, then start inching and moving again.

The main things I am looking for with all of this constant movement are:

1. To move my limbs out of danger.

2. To create space for an escape.

3. To get my opponent off balance for a sweep.

4. To look for the chance to go on the offense (to attack something when someone is moving between positions, usually).

A teammate of mine who is a higher rank than me grappled me recently and, after a scramble, put me in a choke. Usually he lets me work out of submissions, but this time, he went for the tap. When I tapped and said it was a nice choke, he responded with, "Yeah, you were wriggling out of things so much and being such a pain in the ass I had to choke you." LOL. I take that as a compliment, sir. Hopefully I will get better at it.